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SOCIAL SECURITY
Incapacity Benefit (Wirral)
Mr. Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people were on Incapacity Benefit in Wirral Metropolitan Authority for each of the past three years. [134737]
Mr. Bayley: The administration of Social Security is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency, Alexis Cleveland. She will write to my right hon. Friend.
Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Frank Field, dated 30 October 2000:
- The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many people were on Incapacity Benefit in Wirral Metropolitan Authority for each of the past three years.
- Information is recorded on the total number of constituents claiming Incapacity Benefit at Birkenhead Office, which covers the Wirral Metropolitan Authority. The number of customers receiving Incapacity Benefit, including Credits only cases, from Birkenhead Office is 21,000 at 31 May 1998, 20,700 at 31 May 1999 and 19,600 at 31 May 2000.
- I hope this is helpful.
Benefits (ACT)
Mr. Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what advice he has received from his Department's auditors on the risk of duplicated payment by automated credit transfer re-occurring; [134759]
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- (2) what changes his Department (a) has made and (b) is planning to make, to the use of automated credit transfer, following the duplication of payments to claimants of Income Support; [134757]
(3) what measures he is taking to ensure that staff comply fully with procedures for paying benefit by automated credit transfer. [134758]
Mr. Rooker: The administration of benefit payments is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to my right hon. Friend.
Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Frank Field, dated 30 October 2000:
- The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking what advice was received from Departmental Auditors on risk of duplicated payment by Automated Credit Transfer (ACT) re-occurring; what changes the Department (a) has made and (b) is planning to make, to the use of ACT, following the duplication of payments to claimants of Income Support (IS); and what measures have been taken to ensure that staff comply fully with procedures for paying benefit by ACT.
- In March, Benefits Agency Internal Audit issued their report on the IS Duplicate Payment Incident. The report contained thirteen recommendations and the assessment of the potential for a re-occurrence of the incidence was included in the Management Summary, which stated:
- "The implementation of the recommendations contained within the report will help strengthen controls and reduce the risk of such a problem occurring again. Action is already in hand on many of these. It is recognised, however, that compliance with laid down procedures within the payment production process is also essential in the prevention of future incidents. Where there is non-compliance . . . the risk of errors increases dramatically".
- A programme of activity to implement the recommendations has been undertaken. To date, we have introduced a number of system controls that, if a similar incident occurred, would halt further processing, thus preventing duplicate payments.
- A system change has been implemented within the 'Common Payments Package', which now prevents the creation of a partial file. The IS incident involved the creation of a partial file.
- Electronic Data Systems (EDS) provide the delivery of our IT services, their Code Products team, have implemented improved controls during the 'Autobacs' procedure. 'Autobacs' is a piece of EDS software that formats the ACT files prior to the handover to Bankers Automated Clearing Service (BACS), the ACT clearing service.
- The DSS Accounts Payable Central Control Unit has been established. The unit carries out daily monitoring to assure the integrity of benefit payment and accounting data. Following each IS ACT overnight batch process, this team would immediately identify any payments which could not be properly accounted for.
- In addition, the following improvements are planned:
- A generic requirement has been issued to EDS that DSS benefit system controllers receive positive assurance that ACT payment data, supplied by each separate benefit system has been successfully received before payment processing commences.
- The Bank Liaison Sections, who provide the administrative support throughout the calculation and production of ACT payments, are currently based in several regions of the country, working to a specific benefit. The intention is to centralise these sections into one area by March 2001; this will facilitate the identification of best practices resulting in more accurate application of checking procedures.
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- Alongside of all this activity, a review of all processes and procedures associated with Bank Liaison work has been undertaken. Guidance is being amended to provide a uniform standard for all staff to follow. Mandatory security and accuracy checks have been incorporated to assess performance.
- As you will be aware the government intends to move all customers to payment by ACT starting in 2003, this programme requires an extensive review of all ACT procedures, which is currently underway. The lessons learnt from the IS incident will be incorporated into any plans to support the move to ACT.
- These actions represent a substantial tightening of procedures to ensure that the original incident could not be repeated.
- I am sorry that this is a somewhat technical reply but I hope it is helpful.
Mr. Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what steps are being taken to recover the outstanding sums resulting from the duplicate payments of Income Support by automated credit transfer; [134755]
- (2) how much money overpaid by means of duplicate payment of Income Support by automated credit transfer has been written off. [134756]
Mr. Rooker: The administration of benefits is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to my right hon. Friend.
Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Frank Field, dated 30 October 2000:
- The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking what steps are being taken to recover the outstanding sums resulting from the duplicate payments of Income Support by automated credit transfer, and how much money overpaid by means of duplicate payment of Income Support by automated credit transfer has been written off.
- I believe your question refers to the overpayments which took place on the 17th and 18th January this year which resulted in 112,000 customers being overpaid a total of £10.5million.
- Overpayments of this type are classed as overprovisions of benefit and are recoverable under common law and the Secretary of State has a duty to seek recovery of such overpayments where cost effective to do so.
- Recovery procedures follow guidance as provided in Government Accounting.
- To date, none of the overpayments have been written-off. However, repayment was not requested where the amount paid was less than £5, or from the estates of those who had died before the request could be issued.
- I hope this is helpful.
Mr. Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will list the causes of the failure of batch runs of payments of income support by automated credit transfer on 12 January 2000; [134760]
- (2) how many duplicate payments of income support were made using automated credit transfer; and between which dates they occurred; [134754]
(3) how much money was recently overpaid by duplicate automated credit transfer payments of income support. [134753]
Mr. Rooker: The administration of benefit payments is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to my right hon. Friend.
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Letter from Alexis Cleveland to Mr. Frank Field, dated 30 October 2000:
- The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking if he will list the causes of the failure of batch runs of payments of Income Support by automated credit transfer on 12 January 2000, how many duplicate payments of Income Support were made using automated credit transfer, between which dates they occurred, and how much money was overpaid by the duplicate automated credit transfer payments of Income Support.
- I refer you to the Written Answer given to the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders). Official Report volume 343, columns 471 to 472, in relation to the question of the causes for the duplicate batch payments of Income Support using Automated Credit Transfer.
- Immediately after the incident steps were taken to enhance the Income Support Computer System to ensure that similar processing problems did not recur. A full review of the situation has been carried out, and confirms that these enhancements have successfully negated further problems.
- The Secretary of State has a duty to seek recovery under common law where an overpayment has arisen outside the provisions of Sections 71 and 74 of the Administration Act 1992. Recovery under common law has been a feature of the social security system since its inception.
- Benefits Accounting (BAB) estimate that over 80% of the 10.5 million should be recovered.
- I hope this is helpful.
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