§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what are the estimated total savings to date for each month during which the non-redirection of benefit post scheme has been running; and how many local authorities have been running the scheme during each of those months; [114001]
Month Number of LAs using the service 1 Number of LAs that are in their second or subsequent calendar month of using the service2 Estimated number of fraudulent cases identified2 Estimated savings (£000)3 1999 February 3 1 1 1 March 16 3 2 3 April 31 16 11 18 May 76 31 22 35 June 101 76 53 85 July 104 101 71 113 August 112 104 73 116 September 169 112 78 125 October 4 194 169 118 189 November4 211 194 136 217 December 213 211 148 236 2000 January 248 213 149 239 February 256 248 174 278 1 Data are provided by Royal Mail HQ based on information supplied by Delivery Offices. 2 Assumes that LAs identify an average of 0.7 fraudulent case per month in all months other than the first month that they use the service when it is assumed that no fraudulent cases are identified(based on data collected in a telephone survey of LAs). 3 Assumes that the saving from identifying a fraudulent case is £1,600 (based on data supplied by a sample of LAs). 4 Data supplied by Royal Mail listed some LAs as using the scheme but gave no date. These LAs are assumed to have started between October and November 1999.