HC Deb 26 January 2004 vol 417 c97W
Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many hours of system downtime relating to the computer dealing with direct payment there have been in each month since it was introduced. [147653]

Mr. Pond

[holding answer 13 January 2004]: Information is not available in the format requested.

The Department has contingency arrangements in place to maintain continuity of benefit payment, in the unlikely event of benefit system failure.

The figures for Service Availability across all Departmental Systems over the past 6 months has been 99.98 per cent. Availability has not dipped under the 99.2 per cent. target over the past year.