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3 Mar 2004 : Column 1012W—continued

Training Boards

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the annual cost to public funds is of the (a) Construction Industry Training Board and (b) Engineering Construction Industry Training Board; and if he will make a statement. [156586]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: The operating costs of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) are funded from a levy on the employers in the industries they cover.

They may receive public funding from government departments or agencies to support employer training through the delivery of particular projects or initiatives. In the financial year ended December 2003 the CITB received a total of £41,685,000 and the ECITB received £1,494,000. The vast majority of this was Learning and Skills Council funding to support the delivery of Modern Apprenticeships.

Undergraduates

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many undergraduate students there were in the United Kingdom on the latest date for which figures are available broken down by (a) age, (b) nature of course and (c) type of institution. [145106]

Alan Johnson: The available figures are given in the table.

All undergraduate students enrolled at UK institutions, 2002/03

	Pre-1992		Of which: Russell group(48)		Post-1992
Age	1st degree	Other UG	1st degree	Other UG	1st degree	Other UG
Up to 20 years	332,673	18,565	164,300	6,165	201,829	33,816
21–24 years	125,991	31,785	59,305	9,118	131,420	31,147
25 years plus	51,845	257,405	15,934	44,109	102,069	105,671
Total	510,509	307,755	239,539	59,392	435,318	170,634

⁽⁴⁸⁾ The Russell Group includes the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Warwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, King's College London, University College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Source:

Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Learning Skills Council (LSC)

	Other HEIs		FEIs(49)		Total
Age	1st degree	Other UG	1st degree	Other UG	1st degree	Other UG
Up to 20 years	65,342	11,389	5,621	49,810	605,465	113,580
21–24 years	35,934	8,599	4,238	30,626	297,583	102,157
25 years plus	27,967	32,483	7,428	107,536	189,309	503,095
Total	129,243	52,471	17,287	187,972	1,092,357	718,832

⁽⁴⁹⁾ Figures for HE study in FE institutions have been carried over from 2001/02 until figures for 2002/03 are available.

Source:

Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Learning Skills Council (LSC)

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Transitional Funding

Shona McIsaac: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) which local education authorities have submitted bids for additional transitional funding to assist schools and local education authorities with financial problems; [158117]

(2) what criteria has been set down for allocating the transitional relief which has been awarded to local education authorities to help schools with budget difficulties. [158120]

Mr. Miliband: The information requested has been placed in the Libraries.

WORK AND PENSIONS

Benefit Payments

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of likely reasons for the increase in Income Support and Jobseekers's Allowance overpayments to non-pensioners owing to official error; and if he will make a statement. [155892]

Mr. Pond [holding answer 25 February 2004]: The loss from fraud and error in Income Support (IS) and Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) reduced to 7.3 per cent. in March 2003, compared to the 10.4 per cent. September 1998 baseline figure. This is the lowest ever level of loss recorded and builds on our previous achievements. We have now reduced by 30 per cent. the loss for people of working age receiving IS or JSA.

The Department estimates that the rate of overpayment in IS and JSA due to official error was 1.9 per cent. of expenditure for the period April 2002 March 2003. The equivalent figure in the previous year, for the period April 2001 to March 2002, was 1.8 per cent.

The increase of 0.1 per cent. is very small compared to the margins of sampling error around the two estimates. Furthermore, a change in the methodology between 2001–02 and 2002–03 increased the estimate of official error by 0.1 per cent. In these circumstances we cannot conclude that there has been a real increase in the underlying rate of official error. Further details on the methodology change will be provided in the next National Statistics report which is due to be published in March 2004.

Child Support Agency

Mr. Viggers: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what measures are available to the Child Support Agency to enforce payment; and in how many cases these have been invoked in each of the last five years. [153034]

Mr. Pond: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mr. Doug Smith. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.

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Letter from Doug Smith to Mr. Peter Viggers, dated 3 March 2004:

In reply to your recent Parliamentary questions about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.

You asked what measures are available to the Child Support Agency to enforce payment; and in how many cases these have been invoked in each of the last five years.

Where a non-resident parent chooses not to pay child maintenance we will seek to discuss this by telephone when we will remind them of their legal responsibility. If there is still no adequate response and the non-resident parent is employed we will usually seek to implement, through the employer, a deduction from earnings. If the non-resident parent is self-employed, or has other forms of income, we can take action through the courts. This firstly involves establishing a liability order—normally through the Magistrates Court. When that is established we can then deploy a range of alternative enforcement mechanisms, including:

Levying of distress involving the use of Bailiffs;

Establishing a third party debt order—allowing money owed to the debtor to be frozen and sent to us to cover the outstanding debt;

Establishing a charging order—registering the debt against certain assets owned by the debtor;

Registering a County Court judgement, which may affect the debtors credit rating;

Applying for a warrant to commit the debtor to prison or for an order preventing them from holding or obtaining a driving licence.

The process and subsequent actions vary slightly in Scotland.

In the last four years we have applied a deduction from earnings in the following number of cases. We do not hold reliable data prior to 1999/2000.

	Number
1999/2000	121,074
2000/2001	51,673
2001/2002	64,584
2002/2003	113,120

The table below shows the number of cases that were referred by caseworkers for further specialist enforcement action.

	Number
1999/2000	7,663
2000/2001	3,561
2001/2002	3,546
2002/2003	8,054

I hope this is helpful.

Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will take steps to amend Child Support Agency regulations to disregard from maintenance calculations the service overseas allowances paid to members of Her Majesty's Armed Forces. [157558]

Mr. Pond: No. Child Support regulations already provide that allowances which are exempt from tax, such as the Local Overseas Allowance, are disregarded for the purposes of maintenance calculations.

Funeral Payments

Sir Archy Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether funeral payments have been made to help with costs incurred of funerals arranged overseas since 1997. [157822]

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Mr. Pond: The information is not available.

Since 1997, people with the right to reside in the UK, under European Economic Community directives, may receive help for the cost of a funeral that takes place in the European economic area or Switzerland.

As long as the other conditions of entitlement are satisfied a funeral payment may be made equivalent to that which would have been paid if the funeral had taken

3 Mar 2004 : Column 1016W

place in the UK. The Department does not collect centrally information regarding the number of funeral payments made for funerals held outside the UK.

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