HC Deb 22 May 2000 vol 350 cc381-2W
Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the expenditure on administration costs for the minimum income guarantee for 2000–01(a) in total and (b) per recipient.[123258]

Mr. Bayley

The total estimated expenditure on administration costs for the minimum income guarantee for 2000–01 is £4 million.

Details on administrative costings can be found in the Departmental Report. A copy has been placed in the Library.

Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if, for the minimum income guarantee take-up campaign, he will estimate(a) the total administration cost to date (b) the number of pensioners that have so far responded and (c) the number of respondents that were found to be eligible.[123257]

Mr. Rooker

The information requested is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is as follows.

The total administrative costs, to the end of April, for the project team and Teleclaims service is £1,120,369. To date the minimum income guarantee (MIG) claimline has received over 32,000 calls and from these calls over 19,000 claim packs have been issued. Current provisions allow for a claim to be submitted within one month from the initial date of contact so we are unable to specify, at this stage, how many eligible respondents have been found. The MIG campaign will be launched on 30 May. The above information does not include the costs of the proposed advertising campaign.