Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many individuals currently have their records with his Department recorded clerically; and what steps his Department is taking to move clerical records to computer systems.

DWP is working towards delivering all customer services fully supported by computer systems in which non-digital services, based on customer needs, are kept to a minimum. However, at any point in time we will have a varying number of cases that are maintained clerically, for an average period of 4-6 weeks, while a system fault is being fixed for example and we currently maintain approximately 200,000 Industrial Injury Disablement Benefit cases clerically, although payments for these cases are managed using an existing computer system. There are currently no plans to further develop a technology system to process and maintain Industrial Injury Disablement Benefit cases.