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14 Dec 2005 : Column 1993W—continued

Office for Disability Issues

Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 11 November 2005, Official Report, column 798W, on the Office for Disability Issues, what criteria his Department uses to decide whether a consultation will be (a) an informal exercise and (b) a formal consultation; in which circumstances each are used; for what reasons his Department decided the consultation on the establishment of the Office for Disability Issues would be an informal exercise; and how his Department communicates to relevant individuals and organisations the status of a consultation. [32551]

Mrs. McGuire: All Government Departments follow the Cabinet Office Guidelines on consultation. These guidelines clearly state how Departments should run formal consultations and are available in the Library (Cabinet Office Guidance on Consultations). However
 
14 Dec 2005 : Column 1994W
 
as this was an informal consultation and involved no change to either statute or regulations, the formal guidance was not applicable.

We were determined to ensure as many disabled people as possible could engage with us, and through the informal consultation we had many opportunities to engage, through regional consultation events, leaflets, intensive calls to disability organisations, signposts on local authority, Disability Rights Commission, Disability Now and You able websites and press advertising. We offered people the opportunity to express views by e-mail, in writing, by telephone, in various languages including Welsh and Braille and had copies of the consultation available in easy read and audiotape. We employed an external research company to ensure all responses were treated fairly and in unbiased fashion.

Pathways to Work

Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of Pathway to Work participants have moved into jobs in each of the pilot areas. [17608]

Margaret Hodge [holding answer 17 October 2005]: The information is not available in the format requested because we only know about Jobcentre Plus and, NDDP job broker job entries. We also have information on return to work credit awards. However, we can provide information on job entries recorded through these channels and this is provided in the following table. The total number of job entries that actually occur will be higher than this as there will be a significant number of benefit leavers that have found jobs that were not the result of a direct intervention from Jobcentre Plus. The job entry proportion, as shown in the table, is an under-estimate of the true underlying job entry rate due to the fact that more recent cases will have had less time to find a job.

	All customers			Customers attending initial eight week WFI			Customers starting on Choices programme
District	Total	Number with job entry	Proportion with job entry (percentage)	Total	Number with job entry	Proportion with job entry (percentage)	Total	Number with job entry	Proportion with job entry (percentage)
Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, Argyll and Bute	16,970	2,960	17	5,780	1,190	21	2,560	1,050	41
Gateshead and South Tyneside	12,170	1,510	12	3,660	470	13	1,640	570	35
East Lancashire	15,200	2,030	13	5,350	780	15	1,670	560	34
Bridgend and Rhondda, Cynon, Taf	18,420	3,040	17	6,070	1,030	17	3,140	1,540	49
Derbyshire	27,040	3,320	12	7,610	1,300	17	3,120	970	31
Essex	25,660	1,910	7	6,900	720	10	2,230	560	25
Somerset	9,490	1,270	13	2,720	450	17	1,330	580	44
Total	124,950	16,040	13	38,090	5,940	16	15,690	5,830	37

Notes:
1. Participants are defined as anyone who has contacted Jobcentre Plus about making a claim for incapacity benefits plus those existing claimants who have volunteered to participate.
2. Job entrants include all recorded job entries plus return to work credit awards for which no job entry is yet recorded.
3. Data are to the end of August 2005.
4. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.

Figures are presented for all customers entering the pilot, those customers who attend the initial work focused interview after eight weeks and those customers taking up an element of the choices package. All customers making a claim to incapacity benefit in the pilot districts are defined as participants as they are
 
14 Dec 2005 : Column 1995W
 
subject to the Pathways to Work regime. However a significant proportion of customers leave benefit early stages of the claim and therefore do not attend the initial work focused interview where the full range of support is explained.

Geraldine Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the Pathways to Work pilots currently in operation. [37308]

Margaret Hodge: The Pathways to Work pilots are operating in 11 areas.

The first three started operating in October 2003 and are in Bridgend, Renfrewshire and Derbyshire.

Further pilots in Gateshead and South Tyneside; Somerset; Essex and East Lancashire started in April 2004. Four more pilot areas were rolled out in October 2005 in Glasgow, Cumbria, Lancashire West, and Tees Valley.

A further 10 pilots in Durham, Lanarkshire and East Dunbarton, Staffordshire, Barnsley and Rotherham (to be merged with Doncaster), Manchester (to be merged with Salford and Trafford), Greater Mersey, Liverpool (to be merged with Wirral), Eastern Valleys, Swansea Bay (to be merged with West Wales), and City of Sunderland will roll-out in 2006.
 
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Pensioner Poverty

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of pensioners were living in absolute poverty in each region of the UK in each of the last 30 years. [36911]

Mr. Timms [holding answer 12 December 2005]: The seventh annual 'Opportunity for all' report (Cm 6673) sets out the Government's strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion and reports progress against a range of indicators. Detailed information about the number and proportion of pensioners living in low income households for Great Britain is available in Households Below Average Income (HBAI) 1994–95–2003–04", available in the Library.

Robust figures on pensioners in low income, broken down by region, for each of the last 30 years are not available. Three-year rolled averages for the number and proportion of pensioners in absolute low income are available for the Government office regions, Scotland and Wales from 1994–95. These are set out in the following tables. Equivalent data is not available for Northern Ireland, as the necessary information has only been collected for two financial years.

An individual in absolute low income is defined as someone living in a household with income below 60 per cent. of 1996–97 median income, adjusted for inflation.
Number of pensioners in absolute low income (millions)

	Three-year rolling averages
	1994–95 to 1996–97	1995–96 to 1997–98	1996–97 to 1998–99	1997–98 to 1999–2000	1998–99 to 2000–2001	1999–2000 to 2001–02	2000–01 to 2002–03	2001–02 to 2003–04
Before housing costs
North East	0.12	0.11	0.10	0.09	0.09	0.07	0.06	0.04
North West and Merseyside	0.30	0.28	0.27	0.26	0.23	0.20	0.18	0.16
Yorkshire and Humberside	0.24	0.23	0.21	0.20	0.18	0.15	0.12	0.11
East Midlands	0.18	0.19	0.18	0.18	0.16	0.15	0.14	0.12
West Midlands	0.21	0.22	0.22	0.20	0.19	0.17	0.16	0.15
Eastern	0.25	0.21	0.20	0.20	0.19	0.17	0.14	0.12
London	0.20	0.20	0.19	0.17	0.16	0.15	0.13	0.12
South East	0.29	0.28	0.27	0.26	0.24	0.22	0.19	0.17
South West	0.24	0.24	0.23	0.22	0.19	0.17	0.15	0.13
Wales	0.15	0.14	0.13	0.12	0.11	0.09	0.07	0.07
Scotland	0.23	0.21	0.18	0.16	0.15	0.13	0.10	0.09

Source:
Family Resources Survey





Number of pensioners in absolute low income (millions)

	Three-year rolling averages
	1994–95 to 1996–97	1995–96 to 1997–98	1996–97 to 1998–99	1997–98 to 1999–2000	1998–99 to 2000–2001	1999–2000 to 2001–02	2000–01 to 2002–03	2001–02 to 2003–04
After housing costs
North East	0.16	0.15	0.13	0.11	0.09	0.07	0.05	0.04
North West and Merseyside	0.35	0.33	0.31	0.27	0.22	0.17	0.14	0.12
Yorkshire and Humberside	0.29	0.27	0.25	0.22	0.18	0.14	0.11	0.08
East Midlands	0.21	0.21	0.19	0.18	0.16	0.13	0.12	0.10
West Midlands	0.25	0.26	0.24	0.21	0.18	0.15	0.13	0.11
Eastern	0.32	0.26	0.25	0.23	0.21	0.15	0.12	0.10
London	0.33	0.31	0.29	0.27	0.23	0.19	0.14	0.12
South East	0.38	0.35	0.32	0.31	0.26	0.22	0.17	0.15
South West	0.28	0.29	0.26	0.23	0.19	0.15	0.12	0.09
Wales	0.16	0.15	0.13	0.12	0.10	0.08	0.06	0.05
Scotland	0.28	0.26	0.23	0.20	0.17	0.13	0.10	0.08

Source:
Family Resources Survey
The following table gives the percentage of pensioners living in absolute low income
for Scotland, Wales and Government office regions.




 
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Percentage of pensioners in absolute low income (percentage)

	Three-year rolling averages
	1994–95 to 1996–97	1995–96 to 1997–98	1996–97 to 1998–99	1997–98 to 1999–2000	1998–99 to 2000–2001	1999–2000 to 2001–02	2000–01 to 2002–03	2001–02 to 2003–04
Before housing costs
North East	26	23	21	20	20	15	12	9
North West and Merseyside	25	23	23	22	19	16	15	13
Yorkshire and Humberside	28	26	24	23	20	17	14	12
East Midlands	26	26	25	24	22	20	19	16
West Midlands	26	25	23	21	20	18	17	15
Eastern	24	22	22	21	20	17	14	12
London	20	19	18	17	15	14	13	12
South East	21	20	18	18	17	15	13	12
South West	24	25	23	22	19	17	15	12
Wales	27	25	23	22	19	16	13	12
Scotland	27	24	21	19	14	14	12	10
After housing costs
North East	35	32	28	24	20	15	10	8
North West and Merseyside	29	28	26	23	19	14	11	10
Yorkshire and Humberside	33	31	28	25	21	16	12	9
East Midlands	29	29	27	24	21	17	16	13
West Midlands	31	29	26	23	20	16	14	11
Eastern	31	28	27	24	22	16	12	10
London	32	30	28	26	23	19	14	12
South East	27	25	23	22	18	15	12	10
South West	29	29	26	24	19	15	12	9
Wales	28	27	24	22	18	15	11	9
Scotland	32	29	26	23	19	15	11	9

Note:
1.Figures are provided using a three-year rolled average, as single-year estimates do not provide a robust guide to year-on-year changes. Figures are therefore not same as previously published single-year estimates.
2. Tables show numbers in millions and rounded to the nearest 10,000.
Source:
Family Resources Survey

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