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Written Ministerial Statements Tuesday 9 September 2003
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
European Council
The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane): The forthcoming business in the Council of the European Union from September 2003 to March 2004 is as follows:
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HOME DEPARTMENT
Public Collections
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart): I am today placing in the Library of this House copies of a consultation document on proposals for a new licensing scheme for public collections for charitable, philanthropic and benevolent purposes.
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This consultation builds on the package of measures set out in our response to the Strategy Unit review of Charity Law and Regulation published on 16 July, and proposes the setting up of a new, updated and unified local authority licensing scheme for public collections to replace the present complex, outdated and fragmented legislation. The aim is to modernise the law, creating a fair and cost-effective system of licensing which facilitates responsible fundraising but deters bogus collections and prevents nuisance to the public. We want to enable a wide range of organisations to be more effective and innovative, whilst maintaining the high levels of public trust and confidence which are vital to the continued success of the sector.
PRIME MINISTER
Annual Reports
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): I have today laid before both Houses the Annual Reports for 2002 of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Swinton Thomas, the Intelligence Services Commissioner, the right hon. Lord Justice Simon Brown and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Andrew Leggatt. Some sensitive information has been excluded from the reports of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Intelligence Services Commissioner in accordance with Section 58(7) and 60(5) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
I am grateful to the Commissioners for their reports and the work that has gone into preparing them.
TRANSPORT
Crossrail
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): On 14 July, I announced that I intended to assemble an expert team to assess Cross London Rail Link's business case proposals for the East-West Crossrail project. I am pleased to announce today that Adrian Montague will lead the expert review team for the Crossrail project. He is the Deputy Chairman of Network Rail, the Chairman of British Energy and is a former head of HM Treasury's Private Finance Taskforce. He has enormous experience in both railway projects and corporate finance and is ideally suited to this important task.
The Government remain keen on the principle of a new East-West Crossrail link. Crossrail has the potential to relieve some of the serious congestion across central London. However, the costs are substantial. A project of this size needs the appropriate level of scrutiny and it must be funded in a way that reflects the distribution of the benefits.
I have therefore asked the team to look closely at CLRL's proposals to see whether they are likely to be deliverable to time, scope and budget, and, if so, whether they are likely to provide proper value for money. I have also asked the team to consider whether there are alternative ways of delivering a Crossrail
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project that would offer better performance than the proposals set out in the Business Case. I have asked the team to report to me as soon as practicable and hope that its findings will be available around the turn of the year. The final report will be published.
WORK AND PENSIONS
Benefit Fraud Inspectorate Report(Castle Morpeth Borough Council)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on Castle Morpeth Borough Council was published on 29 July 2003 and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.
Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.
The BFI inspected Castle Morpeth Borough Council against the Performance Standards. The report finds that the council is not at Standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments.
The council needs to make considerable improvements if it is to achieve standard in any area, and there was little awareness at senior management or member level of the key areas.
Management information was very limited and there was little awareness of the issues affecting performance. There were significant backlogs in claims processing and overpayments, with claims taking on average 82 days to process. There was little deterrence to potential benefit fraudsters.
In July 2002, the council began to replace its existing IT systems. This was done with very little additional resource and has had an adverse impact on the council's housing benefit and council tax benefit performance, which was already poor. The council's ability to recover overpaid benefits has been hampered by a lack of effective management and IT problems.
The council assured BFI that it would act on the report to bring the benefits service up to standard. It had submitted bids for additional resources to the Department for Work and Pensions' Performance Standards Fund and Help Fund. In 2001–02, Castle Morpeth Borough Council administered some £3.8 million in housing benefits, about 29 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.
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The report makes recommendations to help the council address weaknesses and further to improve the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, as well as counter-fraud activities.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and will be asking the council for its proposals in response to BFI's findings and recommendations.
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