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Compensation Agency
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. John Spellar): The compensation agency will publish today its corporate plan for 2004–07 and business plan for 2004–05. I have set the agency the following key performance targets for 2004–05:
Claims under the Criminal Damage (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977
1. Maintain average time taken to reach decisions at 18 weeks for claims received from 1 April 2004.
2. Reduce by 85 per cent. the number of claims in hand at 31st March 2004 on which no decision has been reached; and
3.* Process claims under the Criminal Damage and Terrorism Act schemes at a combined average unit cost of £310.
Claims under the Terrorism Act 2000
4. Reach decisions on claims in 70 days for claims received from 1st April 2004;
5. Reduce by 90 per cent. the number of claims in hand at 31st March 2004 on which no decision has been reached; and
3.* Process claims under the Criminal Damage and Terrorism Act schemes at the combined average unit cost of £310.
* This unit cost target relates to claims under the Criminal Damage and Terrorism Act schemes. The work involved in processing these claims is carried out in a single organisational unit within the agency so the efficiency of this element of the agency's operations is measured by reference to a combined unit cost target.
Claims under Criminal Injuries (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1988
6. Reduce by 45 per cent. the number of claims in hand at 31st March 2004.
Claims under the Criminal Injuries Compensation (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 (Tariff)
7. Decide 50 per cent. of all applications within twelve months of receiving the application.
8. Reach decisions on applications at an average unit cost of £280.
Compliance with Legislation/Standards of Adjudication— All Schemes
9. The agency's standards of adjudication are appropriate; which will be confirmed by the Department's internal audit branch through random sampling of claims.
10. Manage the workload in 2004–05 within a running costs budget (to cover salaries and administrative expenditure) to financial limits agreed with the Department (including in-year adjustments).
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Green Belt Statistics
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): On 29 March this year I announced the release of new statistics on the change in the amount of green belt in England between 1997 and 2003. This showed an increase of around 25,000 hectares in the amount of green belt identified in adopted local and unitary development plans.
It was subsequently pointed out to me that the published figures contained errors, notably a significant transcription error effecting Bolsover's figure for 2003 and minor errors for three other authorities. Correcting for these errors meant that the correct figure for the increase in Green Belt in England between 1997 and 2003 should have been around 19,000 hectares and not the 25,000 figure published in March.
I apologised to the House for these errors during the town planning debate on 26 May and said that I had publicised the 19,000 hectares figure in my reply on 10 May to a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). However, I assured the House during the Town Planning debate that further work was being carried out on checking the figures to ensure that they are robust. This involved an independent internal audit of how the statistics were compiled and confirmation by local authorities that the change recorded for their areas was correct.
I am pleased to tell the house that the internal audit did not find any further errors and that only minor revisions have been made as a consequence of consulting with local authorities. The statistical release with the corrected figures has been reissued today and copies are available in the Libraries of both Houses. The re-issued statistics confirm the earlier estimate of a net increase of around 19,000 hectares in the extent of green belt in England between 1997 and 2003.
I apologise to the House for the errors in the first place and on the length of time it has taken to re-issue the correct statistics.
Planning Fees Consultation
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): In my statement to the House of Commons on 20 January 2004, Official Report, column 55WS, on publication of "The Planning Service: Costs and Fees", I said that that research would be followed up with full consultation on bringing further resource into the planning service.
I have today issued a consultation document, "Changes to the System of Planning Fees in England". This sets out in detail our proposals to improve the resourcing of planning so that it can deliver better services to the community and to business.
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The proposals include raising planning fees by an average of 17 per cent. This is intended to help authorities recover more of the costs of handling planning applications. In many cases, especially for the larger applications, the current fee falls far short of the handling costs.
The increases are designed to fall differentially on applicants. For example a small business which acquired a new property and needed to apply for a change of use permission would see a fee increase from £220 to £240. Major developers and larger applicants will be asked to pay more—the maximum fee for a major development will rise from £11,000 to £28,000.
I am also consulting on the introduction of a performance relationship, the first time this has happened in relation to fees increases. Those authorities that meet Government targets for handling major applications will be allowed to increase the application fee they charge by up to 10 per cent. to help them meet more of the costs of handling these large and often complex applications. This will encourage authorities to work harder to meet our targets. Authorities that offer the facility for applications to be made online will also have the option to reduce those fees to encourage the submission of online applications and greater efficiency in the system.
In all, the proposed increases are expected to raise around £30 million for the planning service. Next year we will also be considering the need to look at widening the scope of planning fees, and the need for further regular increases in fees to ensure that costs in providing a planning service are being fully covered. In the meantime, I consider that the rises proposed are a sensible increase, which together with the continuing planning delivery grant, is helping to provide sustained and much-needed resource to improve planning services.
The document is available on the ODPM website copies are also available in the Libraries of both Houses. The consultation period ends on 6 December.
Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders and Elected Regional Assemblies
The Minister for Local and Regional Government (Mr. Nick Raynsford): The Government intend to pass responsibility for housing market renewal pathfinders to elected regional assemblies, in those regions that vote for them. The first region to hold a referendum over an elected regional assembly will be the north-east and the referendum will be on 4 November 2004. Housing market renewal pathfinders are responsible for tackling low housing demand and we think that this responsibility would sit well with elected assemblies' strategic housing powers. My right hon. Friend Lord Rooker will be writing shortly to the Chairs of the housing market renewal pathfinders so that we can take into account their views.
DEFENCE
Suez Canal Zone Medal/Ministry of Defence Medal Office
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin):
During defence questions on 19 July 2004, I gave an undertaking to the House to
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make a statement about progress made during the summer in the issuing of the Canal zone medal to Suez veterans.
As at the week ending 10 September 2004, 41,314 applications had been received and acknowledged, and 14,761 medals dispatched. The Royal Navy is now assessing applications as they are received (5 February 2004 as at 19 July 2004), the Royal Air Force is assessing applications received on 30 December 2003 (26 November as at 19 July), and although the army medal office is still assessing applications from 31 October 2003, this is due to some 4,300 applications being received during that week. This peak in applications, which occurred following my statement to the House on 23 October, is nearly cleared and the assessment of applications received during November will begin very shortly.
While this significant army backlog remains, a number of measures implemented by the joint personnel administration team responsible for setting up the MOD medal office at RAF Innsworth are already bringing tangible benefits. A new medal laser engraving facility has recently been installed at Innsworth. This is currently being used solely to engrave Iraq medals and over 6,000 have been produced during its first four weeks of operation. This has allowed the engraving facility at the army medal office to concentrate its efforts on the Suez Canal zone medal and as a result, the engraving backlog of some 1,800 medals has been cleared during the last month. Improvements to the information systems used by the army medal office, the facility to work overtime and the diversion of staff to Suez Canal zone medal processing are helping to improve matters further. These measures, coupled with the concerted efforts of army medal office staff have brought about an increase of approximately 30 per cent. in the army assessment rate during recent weeks.
This increase in output has resulted in an average of some one hundred and twenty more applications per week being assessed since July.
I can also announce that with effect from 1 October 2004 the armed forces personnel administration agency will assume full responsibility for the management of medal output, target setting and performance monitoring. This will allow many of the benefits of a single MOD medal office, such as common procedures based on single Service best practice, to be introduced prior to its actual formation date next spring.
Following these initial changes, I now anticipate that the backlog should be cleared by January 2006 and I hope this can continue to be improved upon. I should like to pay tribute to the staff of the single service medal offices for their part in bringing about this improvement.
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