§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what targets he has set for converting Minimum Income Guarantee claimants to Pension Credit. [128741]
§ Mr. PondThe Department has a Service Delivery Agreement to maximise payments of Pension Credit from October 2003 by, among other measures, converting all existing Minimum Income Guarantee recipients automatically to Pension Credit. The process of conversion is on course to be completed by October 2003.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many operators work on the Pension Credit telephone application line; and what plans he has to increase this number; [128738]
(2) how many call centres deal with Pension Credit telephone applications; and what their locations are;[128739]
(3) whether calls to the Pension Credit telephone application line will be handled by private contractors. [128750]
§ Mr. PondThe Pension Credit application line currently has just over 1,100 whole-time equivalent staff, rising to around 1,500 when Pension Credit is implemented in October 2003. The application line is based at four sites in Cardiff, Dearne Valley, Derby and Newcastle. The Pension Service is working in partnership with Ventura, an experienced provider of contact centre services. Ventura is providing expertise in the running of the operation and also providing the staff and facilities to handle calls at the Dearne Valley site.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who has been awarded the contract for developing the new IT system to deliver Pension Credit; what the estimated contract value is; and on what date he expects the system to become operational. [128747]
§ Mr. PondI refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on 8 July 2003,Official Report, column 762W.
§ Clive EffordTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners he estimates will benefit from the pensioners' credit in Eltham; and what the average gain will be per pensioner(a) in the UK and (b) in Eltham. [129412]
565W
§ Mr. PondThe information requested is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is as follows.
Estimates of Pension Credit entitlement are not available at individual constituency level due to insufficient sample cases in the survey data used. However, around half of all pensioner households nationally will be eligible for Pension Credit, and the average gain per year will be around £400.
§ Clive EffordTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he is taking to encourage pensioners to claim the pensioners' credit. [129413]
§ Mr. PondThe Pension Service began writing to pensioner households in April, to explain Pension Credit and to invite advance applications. In addition, around 1.8 million people in receipt of the Minimum Income Guarantee have been told that they will be transferred automatically to Pension Credit ready for payments to be made from October 2003. By June 2004, all pensioner households will have been contacted. These direct mail arrangements are being supported by a national TV and press advertising campaign, which began on 3 September. The Pension Service is also working with partner organisations at national and local level to encourage take-up of the new entitlement. The Pension Credit freephone application line, which became operational on 7 April, enables our trained staff to help pensioners through the application form and complete it for them over the telephone. Friends and family can use the application line and apply on a pensioner's behalf.