§ Mr. WillettsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many calls have been received by (a) the Working Families Tax Credit helpline and (b) the Disabled Person's Tax Credit helpline, in each month since January 1999; and what the salary levels are for those who work on each helpline. [121058]
§ Dawn PrimaroloThe following table shows calls handled by the helplines. For Great Britain, they cover calls about Family Credit (FC) and Disability Working Allowance (DWA), as well as Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) and Disabled Person's Tax Credit (DPTC). For Northern Ireland, the helplines were brought into operation for WFTC and DPTC in September 1999. No counts of earlier calls about FC or DWA are available for Northern Ireland.
The table also shows calls handled by the response line, which was open from September 1999 to January 2000, and again in April 2000. For months up to January 2000, these calls were handled by the private contractors engaged, or by recorded voice. (All but 10,000 of these calls were about WFTC.) For April 2000 the figure is of calls handled by recorded voice; no private contractors were engaged.
424W
Helplines Month Family Credit/Working Families Tax Credit Disability Working Allowance/Disabled Person's Tax Credit Response line January 19991 256,900 9,000 — February 19991 259,000 8,400 — March 19991 293,900 9,900 — April 19991 251,900 8,700 — May 19991 239,700 7,600 — June 19991 199,600 8,500 — July 19991 260,200 7,600 — August 19991 284,100 6,900 — September 19991 448,700 11,600 316,800 October 1999 449,300 14,300 322,700 November 1999 384,900 13,200 141,500 December 1999 242,400 9,200 42,900 January 2000 406,800 14,300 15,400
Helplines Month Family Credit/Working Families Tax Credit Disability Working Allowance/Disabled Person's Tax Credit Response line February 2000 387,400 14,600 — March 2000 502,800 18,300 — April 2000 471,400 16.300 40,700 1 Excludes Northern Ireland before 7 September 1999. For October 1999, Northern Ireland accounted for about 4 per cent. of the total The high figure for March 2000 is explained by the particularly large number of awards approaching their renewal dates in that month.
The helpline operators are currently paid at annual rates of between £12,110 and £18,666.