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State Pension (Spanish Residents)
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people receiving UK state pensions are resident in Spain. [33488]
Mr. McCartney: At 31 March 2001 there were 43,100 people in receipt of UK state retirement pensions resident in Spain.
- Source:
- Pensions Strategy Computer System at 31 March 2001 based on a 5 per cent. sample.
- Note:
- Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.
Mortgages
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people no longer receive income support as a result of the fall in interest rates affecting mortgages over the past six months. [33962]
Malcolm Wicks: The information is not available.
Departmental Events
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the (a) conferences, (b) seminars, (c) workshops, (d) exhibitions and (e) press conferences which have been sponsored by his Department and which took place on non-departmental premises in each of the last four years, giving the title, purpose, date and cost of each. [34181]
Mr. McCartney: The information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Consultancy Services
Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many contracts were let by his Department and agencies for which he is responsible to (a) PWC Consulting or PricewaterhouseCoopers, (b) Ernst & Young, (c) Deloitte & Touche, (d) KPMG and (e) Andersen for consultancy services for the financial years (i) 1997–98, (ii) 1998–99, (iii) 1999–2000, (iv) 2000–01 and (v) 2001 to the latest date for which figures are available, indicating the remuneration in each case. [33842]
Mr. McCartney: The information requested on the number of contracts let is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The information requested on remuneration is provided in the table.
Notes:
1. Figures to 2000–01 relate to contracts awarded by the ex-Department of Social Security.
2. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC)—was formed on 1 July 1998 as the result of a merger of the Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand organisations. PWC spend for the 1997–98 was split with Price Waterhouse accounting for just over £1 million and Coopers & Lybrand, £685,000. Figures from 1 September 2000 may not show the full value of DSS/DWP business to PWC as payment for any work it has done, via its membership of the EDS-led Affinity consortium under the ACCORD contract, is made direct to EDS. Of the total shown so far for 2001–02, £54,000 is in respect of work done for the Employment Service part of DWP and £268,000 for the former DSS part.
3. Ernst & Young/CGEY—The consulting arm of Ernst & Young was purchased by Cap Gemini in 2000 to form Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGEY). The figure for 2000–01 is made up of £620,000 paid to Ernst & Young and £357,000 to CGEY. All of the 2001–02 spend is with CGEY, £63,000 of this being in respect of work for the former ES part of DWP and £911,000 with the ex-DSS part.
4. Andersen Consulting—The figures in the table relate to Andersen Consulting—rather than its former sister organisation within Andersen Worldwide, Arthur Andersen (AA). Andersen Consulting split from the Andersen Worldwide organisation in 1999 and has been known as Accenture since January 2000. The figures shown for 1997–8 to 1999–2000 largely reflect business which moved to Inland Revenue with the transfer of the Contributions Agency in April 2000.
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Benefit Recipients
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many benefit recipients he estimates would be worse off obtaining a job paying (a) 50 per cent., (b) 60 per cent. and (c) 70 per cent. of the national average wage, assuming no travel to work costs were incurred. [35218]
Malcolm Wicks: The information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Housing Benefit
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was paid in housing benefit by each local authority in the last year for which information is available; what the average weekly claim was, and what the administration costs per claim falling on the local authority were. [35220]
Malcolm Wicks: The available information has been placed in the Library.
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the changes in housing benefit regulations since 1997; and what the estimated administrative cost of implementing each change was. [35221]
Malcolm Wicks: The information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Interviews (Travel Expenses)
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when his Department or its predecessor last reviewed its policy towards paying travelling expenses to potential employees coming for interview. [14856]
Mr. Nicholas Brown [holding answer 14 November 2001]: Neither DWP, nor its predecessors, have ever paid travelling expenses to candidates applying for employment with the Department. There has been no evident need to review this position and there are no plans to do so. However, as an organisation, we do several things to help unemployed people with the costs of
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attending interviews which, subject to the normal eligibility criteria, could be useful for someone attending an interview with this Department. These include the Travel to Interview Scheme which aims to assist jobseekers in their search for work outside the normal area by refunding associated costs. Also the recently introduced adviser discretion fund allows new deal personal advisers the flexibility to make discretionary monetary awards to help people quickly into jobs.
New Deal
Mr. Flight: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in Arundel and South Downs are on the new deal programme, broken down by each category of the new deal. [18317]
Mr. Nicholas Brown: The available information is in the table:
| Programme | Number |
|---|---|
| New deal for young people | 8 |
| New deal 25plus | 17 |
| New deal for lone parents | 57 |
| New deal 50plus (employment credit claims) | (23)14 |
(23) End December 2001
Note:
Constituency level information is not available for the new deals for disabled people or partners.
Source:
New Deal Evaluation Database
Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the private sector companies that are in receipt of funds from the new deal in Leicester. [31057]
Mr. Nicholas Brown: The private sector companies that are in receipt of funds from the new deal in Leicester are Fern Training and Development (new deal for young people) and Pelcome Training Ltd. (new deal 25plus).
Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much money will be spent on the new deal for disabled people over the next three years. [19499]
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Mr. Nicholas Brown: [holding answer 11 December 2001]: £120 million for Job Broker services has been allocated to the new deal for disabled people for the financial years 2001–02 to 2003–04.
Benefits Agency
John Cryer: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he is taking to improve standards of decision making at the Benefits Agency in response to the President of the Appeals Service report on Standards of Decision Making by the Secretary of State 2000–01. [27224]
Mr. Nicholas Brown: This is a matter for Alexis Cleveland, Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. She will write to my hon. Friend.
Letter from Alexis Cleveland to John Cryer, dated 6 February 2002:
- The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has asked me to respond to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what steps he is taking to improve standards of decision making at the Benefits Agency (BA) in response to the President of the Appeals Service Report on Standards of Decision Making by the Secretary of State 2000–01.
- The BA Board receives regular reports on Decision Making and Appeals standards at its monthly meeting and monitors the situation closely. The President's quarterly reports are seen by the BA Standards Committee who consider the Judge's observations when framing recommendations for BA Board for future improvement activities. In addition the BA has reviewed its procedures and has introduced measures to more closely align the consideration of the President's conclusions alongside its processes for handling recommendations from other groups, such as Internal Audit.
- Early evaluation following the introduction of Decision Making and Appeals, and research undertaken by the Standards Committee, confirmed the need to review the training available to support Decision Makers. Refresher training on Decision Making and Appeals principles has therefore been delivered and Training Services have re-designed two of their packages to support staff, Appeals presentation and Appeals preparation. Both packages reinforce the need to reconsider a decision where new evidence has come to light or errors have been found. The training builds on products developed locally by trainers and has undergone extensive quality assurance by a range of key stakeholders and is one of a series of products designed to support Decision Makers in the BA. The resulting new products were distributed to delivery staff in October; others are planned for introduction later in the year.
- An internal review covering the quality of decision making, guidance and training available following the introduction of these measures is currently underway. The BA Board will consider any further recommendations for improvement as a result of the review.
- In conclusion, many decision errors are purely procedural and do not effect the correct level of payment being made to the customer. However, the BA takes all decision making errors seriously and is taking positive action to address the issues raised.
- I hope this is helpful.
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