§ Mr. RobathanTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many personal invitation documents for post office card accounts have been issued; [92873]
(2) how many applications have been received for a post office card account; [92874]
(3) how many post office card accounts have been successfully processed. [92875]
§ Malcolm WicksAs at 10 January, around 26,000 child benefit and veterans agency customers had requested a post office card account. The Government have decided to build up the number of benefit customers and pensioners that we pay through the post office card account gradually, starting from April 2003. This is to ensure that the systems supporting the post office card account are reliable and robust, and have proved themselves in live running, before we start to pay large numbers of customers through them.
The Department's current plans for issuing personal invitation documents—PIDS—meet our intention that, subject to acceptance of the card account service, we can start to pay some people through the post office card account from April 2003.
Accordingly, on current plans, the earliest date for PID issue will be 24 March 2003.
The only personal invitation documents issued so far have been to around 1,000 customers taking part in the card account pilots that Post Office Ltd. are currently undertaking. Detailed questions on the pilot are matters which fall within the day-to-day responsibility of Post Office Ltd. I have therefore asked the chief executive to reply directly to the hon. Member on this issue.