§ Annabelle EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the estimated administration costs are of the state pension credit in each of the next five full financial years; and what percentage this represents in each of the next five full financial years of the total estimated cost of the state pension credit. [69276]
§ Mr. McCartney[holding answer 16 July 2002]: The Pension Service will be responsible for delivering Pension Credit along with Retirement Pension and other benefits for pensioners. Ultimately benefits will be delivered in a coordinated way so that administration is delivered as part of a seamless process.
The costs to The Pension Service of delivering Pension Credit over the period covered by the Spending Review 2002 settlement (2003–04 to 2005–06) are estimated at £670 million.1
These are the costs of converting 1.8 million MIG cases and bringing on an additional 1 million Pension Credit cases. Steady state running costs will be set in future Spending Reviews.
Minimum Income Guarantee/Pension Credit programme expenditure will be £17.4 billion over the Spending Review period 2003–04 to 2005–06.2,3,4,5
Notes:
1. These include the estimate of staff costs for processing Pension Credit and for supporting functions within The Pension Service. As The Pension Service continues to develop a more integrated approach to benefit services these costs will be subject to change. They exclude one-off implementation costs such as changes to the Department's IT systems and any apportionment of Departmental overheads.
2. The Minimum Income Guarantee will be replaced by the Pension Credit from October 2003.
3. Programme expenditure beyond the year 2005–06 is not available.
4. Costs are given in nominal terms.
5. Programme costs relate to Pension Credit only and do not include any additional Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit expenditure resulting from the introduction of Pension Credit.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many individual pensioners are represented by his target to pay pension credit to at least three million pensioner households by 2006. [71782]
§ Mr. McCartney[holding answer 22 July 2002]: The PSA target, as published in the Spending Review 2002, is for 3 million pensioner households to be in receipt of Pension Credit by 2006. It is not possible to estimate with confidence the number of individual pensioners who will receive Pension Credit by 2006.