Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of his Department’s databases of people (a) in receipt of and (b) not in receipt of benefits for the purposes of data matching with the electoral register.

Esther McVey

Results of DWP data matching with the Electoral Register have been subjected to review by both the Electoral Commission and Electoral Registration Transformation Programme with positive results

No separate assessment has been made of accuracy of data for benefit and non-benefit recipients for the purposes of data matching with the electoral register.

To undertake such an assessment would entail disproportionate costs due to the need to contact and compare citizen details against data held by DWP.