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Dept for Work and Pensions

Answer

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners have migrated from over-the-counter benefit payments to automated credit transfer in each month since May 1997. [177553] Mr. Pond: The precise information is not available in the format requested. The number of pensioners (women over 60 and men over 65) that have migrated from over the counter benefit payments to direct payments each month since 15 June 2002 is shown in the table. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Month Number of accounts 15 June to 13 July 2002 4,460 13 July to 10 August 2002 16,000 10 August to 7 September 2002 13,240 7 September to 5 October 2002 3,840 5 October to 2 November 2002 19,805 2-30 November 2002 4,560 30 November to28 December 2002 21,445 28 December 2002 to 25 January 2003 3,730 25 January to 22 February 2003 26,065 22 February to 22 March 2003 20,310 22 March to 19 April 2003 6,620 19 April to 17 May 2003 19,715 17 May to 14 June 2003 30,075 14 June to 12 July 2003 7,120 12 July to 9 August 2003 34,130 9 August to 6 September 2003 69,475 6 September to 4 October 2003 10,255 4 October to 1 November 2003 128,745 1-29 November 2003 115,710 29 November to 27 December 2003 20,045 27 December 2003 to 24 January 2004 188,080 24 January to 21 February 2004 182,205 21 February to 20 March 2004 108,665 20 March to 17 April 2004 296,865 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Notes: The following special points should be noted: 1. Figures produced by comparing two snapshots of live accounts in payment on the specified dates where the method of payment variable has changed to direct payment on the second dataset. 2. Figures produced relate to accounts not claimants, a benefit recipient may therefore have more than one account. Figures do not include any benefit payment that is made "in combination", through another benefit system, such as state pension paid through the pension credit system as a combined payment. 3. Over the counter payments includes order books and giros. 4. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5. 5. Figures refer to pensioner age benefit recipients residing in GB only. 6. Included in these figures is payments made to customers by girocheque. Girocheques are encashable at either a bank/building society account or a post office. 7. Some customers who are paid direct into an account can also collect their payments in cash at post offices through the wider range of banking services now available at the post office. There is no data available on the number of benefit claims collected in this way.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

177553; 424 c449W;424 c449-50W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Bank services Pensioners Pensions Payments Take-up Automated credit transfer

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk