§ Lord Morris of Manchesterasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Baroness Hollis of Heigham on 10 October (WA 31), on what assumption they based the estimates she previously gave to the House of the amounts by which they estimated that entitlements to Disability Living Allowance and those of retirement pensioners to Income Support went unclaimed; and, using the same assumptions, what the total amounts would be for the year 1999–2000. [HL4199]
73WA
§ Baroness Hollis of HeighamEstimates of take-up of Income Support in 1999–2000 will be published next year. On 29 April 1999 (Col. 513), I gave an illustrative estimate of the increase in expenditure on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA) together, if their take-up were to increase to 90 per cent. The primary assumptions behind that estimate were the estimated levels of DLA and AA caseload take-up based on the 1996–97 Disability Survey follow-up to the Family Resources Survey. As noted in my Answer of 10 October, these figures cannot reliably be converted into cash terms. The illustrative amount, given in April 1999, was produced based on two main further assumptions:
- (a) The entitled population has not changed from 1996–97, and increasing caseload simply reflects increasing take-up, rather than any changes in the adjudication process.
- (b) The group newly taking up benefit receive an average amount of the appropriate DLA component or AA. It is possible that those who
WA 74 are not taking-up benefit will have an average entitlement below that of the current recipient group. Due to the difficulty of carrying forward 1996–97 results to later years, no reliable estimates are available for 1999–2000.