§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will list the (i) areas in which pilots of barcoded orderbooks and giros have taken place, (ii) duration of each pilot and (iii) estimated savings from each pilot; [113461]
(2) what is the monetary value of fraud involving barcoded order books to date; [113626]
(3) what are the savings to date from the barcoding of order books in each of the pilot areas; [113627]
(4) if he will list (a) the pilot areas for the barcoding of order books and (b) the duration of each of the pilots. [113628]
§ Mr. Rooker[holding answer 7 March 2000]: This is a matter for Peter Mathison, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to my right hon. Friend.
Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Frank Field, dated 9 March 2000:
The Secretary of State has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking about barcoded order books.842WBarcoding of Order Books was first used for the Electronic Stop Notice System (ESNS) for post offices within the area of London bounded by the M25. Initially introduced in 1992 in 17 post offices, this was expanded to 180 post offices in 1994 and then to 1460 post offices in April 1995 and has been in continuous operation since.Following the introduction of ESNS, the order Book Control Service (OBCS) has been piloted for use in a number of areas. However, you will appreciate that to divulge the exact areas involved could enable fraudsters to avoid detection.Implementation of OBCS, which uses the equipment installed by the Post Office as part of its automation under the Horizon Project, began in May 1997 when the system was installed in 204 "live trial" post offices. A further 95 posts offices went live within these areas in May 1999, extending the "live trial" to 299 post offices. These areas are continuing to use OBCS.These live trials are intended to test the equipment and processes involved, but were not set up to measure fraud savings. No information is available for individual pilots or of the value of fraud involving barcoded order books.There have been no pilots of barcoded girocheques.I hope this is helpful.