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17 Nov 2004 : Column 1652W—continued
Books (Reading Disabilities)
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if the Government will convene a task force to formulate a national plan to increase the proportion of book titles made accessible to people with reading disabilities. [197844]
Maria Eagle: The Government are committed to improving opportunities for disabled people, including those with visual impairments, to participate more fully in society. To this end we have significantly extended and improved civil rights for disabled people and will achieve further improvements through measures in the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill.
In addition to these measures, the Government are developing and implementing policies to assist visually impaired people to have improved access to reading materials. For example, the Department for Trade and Industry is currently working with The Publishers Association in conjunction with the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the National Library for the Blind and the Copyright Licensing Agency, to develop a pilot scheme to make texts available electronically to visually impaired people's organisations via a central repository. We have no plans to convene a task force to formulate a national plan to increase the proportion of titles made accessible to visually impaired people.
Child Support Agency
Mr. Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many change requests have been made by Ministers in relation to the CS2 computer system; and on what dates those change requests were issued. [195820]
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.
Letter from Mike Isaac to Mr. Paul Goodman, dated 17 November 2004:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As he is currently on leave I am replying on his behalf.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many change requests have been made by Ministers in relation to the CS2 computer system and on what dates those change requests were issued.
Change requests are made by the Agency not Ministers. The process for notifying EDS of any elements of the system that do not fully enable us to meet the original policy requirements involves making a "request for change'—this does not necessarily mean that a change to the underlying requirement has taken place. The change is commonly a defect discovered during testing or live operation. Since December 2002 we have agreed with EDS that 55 items constitute a change from the original requirement.
Mr. Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the reasons were for each change request made by Ministers in relation to the CS2 computer system. [195822]
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.
17 Nov 2004 : Column 1653W
Letter from Mike Isaac to Mr. Paul Goodman, dated 16 November 2004:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As he is currently on leave I am replying on his behalf.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the reasons were for each change request made by Ministers in relation to the CS2 computer system.
The change requests are all things that provide real business benefits. They improve the degree of support that the system provides to our staff and to our service customers. A copy of the annex for the current list of agreed change requests has been placed in the Library.
Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his written ministerial statement of 28 October 2004, Official Report, columns 55–57WS, on the new child support scheme progress report, what time has been invested in extra training following the Child Support Agency (CSA) decision to prioritise activity on compliance; in how many cases payments are being made under the new child support scheme; what percentage this represents of the estimated cases eligible for treatment under the new child support scheme; on how many occasions EDS has been in breach of its contractual obligations to the Government with respect to the CSA contract; on how many occasions EDS has triggered contractual penalty clauses; and what total amount is due in terms of the same. [196266]
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.
Letter from Mike Isaac to Ms Annabelle Ewing, dated 17 November 2004:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive. As he is currently on leave I am replying on his behalf.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Ministerial Statement of 28th October Official Report columns 55–57WS on the new child support scheme progress report what time has been invested in extra training following the Child Support Agency (CSA) decision to prioritise activity on compliance; in how many cases payments are being made under the new child support scheme and what percentage this represents of the estimated cases eligible for treatment under the new child support scheme; on how many occasions EDS has been in breach of its contractual obligations to the Government with respect to the CSA contract; and on how many occasions EDS has triggered contractual penalty clauses and what total amount is due in terms of the same.
To date new training has been delivered to 1,110 front-line staff. This equates to 9,239 training days. Residual training for a further 271 staff (absorbing 2,041 training days) is planned for the next quarter.
In September 2004 around 53,000 cases had payments made on them. This includes 6,000 cases in which the parent with care and non-resident parent have made their own arrangements for payment. This represents 57% of those cases on which maintenance was due (including those cases in which maintenance was paid direct) or 54% of those cases (where maintenance direct was excluded).
Rather than "penalty clauses", the CSR contract sets out the obligations required of EDS and the actions that the Department may take if these obligations are breached. Where EDS performance is unsatisfactory, the Department is entitled to remedies, via the contract, based on a pre-estimate of business impact. Between 3rd March 2003 and 19th September 2004, EDS were paid £62.08 million in service charges. In that period the Agency retained £12.1 million because of the system's performance problems.
Ultimately, the Department has further legal rights under the contract. However, as part of an ongoing programme of remediation, EDS has made a number of improvements to the CSR IT system. Rather than simply considering potential contract remedies, the Department has continued to work with EDS aiming to ensure that IT services match business needs. The impact on the contract is subject to continuing commercial discussions.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions under what circumstances the Child Support Agency may act as a creditor when a company has become insolvent and is holding deductions of earnings from an employee which should have been forwarded to the Agency. [197972]
Mr. Pond: Where a non-resident parent has had money deducted from earnings but the employer has not paid it to the Child Support Agency, those monies remain part of the non-resident parent's wages until the Agency receives them.
Civil Service Job Losses
Mr. Best: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent assessment he has made of the number of civil service jobs that will be lost in his Department in (a) Yorkshire, (b) Leeds and (c) Leeds North West as a result of his Department's reorganisation. [197419]
Maria Eagle: Detailed operational and staffing plans continue to be developed. It is therefore too early to say what the precise effect will be on the number of departmental jobs in Yorkshire or Leeds.
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