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10 May 2004 : Column 138W—continued
Jobcentre Plus
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will place in the Library copies of the (a) disabled access audit of 1 Steephill Road, (b) consultation document dated June 2002 and list of recipients, (c) specification of requirements for a Jobcentre Plus centre, as issued to his property advisors and (d) responses received to (b) relating to the Jobcentre Plus roll-out in the Isle of Wight. [169170]
Jane Kennedy: The available information has been placed in the Library.
No responses were received to the consultation document dated June 2002.
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Mayor of London (Meetings)
Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on what dates he has held official meetings with the Mayor of London since July 2000; and what the subject of each meeting was. [171439]
Mr. Andrew Smith: Since July 2000, I have held no official meetings with the Mayor of London.
ME
John Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many ME sufferers were (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful in their applications for disability living allowance in the last 12 months. [171342]
Maria Eagle: For the year ending 30 November 2003, there were approximately 2,200 new awards for customers whose primary disabling condition is ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or other Post Viral conditions. Information on unsuccessful claims to Disability Living Allowance by sufferers of ME is not available. 1
1 When inputting an unsuccessful claim to the computer system from which these figures are drawn, a disability code, which highlights the main disabling condition, is not input.
Note:
Figures taken from 5 per cent, samples. Figures are in thousands and rounded to the nearest hundred. From November 2002, the methodology for producing these figures was changed to allow statistics to be published much sooner. This has resulted in a small increase in the reported caseload. This is because some cases which have actually terminated but have not yet been updated on the computer system are now included.
Source:
IAD Information Centre.
Pension Credit
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was spent on advertising the Pick it Up, It's Yours campaign in (a) national newspapers and (b) the regional and local press; and what the basis was for the decision on which publications would carry the advertisements. [170590]
Malcolm Wicks: The total cost of publicity for the Pick It Up It's Yours campaign in 2003–04 was £15,580,000. The cost for press advertising media was £6,086,146 which is broken down as follows:
| £ | |
|---|---|
| National press | 4,752,598 |
| Regional press | 1,308,352 |
| Other press | 25,196 |
The Department uses the Government's publicity agency COI Communications to buy media. Media are selected on the basis of the most cost effective method of reaching the target audience.
Mr. O'Hara: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of (a) single men, (b) single women and (c) couples are expected to be entitled to pension credit in October; and how many of these will be entitled to (i) guarantee credit alone, (ii) savings credit alone and (iii) both guarantee and savings credit. [170642]
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Malcolm Wicks: Estimates of the numbers of people eligible for pension credit, based on data from the Family Resources Survey for 2002–03, will be available later this month. The information will be placed in the Library.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether his Department advertises pension credit in any language other than English. [172004]
Malcolm Wicks: Pension credit advertising has appeared in the following languages other than English:
TV—Welsh
Radio—Gujarati, Punjabi, Cantonese and Hindi
Press—Welsh, Bengali, Cantonese, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu.
Pensions
Valerie Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if the Government will make changes to the current system to ensure that all women have access to a basic state pension in their own right. [170966]
Malcolm Wicks: All women have access to a state pension. They become entitled to a basic state pension by paying, being treated as paying or being credited with national insurance contributions. The amount of basic state pension will depend on the number of qualifying years built up before they reach state pension age.
However, additional policies such as home responsibilities protection exist to enable people to acquire a higher amount of basic state pension.
Property Disregards
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for what reason the rules relating to property disregards are different for pensioners moved from income support to pension credit. [169455]
Malcolm Wicks: It was always our intention that the capital disregards on second properties should be the same in all income-related benefits.
Currently in Income Support, the main property occupied as the home is ignored unless any part of it could be reasonably sold off separately. The value of any second property is normally taken into account, but there are a number of exceptions. In particular, the value of a second property which is occupied by someone who is aged 60 or over or incapacitated and who is a relative of the Income Support claimant or their partner is ignored.
We have recently discovered that due to an oversight, this rule was not carried forward into Pension Credit legislation when the principal regulations were drafted. This means that the disregard only applies if the occupier is a close relative of the Pension Credit claimant themselves. We will make the changes needed to the legislation to ensure that this is corrected at the earliest opportunity.
Meanwhile, we will be considering extra-statutory payments to anyone who has lost out.
Recruitment
Matthew Taylor:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the cost of recruitment of civil servants
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for the Department was in each financial year since 1996–97, broken down by (a) delegated or contracted out recruitment procedures and (b) recruitment procedures carried out by the Department. [158175]
Maria Eagle: The majority of external recruitment at all levels within DWP is carried out on a direct basis by the Department. However, for a small number of vacancies, particularly of a specialist or senior nature, the services of a recruitment agency may be used.
The information is not collected centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Social Security Advisory Committee
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he will publish the Quinquennial Review into the Social Security Advisory Committee. [171855]
Mr. Andrew Smith: The Quinquennial Review into the Social Security Advisory Committee will be published in the next two weeks.
Statutory Maternity Pay
Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many women have (a) requested and (b) received statutory maternity pay since its introduction; and if he will make a statement on the success of the take-up of this entitlement. [169297]
Mr. Pond [holding answer 29 April 2004]: The information is not available in the format requested.
Employers are not required to make returns on the numbers of women to whom they pay Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP). However, numbers are estimated from the returns employers make to the Inland Revenue for the SMP they recover.
Between 1987, when SMP was introduced, and 2001–02 it is estimated that approximately 4.1 million women have received SMP.
A recent survey found that 93 per cent. of eligible women received Statutory Maternity Pay.
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