Departmental Databases
Work and Pensions

Eleanor Laing (Shadow Minister, Justice; Epping Forest, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) records and (b) data fields there are in (i) the Customer Management System, (ii) the Patient Modernisation Programme, (iii) the Pensions Transformation Programme, (iv) the Customer Information System, (v) the Tell Us Once system, (vi) the Income Support Computer and (vii) the Data Matching Service.

Jonathan R Shaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People; Minister for the South East), Department for Work and Pensions; Chatham and Aylesford, Labour)

The Department for Work and Pensions holds a large amount of data in order to process benefits and deliver the wide range of services for which it is responsible.

Customer Management System: this system holds 480,000 customer records and 1,300 data fields.

Patient Modernisation Programme: this is not a Department for Work and Pensions' computer system.

Pensions Transformation Programme: this system holds 6.5 million cases and 15,500 data fields.

Customer Information System: this system holds 92 million person related records and 9,800 data fields.

Tell Us Once system: this system is currently in feasibility and testing within 14 local authority areas. It only collects the information that a customer is already required to report following a birth or a death. To date the service has collected and stored information from 8,440 people in up to 110 data fields depending on their circumstances.

Income Support Computer system: 8 million cases of which 5 million are currently active and 700 data fields.

Data Matching Service: this information is not available and to obtain the overall number of records of all types within this system would be at disproportionate cost.

All counts provided have been rounded.