National Insurance Numbers

HC Deb 31 October 2001 vol 373 c750W

Mr. Clappison

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his most recent estimate is of the number of(a) bogus and (b) surplus national insurance numbers. [7469]

Malcolm Wicks

To date, 2,009 applications made for NINOs have been made using false identity documentation.

Duplicate NINOs are removed from the DCI as and when they are identified. Where it is discovered that a customer has two NINOs, one is deleted and this is noted on the remaining account. These cases are generally spotted by field officers and rarely involve fraudulent activity. Of the 205,000 surplus duplicate records removed from the DCI between November 1995 and March 2001, only 10 cases were potentially fraudulent.