§ Annabelle EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what requests for resources relate to the administration costs of the pension credit; [164268]
(2) what plans he has to collate information on the cost of administering pension credit. [164269]
§ Malcolm WicksProvision for the administration costs of pension credit is included in Request for Resources 3 of the Department's 2003–04 Supply Estimate, "Combating poverty and promoting security and independence in retirement for today's and tomorrow's pensioners", as amended by the 2003–04 Spring Supplementary Estimate. This is available in the Library.
The Department is developing a resource management system which will include the provision of activity based information. The aim is to implement the system from September 2005 and detailed implementation plans will be produced as part of the development phase of the project. Decisions on whether the activity based information will identify the specific administration costs of pension credit cases will be made as part of the Resource Management Project.