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Departmental Mergers

Mr. Robert McCartney: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans she has to integrate the

3 Jul 1997 : Column: 278

functions of the various Northern Ireland departments and to merge some into her own Department; what advice she has received on this issue; and if she will make a statement. [5637]

Mr. Paul Murphy: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 6 May that my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) would take Ministerial responsibility for both the Training and Employment Agency and the Department of Education, but without integrating their functions. She has no other plans to integrate any functions of the Northern Ireland departments or to merge some into the Northern Ireland Office. She has neither sought nor received any advice on these issues.

Pension Schemes

Mr. Robert McCartney: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what (a) percentage of the expenditure of the five largest public sector pension schemes and (b) amount was received from (i) the employer and (ii) investment proceeds last year. [5641]

Mr. Paul Murphy: The information requested is listed:

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	(i)		(ii)
	Employer expenditure		Investment proceeds expenditure
	(a)	(b)	(a)	(b)
	Percentage	Amount £ million	Percentage	Amount £ million
Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (NI)	72.5	81.2	Nil	Nil
Health and Personal Social Services Superannuation Scheme (NI)	23.9	21.9	Nil	Nil
Northern Ireland Local Government Officers Superannuation Scheme	23.5	12.0	38	19.5
Teachers Superannuation Scheme	40	41.5	Nil	Nil
RUC Pension Scheme	100	41.8	Nil	Nil

Figures for financial year ended 31 March 1997.

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Scrabo High School

Mr. John D. Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many pupils applied for places in Scrabo High School, Newtownards for the academic year 1997-98; how many of these were new applicants; how many were accepted; and if she will make a statement.[5683]

Mr. Worthington: A total of six pupils applied as new entrants for places in Scrabo High School in the 1997-98 academic year. All the applicants would have been accepted if the school had remained in operation.

I have recently approved a proposal by the South Eastern Education and Library Board to close Scrabo High School. This decision was taken after very careful consideration of all relevant information, including the school's existing and projected enrolments, the enrolment capacities of neighbouring schools, and financial, community and educational factors. Account was taken also of the various representations which were made to the Department of Education during the statutory objection period. I concluded that the school was financially and educationally unviable and that closure was in the long-term interest of the children concerned.

Teachers and Lecturers

Mr. Roy Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many (a) teachers in schools and (b) college and university lecturers in Northern Ireland are employed on one year contracts of employment. [6294]

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Mr. Worthington: The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

However, 614 teachers in schools and 35 lecturers in colleges and universities were employed in a full-time temporary capacity for the 1996-97 school year.

Social Security Agency

Ms Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what performance targets have been set for the Social Security Agency for the current financial year.[6913]

Mr. Worthington: The targets are in line with the objective of improving the service provided to customers and fully support the standards established in the Northern Ireland Citizen's Charter. I am satisfied that the targets represent a demanding challenge for the Agency. The targets will be included in the Agency's 1997-98 Strategic and Business Plan, which is due for publication in July. A copy of the Plan will be placed in the Library. The targets are as follows:

1. Benefit clearance times ¹
Jobseeker's Allowance claims:
71 per cent. in 10 days
93 per cent. in 21 days.
Faster Family Credit:
93 per cent. in 5 days.

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2. Benefit accuracy
Income Support:
to pay the correct amount in at least 87 per cent. of cases.
Incapacity Benefit:
to pay the correct amount in at least 98 per cent. of cases.
Family Credit:
to pay the correct amount in at least 93 per cent. of cases.
Disability Living Allowance:
to pay the correct amount in at least 99 per cent. of cases.
Jobseeker's Allowance:
to pay the correct amount in at least 87 per cent. of cases.
3. Customer satisfaction ²
90 per cent. of customers to regard the Agency's service as satisfactory or better.
4. Financial recovery
recovery of Social Fund loans--£27.17 million
recovery of overpayments--£4.6 million ³
benefit savings from detection and prevention of fraud--£15.00 million sign-offs as a result of anti-fraud activity--5,500
sign-offs as a result of anti-fraud activity--5,500
Class I contributions identified as underpaid to the National Insurance Fund--£1.65 million
Collection of Contributions owing to the National Insurance Fund ⁴ --£1.4 million
Contributions identified as underpaid to the National Insurance Fund--to provide a return on Challenge Fund investment of 9:1 ⁵ .
5. Resource Management
to live within a gross allocation of £40.34 million for Social Fund loans and Community Care grants
to live within the Agency's gross running cost budget allocation
to achieve cash efficiency savings of the order of £5.50 million.
¹ Clearance time is measured from the date of receipt of a claim or application in the office to the date on which the claim or application is decided. The measure, therefore, excludes the time taken to issue notification of the decision and any payment.
² The customer satisfaction target is presently measured by independent survey and usually covers a two year period, in this case 1997-98. ³ It has been decided to combine the previous figures for Income Support Centralised Benefits and Unemployment Benefit with the new figure for Jobseeker's Allowance into one overall Overpayment Recovery Target. This target is based on a percentage of the overall outstanding debt, which will be much more challenging than the existing system. The yield in 1996-97 was £2.56 million. ⁴ This was an internal target in 1996-97, but has been raised to Ministerial status in line with the Contributions Agency in GB. ⁵ This is a new target for the Agency.

Public Record Office

Ms Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what performance targets have been set for the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in 1997-98.[6914]

Dr. Mowlam: For 1997-98 the following performance targets have been set for PRONI:

Financial Performance
To meet the challenge of managing the Agency's workload by:
(a) absorbing a 13.3 per cent. reduction in staff numbers;
(b) providing for an estimated 4 per cent. increase in readers;

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(c) maintaining extended opening hours;
(d) ensuring that expenditure is within the financial limits approved.
Output
1. To appraise at least 4,000 linear metres of records, including the reappraisal of records so as to eliminate low-grade material.
2. To list and index at least 500 linear metres of records, including ensuring that 100 per cent. of all new "open" material is thus processed within one year of receipt.
Quality of service
1. To survey the conditions in which 10 per cent. of 33,360 metres of records are stored; and, in a related exercise, to take remedial action on upgrading c.1,800 linear metres of records as presently stored on mobile shelving at Balmoral Avenue so as to bring them up to defined standards of archival protection.
2. With the help of the computerised document request system, to improve the speed of on-site production to the public by reducing waiting time from 40 minutes to 37 minutes or less in 90 per cent. of cases.
3. To process customer queries within 10 working days of receipt in 90 per cent. of cases and within 14 working days in 96 per cent. of cases, thus improving PRONI's Citizen's Charter commitment.
4. To ensure the smooth completion of the annual release for 1998--c.680 files, but with the possible addition of court records--as well as the ongoing release of identified blocks of records at earlier than 30 years.
Efficiency
1. To reduce PRONI's composite Unit Cost in the areas of selecting and accessioning, records listing, records storage, document production and reader service by 3 per cent., from £99.95 to £96.95.

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