HC Deb 22 November 2000 vol 357 c232W
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will set out the pay and conditions of the Chief Executive of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. [139001]

Mr. Rooker

The Director of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate is subject to the pay and conditions of the Senior Civil Service. His pay falls within the Senior Civil Service pay band 4 with a pay range from £57,367 to £95,625.

Mr. Gareth R. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what arrangements there are in place to monitor(a) the general performance of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate and (b) the specific performance of individual inspection teams within the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. [139002]

Mr. Rooker

The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) is part of the Department of Social Security and its Director is accountable to senior officials in the Department and to Ministers. Ministers and senior officials monitor the overall performance of the BFI through regular accountability meetings. Views on the general performance of the BFI have recently been gathered, from those local authorities that have been inspected, through the BFI' s own survey and the Local Authority Omnibus Survey published by the Department's Social Research Branch.

The Head of Operations and his two Programme Managers monitor the specific performance of individual inspection teams within BFI. This monitoring encompasses the BFI's own internal inspection quality process which measures and provides assurance on the quality of individual inspections and inspection reports.

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