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11 May 2006 : Column 496W—continued
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Child Support Agency (CSA) quarterly statistical summary published on 27th April what assessment he has made of the reasons for the reduction in the old scheme CSA caseload by 42,000 cases between March 2005 and March 2006.
As noted in Table 1 of the Agency's Quarterly Summary Statistics (QSS), the old scheme caseload reduced from 965,000 in March 2005 to 923,000 in March 2006. There are three reasons for this fall:
i. Some cases will have been closed or withdrawn either at the request of the parent with care or because the youngest child in a case has reached an age at which he or she no longer qualifies for child support, and any outstanding arrears on that case have been paid by the non-resident parent.
ii. Some cases will have had relevant links to new schema cases and been reactively converted onto the new scheme during the period in question.
iii. The old scheme no longer has any intake-any new applications received by the Agency from 3rd March 2003 onwards are treated as new scheme applications.
The above means that the old scheme caseload can be expected to reduce steadily over time. It should be noted that the Agency's new scheme caseload increased by 144,000 over the same period, from 452,000 to 596,000.
Natascha Engel: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when a decision will be made to move existing Child Support Agency cases from the old scheme to the new scheme. [68450]
Mr. Plaskitt: We have always said that we could not consider transferring the bulk of the old scheme caseload onto the new scheme until the new scheme was working well.
We have asked Sir David Henshaw to consider this issue as part of his redesign of the child support scheme. Sir David Henshaw has been asked to deliver his findings to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Hutton) before the summer recess.
Departmental Leave
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many days have been lost to sickness absence in her Department in each of the last three years. [64495]
Mrs. McGuire: The information available is contained in the following table. The figures show the total working days lost to sickness absence, as well as an average of working days lost per staff year. The information has been drawn from internal DWP records based on data from the Department's payroll systems.
| Year ended | Working days lost | Average |
Departmental Staff
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what opportunities exist for people to work beyond retirement age in his Department. [68994]
Mrs. McGuire: DWP operates the civil service-wide arrangement for senior civil servants, with retirement at age 60. The head of the Department and Agency chief executives have the flexibility to retain SCS staff beyond 60 if they judge it to be in the public interest and are satisfied about the fitness and efficiency of the individual to carry out their duties. We have one SCS member of staff working beyond age 60 out of a total of 247 SCS members.
DWP policy provides the opportunity for staff in grades below the senior civil service to request to work beyond our retirement age of 65. We have 220 people out of a total of 116,965 working over age 65.
There are no special arrangements to identify work opportunities for people over 65. They are treated the same as all other employees.
We have successfully operated the arrangements for staff below SCS since October 2003, which is three years ahead of the implementation in October this year of the DTI Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006. The regulations will prohibit age discrimination in employment and vocational training.
We have reviewed the effectiveness of this policy and from 1 October 2006 we will have no mandatory retirement age at all for staff below SCS.
By removing the retirement age of 65, we are giving people more choice about managing their working lives and planning for retirement. DWP positively encourages older workers, and recognise the benefits of experienced and committed staff.
This change to our retirement policy is another positive measure in the Department's progress in championing diversity and further demonstrates our commitment to ending discrimination.
Departmental Relocation
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which buildings and sites used by his Department and related agencies (a) have ceased to be used in the last year and (b) will be closed under current plans for relocation. [31763]
Mrs. McGuire: The information has been placed in the Library.
Departmental Websites
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list (a) the websites operated by his Department and (b) the reports placed on the internet in March 2006, indicating in each case whether paper copies were also made available. [65209]
Mr. Timms: Table A lists those websites operated by Department for Work and Pensions where we are responsible for the content.
| Table A | |
| Website name | Website address |
Table B lists those websites operated by the Department for Work and Pensions but where we are not responsible for the content.
| Table B | |
| Website name | Website address |
Table C details the reports placed by the Department on the internet, that is all sites listed in tables A and B, in March 2006.
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