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6 May 2003 : Column 553W—continued

Jobseeker's Allowance

Andrew Selous: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many claimants of Jobseeker's Allowance there are, broken down by the principal occupation code of those seeking work. [108386]

Mr. Nicholas Brown: The latest information available has been placed in the Library.

Lone Parents

Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many lone parents in Hendon (a) have agreed to participate in New Deal for Lone Parents, (b) have declined to participate in New Deal

6 May 2003 : Column 554W

for Lone Parents and (c) have gained employment through New Deal for Lone Parents; and if he will make a statement. [109025]

Mr. Nicholas Brown: The New Deal for Lone Parents is a voluntary programme open to any lone parent who is working for less than 16 hours a week, to help them overcome the problems they face when trying to find work.

In Hendon since the start of the New Deal for Lone Parents, of the 650 lone parents who have attended an initial interview, 560 have agreed to participate in the programme, and 240 of these participants have already gained employment.

Post Office Cards

Mr. Gordon Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what timetable has been established to implement changes to the Post Office card account PIN pad to improve accessibility for disabled people. [108947]

Mr. Timms: I have been asked to reply.

The Post Office is working to ensure their services are as accessible to as many customers as possible. In the short term the Post Office intends to improve current PIN pads by fitting a guard over the buttons to help guide customers. I understand that this will be done as soon as possible. In the longer term they intend to look at technological options to provide a secure alternative to PIN pads for people with disabilities.

This is a matter which falls within the day-to-day responsibility of Post Office Ltd. I have therefore asked the Chief Executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.

Regional Policy

Joyce Quin: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress his Department has made towards the aim in the White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice, of assessing the balance of staff between the centre and the regions in terms of effective policy design and implementation; and what examples there have been since the publication of the White Paper of the Department deciding between locating new streams of work (a) in and (b) outside London and the South East. [108571]

Malcolm Wicks: The Department for Work and Pensions currently has no single geographical work force strategy addressing staff and work move shifts from London and the South East to the regions. However, local labour market conditions mean that there is less pressure on recruitment and retention away from London.

Jobcentre Plus already processes London benefit related work at sites at Ashton-in-Makerfield, in north-west Glasgow and Belfast. In moving to centralised processing operations, The Pension Service has decided to locate all 26 Pension Centres outside London and the South East although there will continue to be a Pension Local Service presence in these regions. Some businesses have used centralised processing and contract centres for some time e.g. Child Support Agency Centres and Disability Benefit Centres.

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By the nature of its business (more face to face contact) and customer base, the department, particularly Jobcentre Plus, will continue to have a presence in all large urban areas including London. There are also plans to encourage customers to make greater use of the telephone for their initial contact.

Around 90 per cent. of DWP staff work in delivery businesses while 10 per cent. are in headquarters working on a range of policy and support functions. The highest concentration of headquarters staff, 30 per cent., is in the Yorkshire and Humber region followed by the North West region (26 per cent.), London (16 per cent.) and the North West (14 per cent.).

Information on the distribution of DWP staff between Government Office Regions and function is in the following table:

Government office region	Delivery staff	Headquarters staff	Total staff
East Midlands	6,490	263	6,753
East Midlands	6,639	129	6,768
London	12,404	2,219	14,623
North East	13,424	1,946	15,370
North West	23,395	3,532	26,927
Scotland	14,683	464	15,147
South East	9,423	133	9,556
South West	8,511	186	8.697
Wales	7,230	340	7,570
West Midlands	11,613	420	12,033
Yorkshire and The Humber	10,394	4,071	14,465
Total	124,206	13,703	137,909

Note:

Numbers are point in time as at 31 January 2003.

Numbers are expressed as staff in post (headcount) and are consistent with Cabinet Office definitions other than the inclusion of staff on paid maternity leave.

Staff Union Duties

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff in his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies receive paid leave to undertake union duties; how many days they are allocated; and what has been the cost to public funds in 2002. [106770]

Maria Eagle: The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available for the financial year 2002–03, is in the table:

Department for Work and Pensions

Agency/Body	Full-time post allocation(8)	Approximate costs(9) (£)
Corporate Centre	15.94	331.000
Jobcentre Plus	240.76	4,998,800
The Pension Service	8	166,100
Child Support Agency	28.5	591,700
Other	21.25	441,200
Total	314,45	6528,800

⁽⁸⁾ This is not necessarily equivalent to the number of union officials because some officials are part time and some union posts are not filled.

⁽⁹⁾ The figures rounded to the nearest one hundred pounds, have been calculated using average, not actual, salaries.

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Travel-to-work Areas

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how travel to work areas are defined; and what changes have been made in this definition since 1979. [110686]

Ruth Kelly: I have been asked to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. Frank Field, dated 6 May 2003:

The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question on the definition of Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) and the changes in this definition since 1979. I am replying in his absence. (110686)

The current criteria for defining TTWAs are that at least 75 per cent. of the area's resident workforce must work in the area and at least 75 per cent. of the people who work in the area must also live in the area. The area must also have a working population of at least 3,500. For areas with a working population in excess of 20,000, the self-containment rate is reduced to 70 per cent. TTWA boundaries must be non-overlapping and contiguous, covering the entire United Kingdom. TTWAs do not cross national boundaries.

TTWAs are produced by analysing commuting flows from the decennial Census of Population. The current geography, based on the 1991 Census, was published in May 1998. A report of this exercise, entitled "1991-based Travel-to-Work Areas", is held in the House of Commons Library. Prior to May 1998, the TTWAs were based on the 1981 Census and were published in September 1984; they were created using the current methods.

The TTWA geography in existence in 1979, based on the 1971 Census, was published in July 1978. While this map was also based on a self-containment rate of 75 per cent. there were several methodological changes introduced for the 1984 map. These improvements to the precision and robustness of the map were made possible by the introduction of computers and postcoded data. More details are available in an article in an Occasional Supplement to the Employment Gazette 92 (9), which is also available from the House of Commons Library.

The 1979 TTWA map was defined in terms of Employment Office (Jobcentre) areas. Since the TTWA map based on the 1981 Census, the definition has been by aggregations of wards.

ONS are currently investigating the usage and potential demand for an update to the TTWA geography based on data from the 2001 Census.

There have been significant changes to the availability of local area data since the last update. Professor Coombes of Newcastle University was commissioned to write a report on this and some of the data issues that affect the 2001 Census.

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) unemployed claimants and (b) unfilled vacancies there are in each travel to work area; and if he will express these data as an employment to vacancy ratio. [110762]

Ruth Kelly: I have been asked to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. Frank Field, dated 6 May 2003:

The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question regarding the number of unemployed claimants and unfilled vacancies for each travel-to-work-area. I am replying in his absence. (110762)

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I am placing in the House of Commons Library tables showing the claimant count, that is the numbers claiming Jobseeker's Allowance, and data on unfilled vacancies at Jobcentres as requested. Because of distortions to the Jobcentre vacancy data which occurred as a result of the introduction of the 'Employer Direct' initiative by Jobcentre Plus, data on unfilled vacancies have not been published since April 2001. Therefore, I have provided claimant count data for March 2003, the most recent available, as well as data for April 2001 for comparison with the unfilled vacancies. The data are not seasonally adjusted.

Please note that the Jobcentre data represent only a proportion of vacancies in the economy. The experimental survey of job vacancies, which asks employers for the number of vacancies they have, is not available below national level.

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