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Departmental Scheme Appraisal

8. Sandra Gidley (Romsey) (LD): If he will make a statement on how the new appraisal scheme is intended to help motivate staff, improve efficiency and improve performance in the Department. [181894]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith): The new scheme has a number of features to motivate staff, including clear work objectives, regular feedback on performance and a strong focus on personal development. It will help to improve efficiency and performance by more rigorously identifying and rewarding different levels of contribution by staff, which has been shown to work successfully in the public and private sectors.

Sandra Gidley: The Secretary of State will be aware that 50 per cent. of staff at the Department who are at a predetermined level will be rated "poor", and that only 10 per cent. can be rated "excellent". Under the previous scheme, 30 per cent. of staff were rated "excellent". As 97 per cent. of staff voted against the proposal, does he agree that it is unhelpful for the public to have to deal with demotivated staff, and will he think again about this proposal?

Mr. Smith: I do not accept the hon. Lady's categorisation of the proportion of staff who would be rated "poor", or the other figure that she mentions. However, we do recognise the concerns expressed by our staff, and we will undertake a continuous improvement review of the new system over the summer, following the end of the appraisal round. We have invited our trade unions to contribute and I hope that they will do so, so that together we can continue to drive up performance, staff have a more rewarding job, our customers get a better service and we give the taxpayer better value for money.

Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab): Let me take up the concerns of staff and my right hon. Friend's concern for them. According to figures issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister two weeks ago, the Breckfield ward in my constituency is the most deprived area in the country and the epicentre of what the Treasury describes as the biggest poverty cluster in the country. However, last week I was given to understand that there was a strong probability that the pension centre, which is the single employer of note in the area,
 
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will be closed—scrapped and gone—in the name of efficiency. Some 316 people face the prospect of the scrapheap unless alternatives are found for them. I have spoken briefly to my right hon. Friend about the matter, but what guarantees can he give loyal staff in an area of high unemployment and high need? Under the aegis of the Government's stated intention to relocate jobs from Whitehall to the regions, and bearing in mind the fact that his is the Department of Work and Pensions, what does he intend to do to ensure that those people do not lose their livelihoods?

Mr. Smith: I acknowledge my hon. Friend's dedication to the needs of his constituents and I appreciate how difficult this news was. As he said, we spoke at the time of the announcement. When the number of centres has to be reduced—as it must—it is never easy for management to decide where it is to happen. The decision was the product of a careful review, although that will come as little consolation to those who face the possibility of losing their jobs. I would be pleased to meet my hon. Friend further to discuss how we can move forward, but, as I said to him before, no effort will be spared to try to find those members of staff alternative jobs, whether by way of redeployment in the DWP or elsewhere. With the movement of jobs out of the south-east, following the work of the Lyons review, we are considering destinations for those jobs in areas such as the ward he describes. I shall work closely with him, other local Members of Parliament and the local authorities to do everything we can to ensure that the closure of the pension centre does not mean that those people face a life without work.

Mr. David Willetts (Havant) (Con): I have been looking at the Department's annual report on its performance, and I draw the Secretary of State's attention to page 133—"Managing Attendance". Will he confirm that his Department had a target for sickness absenteeism in 2003 of eight working days lost per person per year? Will he further confirm that in reality 12.7 days were lost per person in 2003? Why was the performance so far below the target, and why should we believe anything that the Government say about efficiency savings when they cannot deliver such an elementary objective?

Mr. Smith: As the hon. Gentleman will know from previous exchanges, we recognise that the sickness absence rate is not good enough and that further progress must be made to hit the target. None of us expects taxpayers to subsidise a higher rate of sickness absence in the public sector. We have taken several steps, including making it clear to managers that sickness absence must be managed downwards, both by tackling its causes by improving occupational health in the workplace and by taking tough action against those who abuse the system. We have introduced mandatory return-to-work interviews and tighter disciplinary procedures and we are looking further at evidence of best practice and what works effectively in other businesses.

Social Fund

9. Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): How many of the families who have qualified for child tax credits have as a consequence been removed from
 
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access to the qualifying benefits which would make them eligible for consideration for discretionary grants or loans under the social fund. [181895]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): We estimate that fewer than 50,000 families will be moved off benefits that would have qualified them for consideration for a social fund budgeting loan or community care grant. The vast majority of those families stand to gain substantially from that change, many by more than £20 a week, and will continue to have access to crisis loans and elements of the regulated social fund.

Mr. Barnes: To be considered for a discretionary grant or loan under the social fund, families have to be in receipt of a qualifying benefit, such as income support, but have not child tax credit payments moved some needy families out of that qualifying regime? Will that not get worse when the child benefit element is migrated into child tax credit later this year? Can we not get round the problem by making maximum child tax credit payments a qualifying benefit as well?

Mr. Pond: My hon. Friend will understand that we want the discretionary social fund to be focused on those who need it most, which normally means those on income support, but we shall continue to look at ways of improving the social fund and access to it, in the context of wider changes in its operation.

Disability Living Allowance

11. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab): How many people were receiving disability living allowance in (a) the east midlands and (b) England and Wales in (i) 1990, (ii) 1997 and (iii) 2004; and how many of them were registered as unemployed in each year. [181897]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): The requested information for 1990 is not available because disability living allowance was not introduced until 1992. As at 28 February 2004, the latest date for which information is available, about 2.2 million severely disabled adults and children in England and Wales were receiving disability living allowance, 10,400 of whom were also receiving a jobseeker's allowance. In the east midlands, about 185,000 severely disabled adults and children were receiving disability living allowance, 900 of whom were also receiving a jobseeker's allowance.

In 1997, just over 1.5 million severely disabled adults and children in England and Wales were receiving disability living allowance, 10,800 of whom were also receiving a jobseeker's allowance. In the east midlands, about 126,000 severely disabled adults and children were receiving disability living allowance, 1,100 of whom were also receiving a jobseeker's allowance.

David Taylor: When last in power, the Conservatives were shameless in manipulating unemployment figures by shunting the jobless on to other benefits. Now their media acolytes and indeed, earlier, the hon. Member for
 
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Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), who is no longer in the Chamber, level the same charge against the Government. Can the Minister comprehensively strangle that canard and summarise any policy changes since 1997, either in the way that unemployment figures are calculated or in eligibility for DLA or incapacity benefit?

Maria Eagle: I am not sure that I know how to strangle a canard, never mind comprehensively, but perhaps I can attempt to explode a myth. Indeed, the figures from the constituency of my hon. Friend actually   do that. In North-West Leicestershire, JSA unemployment is down by 55 per cent., employment in that region of the east midlands is up by 104,000 and about 84 per cent. of his working-age constituents are in work. We have seen a fall in the number of people on JSA and an increase in the number in work, and a small increase in his constituency in the number of people on incapacity benefit. That explodes the myth—I am not sure what to do about strangling canards.

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