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Written Ministerial Statements
Tuesday 27 January 2004
TRANSPORT
Highways Agency
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): The Highways Agency Annual Report and Accounts for 2002–03 has been laid before the House today under Section 7 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000. Copies of the report have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
WORK AND PENSIONS
Disability and Carers Service
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith): I am today announcing that the disability and carers service (DCS), the organisation responsible for delivering disability and carers benefits within the Department for Work and Pensions, will be assigned formal executive agency status with a chief executive appointed by open competition.
The DCS is a substantial business, employing over 7,000 staff and paying out in excess of £11 billion a year in disability living allowance, attendance allowance and carers allowance to just under 4.5 million people. The customers are some of the most disadvantaged in society and the benefits require specialist assessment of care and mobility needs.
In April 2002, my Department established Jobcentre Plus and The Pension Service as executive agencies to provide services to people of working age and pensioners. However, extra cost disability and carers benefits continued to be administered by an organisation with non-executive status. Since 2002, without formal agency status, the DCS has made substantial improvements in the speed and quality of decision-making. The new agency will keep up the momentum, actively building on these achievements. Agency status will improve efficiency and customer service, allowing the organisation to agree clear goals with me and then having the clear accountability for delivery.
As work to set up the agency progresses, my Department will consult with groups representing disabled people to ensure that the new organisation is designed in a way that best suits the needs of its customers.
The process of establishing the agency and selection of the chief executive by open competition will now commence. I have not yet set a date for launching the agency. It is important to ensure smooth transition with the minimum disruption to business delivery. I am, however, confident that these changes will sharpen
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accountabilities and improve services significantly for the millions of disabled people and their carers receiving these benefits.
Northampton Borough Council
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Chris Pond): On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the benefit fraud inspectorate (BFI) follow-up inspection report on Northampton Borough Council was published today 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 Northampton Borough Council against the performances standards for housing benefits. 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.
However, the report finds that the council has made significant improvements in the areas of counter-fraud and working with landlords, since the first BFI inspection report published in April 2000. Weaknesses remain in claims processing and overpayment performance.
The council's management information is very limited across all areas of its benefits administration and as a result, there is little awareness of the issues affecting performance. In particular, the lack of effective management controls and checks in claims processing and the overpayment process has hampered the council's ability to improve claims processing and recover overpaid benefits.
There were significant backlogs of work, with new housing benefits claims taking an average of 62 days to clear compared with the national target of 36 days.
The report finds good practices in the council's benefits service including quality training of its fraud investigators, clearly set out benefit claim forms and good working relations with key stakeholders.
In 2002–03, Northampton Borough Council administered some £46.7 million in housing benefits, about 39 per cent. of its gross revenue expenditure.
The report makes recommendations to help the council address weaknesses and to further 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 the BFI's findings and recommendations.
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Housing Benefit
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Chris Pond): The outcome of the consultation on housing benefit sanctions for anti-social behaviour was published today. An analysis of the responses has been placed in the Library and also a copy put on the DWP website at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2003/index.asp.
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a priority for the Government. It blights communities and can undermine the regeneration of the most disadvantaged areas, creating an environment where crime takes hold.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions consulted on a housing benefit sanction between May and August 2003, he received 487 responses from a wide range of organisations and members of the public. One of the responses included a petition from the constituents of Paisley, South. If the signatories are counted as individual responses the final number of responses was 698. Everyone who responded agreed that anti-social behaviour must be stopped. Victims and local people in particular were supportive of the proposed measures, though concerns were expressed by a large number of respondents about whether the measures would be workable or effective.
In the light of these concerns, particularly from local authorities, who play a key role in preventing and dealing with anti-social behaviour and also both private and registered social landlords, we have decided not to proceed with a housing benefit sanction at this time.
There is already a wide range of tools to deal with the types of behaviour that makes people's daily lives a misery; for example, anti-social behaviour orders and acceptable behaviour contracts. The Government has recently strengthened these existing powers with further measures in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 and new proposals in the Housing Bill currently before Parliament. On 14 October, the Home Office published an action plan "Together: Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour". This action plan will help improve the response to tackling anti-social behaviour. This includes funding for every area of England and Wales, a new "together" action line, website and academy to provide help and support to practitioners and a range of projects to tackle nuisance families, begging and environmental crime. We want to make full use of the range of powers
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available before introducing a new measure. But we do not rule out other means, in the future as we learn from experience and establish what works.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Arson Control Forum Implementation Fund
The Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I have today announced the outcome of the Arson Control Forum Implementation Fund launched on 20 August 2003.
We plan to pay grants totalling over £9.3 million over the period to March 2006 to support 66 local arson prevention initiatives throughout England and Wales. This demonstrates clearly the Government's commitment to tackling arson and doing more to prevent fires, as set out in the draft Fire and Rescue National Framework published on 11 December 2003. Our substantial investment in the efforts of the police and fire and rescue services, in partnership with others, will help to reduce the number of deliberate fires. The additional funding will also assist the Government's wider neighbourhood renewal plans and complements the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan launched by the Prime Minister in October 2003. Copies of a table summarising the payments we plan to make to local partnerships are available in the Libraries of both Houses.
DEFENCE
Race Equality Scheme
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): In accordance with undertakings in its Race Equality Scheme, the Ministry of Defence has produced a progress report, a copy of which is being place today in the Library of the House. The report shows that across the Department and the Armed Forces we are continuing to build on past experience and initiatives to eradicate harassment and unlawful discrimination and to develop a more proactive approach to race relations as part of our diversity programme. Good progress has been made but we recognise that more needs to be done. The report describes the steps that the Ministry of Defence will be pursuing to further its vision.