HC Deb 07 October 2003 vol 411 cc228-9W
Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his oral briefing to pensioners of 3 September on the pension credit,(a) what the total advertising budget is, (b) how many pensioners will receive pension credit in October, and, of that number, how many will be former minimum income guarantee claimants; and if he will estimate the (i) number of calls that can be dealt with per (a) hour and (b) day by the pension credit telephone application line and (ii) average time to complete an application using the pension credit telephone application line. [131580]

Malcolm Wicks

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) on 17 June 2003,Official Report, column 157W. There are now around 1.9 million pensioner households on our systems being paid pension credit. We intend from November to publish monthly reports on the progress of pension credit take-on, which will include a more detailed breakdown of this figure. Our planning assumes that on a typical weekday the pension credit application line will be handling around 18,000 calls a day, although if necessary the application line has the capacity to answer up to 14,000 calls per hour for a limited time during exceptionally busy periods. The level of resources will ensure that customers who wish to make an application using the application line can do so. The average time to complete a pension credit application for customers using the application line is currently about 20 minutes.

Peter Bradley

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners in The Wrekin he estimates will benefit from the pension credit. [131689]

Malcolm Wicks

The information is not available in the format requested. However, an estimated 350,000 pensioner households are eligible for pension credit in the West Midlands.

Notes:

1. The estimates were calculated for all pensioners using the Department's Policy Simulation Model based on the Family Resource Survey data for 2001–02 projected forward to 2003–04. This shows around 3.6 million households entitled to pension credit.

2. The Policy Simulation Model excludes all pensioners in nursing or residential care homes. This is because the Family Resource Survey data does not contain information on these cases. We estimate that just over 200,000 pensioners in care homes will be entitled to pension credit. This means that the total number of pensioner households eligible for pension credit in 2003–04 is estimated to be about 3.8 million households.