Pensions

House of Lords written question – answered at on 28 March 2012.

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Photo of Lord Laird Lord Laird UUP

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Freud on 20 March (WA 159-60), whether the identical median and mean average age of United Kingdom state old-age pension recipients in Bangladesh, Pakistan and the United States is significant; what investigation they have made of measures being taken in Bangladesh and Pakistan to counter fraudulent claims; and whether they will review the strength and extent of the measures already taken in those three countries to identify continuing payments where the pensioner has died.

Photo of Lord Freud Lord Freud The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

The similar median and mean between recipients in Bangladesh, Pakistan and United States is not seen as significant. The age distribution of populations of UK pensioners in other countries may not conform with the UK norm or with the norm of the country of residence for a number of reasons, primarily linked to migration patterns.

There is no reason to suggest that the observation is indicative of greater fraud. We are currently setting up the Integrated Risk Intelligence Service (IRIS) which we will be incorporating within it advanced analytics which could help identify whether any such correlations exist.

With regards to investigative measures that we have in place, in Bangladesh and Pakistan we currently have international pension service assistants who help to prevent and detect fraudulent claims at the gateway. This local presence helps to manage the risk of evidence fraud.

We also conduct a life certificate exercise, the current strategy is to life certificate everyone aged 80 and above every two years. This year we have re-evaluated the current system and it has been agreed that we will introduce life certificates for all those aged 75.

Customers issued with a life certificate are given instructions to get this independently witnessed and returned to the department. If the department does not receive a reply within specified timeframes, benefit is terminated. If a customer later returns a fully completed life certificate, benefit is put back into payment.

Customers in countries covered by data matching agreements are not issued with a life certificate but this does not currently apply to Bangladesh and Pakistan.

In the USA we have a data matching agreement to share death index data. This aids the prevention and identification of fraudulent claims.

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