Hansard

Council Tax Benefit

Volume 412: debated on Wednesday 29 October 2003

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Mr. Webb

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the tenure status of pensioners who are entitled to council tax benefit but do not receive it. [135222]

Mr. Pond

Council Tax Benefit is administered by over 400 local authorities, each of which is required by legislation to take appropriate steps to ensure that people with a potential entitlement to Council Tax Benefit are made aware of the help available.Information is also contained in leaflet GL17 "Help with your Council Tax Benefit" as well as various other information leaflets and posters produced by the Department.The information is in the table.

Estimated tenure status of pensioners entitled to but not in receipt of Council Tax Benefit in 2000–01
Benefits Estimates of Lake-Up
Tenure typeProportion (per cent.)
Local Authority tenants11
Private renters14
Owner-occupiers75
Total100

Notes:

  • 1. "Private renters" includes pensioners renting accommodation from Registered Social Landlords.
  • 2. Estimates cover the pensioners in the private household population of Great Britain. The data source is the Family Resources Survey.
  • 3. A pensioner is defined as either a single person aged at least 60 years old or, if a couple, both will be termed pensioners if one is aged at least 60 years old.
  • 4. This analysis should be treated with caution as there are possible sources of error, such as misidentification in modelling entitlement to Council Tax Benefit, misreporting of benefit receipt, and inaccuracies in grossing-up estimates from sample data which have not been corrected for.

    • Source:

    Data underlying the statistics presented in the DWP series "Income Related Bene its estimates of TakepUP".