Council Tax Benefits

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate she has made of the monetary value of (a) claimed and (b) unclaimed council tax benefit by each client group in 2008-09. (321120)

The information is not available for the year requested.

Estimates of the value of claimed and unclaimed council tax benefit are provided in the National Statistics series ‘Income Related Benefits: Estimates of Take-Up’.

The latest available report provides information for 2007-08. A copy is available in the Library and online at:

http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/irb.asp

The report provides the following information in relation to council tax benefit for Great Britain in 2007-08:

*£ million*
Family type	Total amount claimed	Total range unclaimed
Pensioners	2,010	Between 1,240 and 1,690
Couples with children	220	Between 70 and 130
Singles with children	700	Between 30 and 110
Non-pensioners without children	830	Between 180 and 320
Source: National Statistics series ‘Income Related Benefits: Estimates of Take-Up’

Volume 507: debated on Monday 15 March 2010