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Agency Targets

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what targets he

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has set for the (a) Driving Standards Agency, (b) Driver Licensing Agency, (c) Vehicle Licensing Agency, (d) Vehicle Certification Agency and (e) Vehicle Inspectorate. [156079]

Mr. Hill: Key targets have been set for the agencies. They are included in the agencies' business plans. The plans also include management objectives, performance indicators and key tasks appropriate to the agencies' businesses. Copies of the business plans will be placed in the Library in due course.

The key targets for the Driving Standards Agency are:

90 per cent. of all customers to be satisfied with the overall level of service received from the Agency.


95 per cent. of candidates to have obtained a theory test appointment at their preferred test centre within two weeks of their preferred date.


The national average practical car test waiting time to be no more than six weeks.


Keep 99.5 per cent. of all theory test appointments, and 99.5 per cent. of practical test appointments that are in place two days prior to the test appointment.


90 per cent. of calls to booking offices will be answered by a human voice in no more than 20 seconds (following routing by the call handling system).

To achieve a 1.7 per cent. return on capital employed (ROCE) on statutory activities in 2000-01;


Use examiner resource efficiently by achieving an average examiner utilisation for car practical tests of 83 per cent.

The key targets for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency are:

To achieve an overall efficiency gain of 2.5 per cent;


95 per cent. of registration documents for new vehicles and changes to a registration document to be delivered within 12 working days;


95 per cent. of ordinary driving licences to be delivered within 11 working days;


95 per cent. of vocational and first provisional licences delivered within eight working days,


95 per cent. of VED refunds to be delivered within 30 working days;


95 per cent. of written replies to be delivered within seven working days;


95 per cent. of all telephone calls to be answered within 30 seconds;


95 per cent. of e-mails to be replied to within seven working days.


For 95 per cent. of available service hours, customers have lines available to the Customer Enquiry Unit;


97 per cent. of registration documents for new vehicles, changes to registration documents and driving licences to be produced without DVLA induced error;


To complete 700,000 enforcement cases.

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The key targets for the Vehicle Certification Agency are:

To achieve a £100 K surplus on the commercial accounts after a 6 per cent. rate of return on capital employed has been applied.


To have at least 98 per cent. of approval certificates issued error free.


To achieve a score of at least 90 per cent. on the quality and service matrix targets shown in the Plan.


To ensure that the figure for average debtor days is 60 calendar days or less.


To ensure that invoices for Management System Certification work are issued within an average of 25 working days after completion of the chargeable work.


To achieve a higher score overall in the Spring 2001 customer satisfaction survey against key success factors compared to the score in 1998-99.

The key targets for the Vehicle Inspectorate are:

To deliver against an effectiveness and quality improvement programme.


To deliver effective road safety and environmental standards activity as agreed with DETR.


To continue to improve customer focus across VI and DVO through the implementation of initiatives in line with the Modernising Government agenda.


To break even year on year and achieve a 6 per cent. real rate of return on capital, over the period 1 April 1998--31 March 2003.


To increase value for money.


To improve performance management across the business.

To secure the long-term development of the organisation.

Departmental Expenditure Limit

Mrs. Humble: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what proposals he has to change his Departmental Expenditure Limit for 2000-01. [156107]

Ms Armstrong: The DETR Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be increased by £18 million from £35,361,468,000 to £35,379,468,000 by drawing on the Department's End Year Flexibility Entitlement announced in the Public Expenditure 1999-2000 Provisional outturn White Paper (Cm 4812). In addition there will be transfer of £2 million Provision from the Voted to the non-Voted element of this Departmental Expenditure Limit which will increase from £137,911,000 to £139,911,000. The increase in DEL will be offset by a charge to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

Community Well-being

Ms Buck: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to publish statutory guidance to local authorities on community well-being. [156108]

Ms Armstrong: The Government are today publishing their guidance to local authorities on the use of their new power to promote or improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of their communities.

This broad new power will enable local authorities to take a wide range of action to address the priorities of local people, as set out in their community strategies.

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Environmental Audit

Mr. Burgon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when the Government will publish the response to the Environmental Audit Committee's report "Environmental Audit: The First Parliament". [156127]

Mr. Meacher: I am pleased to announce that I have today laid in the Libraries of both Houses, copies of the Government's response to the Environmental Audit Committee's report.

I thank the Committee for their report which is a valuable contribution to our process of greening government. As our response shows, we have made a great deal of progress and have a record to be proud of.

But there is of course still much to do, and the Government look forward to discussions with the Committee about their two main recommendations for improving their audit function.

Green Ministers

Mr. Burgon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when the last meeting of Green Ministers took place; what was discussed; and which Departments were represented by Ministers and which by officials. [156128]

Mr. Meacher: Green Ministers held their first meeting of this year on 19 March. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes), the Green Minister at DETR spoke about sustainable development at local and regional level.

The Green Ministers Committee approved in principle a target for the purchase of renewable electricity by Departments and agreed a target to reduce water consumption across the Government estate.

The Departments represented by Ministers were: Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Department of Health; Department for International Development; Law Officers' Department, Lord Chancellor's Department, Department of Social Security, Department of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Department for Education and Employment, the Northern Ireland Office.

Those represented by officials were: The Chancellor's Departments, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office.

Mobile Phones

Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he is taking to encourage the mobile phone industry to recycle discarded phones. [155100]

Ms Hewitt: I have been asked to reply.

The European Information and Communications Technology Industry Association (EICTA), formerly European Trade Organisation for the Telecommunication and Professional Electronic Industry (ECTEL), have already initiated a UK mobile phone take back and recovery scheme on a voluntary basis. The Government welcome this scheme which pre-empts some of the likely

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requirements of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) currently being considered by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The WEEE Directive is likely to result in increased levels of mobile phone recovery.

The initial ECTEL launch in 1997 involved only the mobile phone manufacturers--Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic and Philips. The extended scheme, re-launched in 1999, included the network operators--BT Cellnet, Orange, Vodafone, and One 2 One--who together with the mobile phone manufacturers are defined as "producers" for the dual branded mobile phones under the Producer Responsibility Initiative.

Under the Government's Producer Responsibility Initiative, industry is encouraged to take a share of the responsibility for what happens to their products at end-of-life and to take action to increase recovery and recycling rates. In "Waste Strategy 2000", the Government made clear their commitment to achieving substantial increase in recovery and recycling rates.

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