Public Service Agreements
24. Several of our inquiries examined aspects of
the work of the Department which related to the Public Service
Agreement (PSA) targets for example our inquiries into the Health
and Safety Commission and Executive, Pension Credit and into Child
Poverty.
25. In March 1999, when the child poverty rate stood
at 4.2 million, the Prime Minister committed the Government to
eradicating child poverty within a generation. In the shorter
term, a target has been set to halve child poverty by 2010 and
reduce it by a quarter by 2004-05. The Committee undertook an
inquiry examining the effectiveness of the Government's anti-poverty
strategy based on concerns that the medium-term target poses a
particular challenge. We concluded that the Government's anti-poverty
strategy, based on welfare-to-work and aided by economic growth,
meant that the 2004-05 target would be met, but the 2010 target
is a serious challenge. Concerted action is recommended to increase
the employment opportunities for parents with disabilities; parents
of disabled children; minority ethnic parents; and lone parents.
We also recommended that the anti-poverty strategy needs to increase
the income levels of those who may not be able to work, through
increases in benefits and tax credit levels.
26. The Health and Safety inquiry concluded that
there was no realistic prospect of the Department achieving its
PSA targets for 2004 and that this lack of progress must inevitably
raise questions about the present system's capacity to secure
significant future improvements in standards of workplace health
and safety . [6]
27. One of the aims of the current Pension Credit
inquiry is to predict whether the Government will meet its PSA
targets of paying at least 3 million pensioner households by 2006
and 3.2 million by 2008. DWP says it is on track to meet its 2006
target.[7]
28. The Departmental Report one-off evidence session
examined the Department's performance against its PSA targets.
Following advice from the Committee at last year's Departmental
Report Session the DWP now illustrates how the PSA targets fit
into the Department's organisational structure. Particular attention
was paid in the questioning to the PSA targets for the CSA, Pensions
and employment rates for disadvantaged groups.
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