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23 Jan 2006 : Column 1822W—continued

Economic Inactivity

Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Workand Pensions if he will make a statement on the recent level of economic inactivity among young people. [38521]

Margaret Hodge: Since 1997 the proportion of the total population aged 16–24 not in full-time education or work has gone down. Without this improvement the number of jobless young people not in full-time education would be 50,000 higher than it is now.
 
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This reflects the success of the New Deal, which has helped in virtually eradicating long-term youth unemployment.

Ethnic Minorities

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made in encouraging ethnic minority recruitment within his Department. [33512]

Mrs. McGuire [holding answer 5 December 2005]: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is constantly working to attract applicants from all areas of society when recruiting staff.

Between 2003–04 and 2004–05 the success rate of job applicants from minority ethnic groups increased from 14.2 per cent. to 19.3 per cent.
 
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Following a continuous improvement review by an external HR consultancy, DWP has produced further good practice guidelines for all its recruiting teams to ensure that they recruit from as wide a range of people as possible.

Incapacity Benefit

Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what percentage of recipients of incapacity benefit are incapacitated as a result of (a) physical disabilities or injuries, (b) stress, depression and other mental health problems and (c) drug or alcohol dependency. [35313]

Mrs. McGuire: The information is not available in the format requested. There is no specific group of diagnoses that covers physical disabilities or injuries. Stress, depression and other mental health problems all fall within the mental and behavioural disorders group of diagnoses, as do drug abuse and alcoholism.

The available information is in the following table.
Incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance claimants, by diagnosis group, at 31 May 2005.

	Number of IB/SDA claimants	Percentage of all diagnoses
All cases	2,784,000	100.0
Certain infectious and parasitic diseases	21,000	0.8
Neoplasms	39,900	1.4
Diseases of the blood and blood forming organs and certain diseases involving the immune mechanism	4,500	0.2
Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases	39,700	1.4
Mental and behavioural disorders	1,086,100	39.0
of which:
Alcoholism	48,000	1.7
Drug abuse	48,300	1.7
Diseases of the nervous system	166,300	6.0
Diseases of the eye and adnexa	19,700	0.7
Diseases of the ear and mastoid process	12,100	0.4
Diseases of the circulatory system	168,900	6.1
Diseases of the respiratory system	65,600	2.4
Diseases of the digestive system	43,300	1.6
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous system	16,900	0.6
Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue	524,300	18.8
Diseases of the genitourinary system	19,800	0.7
Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium	4,700	0.2
Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period	—	—
Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities	25,200	0.9
Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified	331,400	11.9
Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes	157,500	5.7
Factors influencing health status and contact with health services	37,100	1.3

Notes:
1.Figures rounded to the nearest 100.
2.'Claimant' figures include all incapacity benefit (IB) and severe disability allowance (SDA), including IB credits-only cases.
3.Figures for the years 1997 to 1999 have been produced using the 5 per cent. data and have been rated up proportionally using the Great Britain WPLS 100 per cent. IB/SDA totals.
4.Diagnoses are taken from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10).
Source:
DWP Information Directorate, Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS) 100 per cent. data.

Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the role of (a) national and (b) local voluntary organisations in partnership programmes with government agencies to support incapacity benefit recipients in gaining employment. [43141]

Margaret Hodge: We have always used voluntary and local organisations to work in partnership to deliver employment support to our customers. We intend to continue to do so in the future. The voluntary sector has a vital contribution to make in providing effective support to individuals so that they can move closer to the labour market and find a job.

Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many recipients of incapacity benefit have been in receipt of the benefit for (a) less than one year, (b) between one and two years, (c) between two and three years, (d) between three and four years, (e) between four and five years and (f) more than five years. [44951]

 
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Mrs. McGuire: I refer the hon. Member to the written answer my hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform gave on 8 November 2005, Official Report, column 374W to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins).

Jobcentre Plus

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 12 December 2005, Official Report, column 1774W, on Jobcentre Plus, if he will carry out a sample survey of calls from warm phones; and whether calls from a warm phone can (a) receive an engaged tone and (b) be put into a queue to be answered. [41850]

Margaret Hodge: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. She will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Lesley Strathie, dated 23 January 2006:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question pursuant to the answer of 12 December 2005 on Jobcentre Plus, concerning if he will carry out a sample survey of calls from warm phones; and whether calls from a warm phone can receive (a) an engaged tone and (b) be put into a queue to be answered. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.

Calls made from warm phones to Jobcentre Plus contact centres cannot receive an engaged tone, however they can be put into a queue for the call to be answered by an agent.

After consideration, Jobcentre Plus has decided not to undertake a sample of calls from warm phones. Our call handling performance has improved significantly over recent months and to undertake such an exercise would not deliver sufficient benefit from the cost incurred.

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the cost has been of creating Jobcentre Plus offices in each year since 2001–02; and what the estimated costs are for each year to 2007–08. [42766]

Margaret Hodge: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. She will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Lesley Strathie, dated 23 January 2006:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question concerning the cost of creating Jobcentre Plus offices in each year since 2001–02 and the estimated costs for each year to 2007–08. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

The creation of the Jobcentre Plus network of newly designed offices began in 2001 with a number of Pathfinder offices. This phase was followed by the set up of a project in 2002 to rollout the new designs and infrastructure.

In answer to your specific question, the overall cost of creating Jobcentre Plus offices over the period is broken down as follows:

	Expenditure (£ million)
2001–02(49)	36.7
2002–03(49)	259.6
2003–04(49)	450.6
2004–05(49)	384.1
2005–06(50)	626.5
2006–07(50)	283.3
2007–08(50)	5.4
Total	2,046.2

⁽⁴⁹⁾Actual
⁽⁵⁰⁾Forecast



 
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I hope this is helpful.

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