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Nuclear Weapons (Safety Arrangements)

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram): In 1992, the then Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Ronald Oxburgh, conducted a review of the safety of nuclear weapons. It was reported to Parliament House of Commons, 13 July 1992, Official Report, column 520, that he had recommended the inauguration of a safety "champion". A position entitled Nuclear Weapon Safety Adviser was subsequently created, and this has had two incumbents. More recently, further work has been done on safety management arrangements in the Department in general, and in the nuclear programmes in particular, to reflect policy and organisational developments. As a result, we have appointed a Nuclear Weapon Regulator to provide assurance about safety in the nuclear weapons programme. In so doing, it was recognised that the tasks of this official would be very similar to those of

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the Nuclear Weapon Safety Adviser, and it was decided that, when the regulator was ready to conduct business, the safety adviser post should close. This has recently occurred.

Regional Prime Contract (South-West)

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): Debut Services (South-West) Limited, a joint venture between Babcock International Group and Bovis Lend Lease, has been awarded the regional prime contract for the Ministry of Defence's estate in the south-west. This follows successful completion of the clarification phase.

The seven-year contract, worth in the order of £480 million, is the second in a series of five such arrangements covering the estate and will provide for capital works, property maintenance and facilities management services, throughout the south-west of England.

The MOD has undertaken to make significant improvements in the overall condition of its estate by changing its organisational structures and introducing prime contracting methods. Encouraging innovation and efficiency, Regional Prime Contracting is a key initiative that aims to provide a better quality of service and greater value for money through suitably incentivised contracts conforming to the principles of "Smart Acquisition".

WORK AND PENSIONS

Debt Management

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): I am today announcing that contracts have been signed with four private sector companies to provide debt collection services to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The contractors are Commercial Collections Services, Eversheds, Legal and Trade Collections and the Lewis Group.

The contractors will provide support with two categories of debt: benefit debt and commercial debt. They will act as recovery agents, earning commission on amounts recovered and passed to DWP. The ownership of the debt will remain with DWP at all times.

The contracts will offer support to our existing debt management operations rather than replacing or outsourcing them. There will be no job reductions in DWP as a result of this announcement. So DWP will continue to handle negotiation and civil enforcement of debts in-house. The cases transferred will be those where DWP has been unsuccessful.

The contractors will adhere to strict contractual controls on their behaviour and DWP will put robust contract management processes in place to ensure compliance. Contractors will also have to adhere to the codes of conduct of their own supervising bodies (e.g. the Credit Services Association or the Law Society) and also the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

Benefit debt includes overpaid benefits, where the overpayment is caused by customer error, and outstanding social fund loans. The debts transferred will be those where the debtor is not currently in receipt of a

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DWP benefit, they have refused to repay voluntarily and DWP has been unable to obtain full recovery. Each debtor will be given the opportunity to make an arrangement to repay their debt before their case is transferred to one of the contractors.

DWP has a number of categories of debts owed by commercial organisations including:

money owed by insurance companies by way of compensation for NHS costs following Road Traffic Accidents and repayment of Social Security benefits following compensation awards;

recoupment from employment tribunal awards—where employers are required to repay social security benefits paid to employees following, for example, unfair dismissal;

amount owed through contracts such as European social fund, training and general supplies.

As with benefit debt, the organisations owing money will be given the opportunity to make an arrangement to repay DWP before the case is transferred to the private sector for collection.

There are three main purposes to this exercise:

to reduce the debts outstanding to the Department;

to reinforce the message that debts have to be repaid, especially those that arose as a result of fraud;

to learn from the private sector and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of DWP's Debt Management organisation.

The contract will be for an initial two-year period to March 2006, with the possibility of extension. First cases will be transferred towards the end of April 2004 with each Contractor receiving an initial tranche of 50,000 cases. After this initial allocation there is no guarantee of additional cases being referred.

Business Plans

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith): I am today able to announce the 2004–05 annual performance targets for three of the executive agencies of the Department for Work and Pensions: Jobcentre Plus, Child Support Agency and Appeals Service. The targets I have agreed are set out below.

Further information on the plans of each of the businesses in 2004–05 is contained in their individual business plans which have been published today. Copies have been placed in the Library.

Performance targets for The Pension Service, Disability and Carers Service and The Rent Service, responsibility for which transfers to my Department from 1 April 2004, will be announced in due course.

In line with the Department's Public Service Agreement, I will also be publishing unit cost targets that will be set to ensure that Jobcentre Plus, Child Support Agency and The Pension Service continue to deliver business efficiently.

Jobcentre Plus:

Helping people into work ¹ : to achieve a total points score of 7,295,100 based on job entry outcomes.

Tackling fraud and error: by March 2005 to reduce losses from fraud and error in working age Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance to no more than 6.0 per cent. of the monetary value of these benefits paid during the year.

Helping employers fill their vacancies: to ensure that at least 84 per cent. of employers placing their vacancies with Jobcentre Plus will have a positive outcome.

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Business Delivery ² : to ensure processes are delivered efficiently, accurately and to specified standards in 89.6 per cent. of cases checked.

Serving our customers well: to achieve an 81 per cent. customer service level in the delivery of the standards set out in the Jobcentre Plus Customer and Employer Charters.

Child Support Agency:

All targets refer to new scheme cases.

Case compliance: by 31 March 2005 to be collecting child maintenance and/or arrears from 78 per cent. of all cases with a maintenance liability using the collection service.

Cash compliance: by 31 March 2005 to be collecting 75 per cent. of child maintenance and/or arrears due to be paid through the collection service.

Cash and case collection: to develop for introduction from 1 April 2005 individual targets for case and cash compliance to measure the collection of current maintenance separately from the collection of arrears.

Accuracy: by 31 March 2005 accuracy on the last decision made for all maintenance calculations checked in the year to be correct to the nearest penny in at least 90 per cent. of cases.

Customer perception: to develop and introduce a client perception target by October 2004.

Debt: to develop and introduce a debt reduction target by October 2004.

Appeals Service:

The average waiting time for an appeal to be heard will be no more than 11 weeks from the time of receipt by the Appeals Service ³

The number of cases over 20 weeks old as at 1 April 2004 will be reduced by at least 15 per cent. by 31 March 2005.

For cases returned by the Commissioner, the average waiting time for an appeal to be re-heard will be no more than eight weeks from the date of return to the Appeals Service ⁴ .

Notes

1. This target is measured by a points score system which focuses efforts and resources on helping into work people in priority groups such as lone parents, disabled people and those in the most disadvantaged areas. For each person that Jobcentre Plus places in work it will earn a point score ranging from 12 points for, for example, a lone parent, to one point for someone who is already employed.

2. This target measures standards of delivery of five key Jobcentre Plus business processes: Income Support accuracy, Jobseeker's Allowance accuracy, Incapacity Benefit accuracy, Labour Market Interventions, and attendance at an independent assessment to identify basic skills needs.

3. Excludes stayed cases awaiting decision in lead cases in a higher court (the effective date will commence from withdrawal of stay being notified).

4 . Excludes cases requiring further evidence.

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