£120 warm home discount

Richie-from-the-Boro

Brummie71 wrote: »

They will identify customers eligible for the Core Group payment, yes. This is legitimate and will ensure maximum take up for this payment amongst the Core Group.

HiYa Brummie71, yes I always knew that its here under the change of rule [ section 142 of the Pensions Act 2008 ], sorry to be pedantic / my question was specific to the Data Protection Act / """ will the DWP will hand over individuals personal details and benefit information to the suppliers ? ""

SwanJon

Richie, seeing as you 'always knew that' - are you digging for something in particular?

victor2

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

will the DWP will hand over individuals personal details and benefit information to the suppliers ?

They'll put it on a DVD and send a copy to all interested suppliers by TNT, so look for one on a roundabout near you.

Richie-from-the-Boro

victor2 wrote: »

They'll put it on a DVD and send a copy to all interested suppliers by TNT, so look for one on a roundabout near you.

- or the local drug dealer will sell copies on ebay!

Richie-from-the-Boro

SwanJon wrote: »

Richie, seeing as you 'always knew that' - are you digging for something in particular?

Yes my friend I'm trying to discover if (1) the DWP will """ hand over individuals personal details and benefit information to the suppliers ? "" as Brummie71 claims, and if not how will (2) the DWP identify individual customers eligible for the Core Group payment to the suppliers.

SwanJon

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Yes my friend I'm trying to discover if (1) the DWP will """ hand over individuals personal details and benefit information to the suppliers ? "" as Brummie71 claims, and if not how will (2) the DWP identify individual customers eligible for the Core Group payment to the suppliers.

To be fair the bold bit is actually you, not Brummie71. The way you put it makes it look like s/he said that.

I'm not sure how the transfer of data is done, but as it involves private information no matter which direction (DWP>Supplier or Supplier>DWP) that's probably a good thing.
One possibility is linking with the central databases (ecoes/XOserve) and cross referencing with the DWP database.
Suppliers could then be given a list of qualifying supply points - no personal information at all.

But how it has happened (as for the Core group it was your supplier on 11 Sep that pays) will probably remain out of our reach.

Richie-from-the-Boro

SwanJon wrote: »

To be fair the bold bit is actually you, not Brummie71. The way you put it makes it look like s/he said that.

I'm not sure how the transfer of data is done, but as it involves private information no matter which direction (DWP>Supplier or Supplier>DWP) that's probably a good thing.
One possibility is linking with the central databases (ecoes/XOserve) and cross referencing with the DWP database.
Suppliers could then be given a list of qualifying supply points - no personal information at all.

But how it has happened (as for the Core group it was your supplier on 11 Sep that pays) will probably remain out of our reach.

Thanks for that SwanJon, yes its a legal question really, suppliers are legally obligated to pay the WHD rebate and the only government department with the capacity to pre-validate is the DWP. Because as yet I have had no luck with an FOI request on the subject I am interested in the mechanics of that information transfer after the point that DECC has identified the sub-set individual beneficiaries of the WHD initiative from the PCD, and (1) how and that data is transferred to the participating suppliers and (2) what personal information is supplied to the participating suppliers.

Your suggestion that cross-referencing the DECC outcomes with XOserve & ecoes leading to an anonymised [ is that an actual word ? ] list of supply points is an interesting one. Thank you for that.

XOserve - Gas
ecoes - Leccy
DECC - Department of Energy and Climate Change
PCD - Pension Credit Database

ellieo

have been messed about all week over this with eon.
to top it of was given a free phone number this morning and was assured it would be sorted on this number.
turns out the number was for scottish and southern electric !!!
thanks to mike from customer services,

Brummie71

ellieo wrote: »

have been messed about all week over this with eon.
to top it of was given a free phone number this morning and was assured it would be sorted on this number.
turns out the number was for scottish and southern electric !!!
thanks to mike from customer services,

Eon? Try 0800 404 6287

Brummie71

Been doing a little digging on this for you.

Firstly, the Pensions Act 2008 allows data sharing for this purpose, so it is legitimate.

Based on an earlier exercise, the DWP will supply the energy companies with a list of postcode areas where there are pension credit claimants (so, not personally identifiable). If you live in AN1 1AN and nobody claims pension credit in those houses, then your information will not be passed back to DWP (and possibly it could be a wider area - perhaps even AN1 1xx)

The supplier than provides a list of names and addresses of electricity account holders which is matched against the list of pension credit claimants. The relevant energy supplier is then notified that Mrs Jones of 1 Acacia Avenue AN1 1AN is entitled to receive the discount.

Last time out when this was done for the Energy Rebate Scheme, then about 53% of pension credit holders were matched to supply addresses (there are valid reasons why this may be the case). Letters were sent out to the remainder and the response increased the take up to about 61%.

So the data transfer is proportional - only what is needed to identify eligible customers is transferred between the two and no financial data goes either way, so no benefit details will transfer, no.