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21 Feb 2007 : Column 776W—continued
In addition to individual performance bonus payments, DWP also paid team bonuses to selected units within the Department. The expenditure incurred is as follows:
| The amount paid in team bonuses to DWP staff from 2005 to 2006 | ||
| Performance year | Year paid | Total paid (£ million) |
| (1) Not applicable Notes: 1 Some individuals may have received more than one type of bonus payment in any given year, which is why the information has been presented separately, and not as an aggregated total. 2 No team bonus schemes have run since 2004-05. | ||
Individuals may also be entitled to special bonus payments. The cost in a typical year for these bonuses is around £3 million with payments made to approximately 17,000 individuals (based on 2005-06 payments).
Departments: Opinion Polls
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the opinion polls his Department has commissioned in the last 12 months; and what the (a) cost and (b) purpose was of each poll. [120317]
Mrs. McGuire: The information is as follows.
My Department conducts an annual omnibus survey to monitor public attitudes to the Government’s welfare reform programme.
The cost of the Public Attitudes Survey in 2006 was £50,000.
Departments: Publications
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will place in the Library copies of the last 12 editions of his Department's staff magazine. [120315]
Mrs. McGuire: Copies of the last 12 editions of the magazine have been placed in the Library.
Departments: Race Equality Duty
Lorely Burt: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps his Department has taken to implement the Race Equality Duty since 2000. [120647]
Mrs. McGuire: The Race Equality Duty came into force on 30 May 2002. Following that date, DWP published its consultation document, “Equality, Opportunity and Independence for all” followed by “Realising Race Equality in the Department for Work and Pensions” in the following year. Since then, a further race equality scheme was published in 2005 and a progress report has been produced in the intervening years (the latest being 1 December 2006 to coincide with the launch of the Department's Disability and Gender Equality Schemes).
The current equality scheme sets out the steps that DWP has taken to implement the general and specific duty, including:
consulting with organisations about race issues including the Experience Corps, an independent company set up to encourage people aged 50+ to do voluntary work in their communities, Ethnic Minority Business Forum, Ethnic Media Group, Ethnic Minority Forum and the DWP Ethnic Minority Working Party;
developing minimum customer standards and monitoring the effect on ethnic minority customers;
publishing a departmental monitoring and evaluation strategy on our internal website;
setting up a project to consider, co-ordinate and recommend activities in relation to senior civil service recruitment, promotion and succession planning, and the implementation and mainstreaming of diversity procedures;
carrying out race impact assessments (following specified guidance) on new policies and services including work force management (relocation and efficiency) reviews and decisions on office closures and early release schemes across the Department, publishing these both internally and externally;
agreeing a new telephone-based language interpreting service that allows our staff to communicate professionally with members of the public who do not speak English as their first language;
enhancing our Realising Potential scheme, which is aimed at ethnic minority staff who wish to develop their competence and confidence so they are able to compete on merit for opportunities;
achieving a gold award in the 2006 Race for Opportunity (RfO) benchmark exercise. RfO is a growing network of private and public sector organisations working across the UK to promote the business case for race and diversity;
in preparation for the Disability and Gender Equality Duties, all staff are receiving equality training which includes information on the Race Equality Duty also.
We will assess and provide an update on outcomes and progress against our action plans, on a yearly basis. We will ensure that, as part of that process, we continue to involve our customers, their stakeholders and our staff. We will include the outcomes of our monitoring and evaluation and of impact assessments we have carried out on our policies and services. Our action plans show how we will embed this into our business planning and reporting cycles.
The latest DWP Race Equality Schemes can be found at:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/aboutus/equalityschemes/
Departments: Recruitment
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the total cost was of advertising positions in his Department in each year since 1997-98. [120453]
Mrs. McGuire: This information is not collated in this Department and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Health and Safety Executive: Expenditure
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what total expenditure by (a) the Health and Safety Executive and (b) the Health and Safety Commission was in each year since 1996-97; and what it is expected to be in 2006-07. [119524]
Mrs. McGuire: The total expenditure for the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as shown in the published Annual Accounts, is provided in the following table.
| £000 | ||
| HSC total expenditure | HSE total expenditure | |
| (1) The figures for HSE include the Health and Safety Laboratory. (2) The figures for 2006-07 are forecasts. (3) Responsibility for rail safety transferred to the Office of Rail Regulation from 1 April 2006. | ||
Incapacity Benefit
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what research he has undertaken into the proportion of working-age people in the UK on incapacity benefit in comparison with figures for other EU countries; and if he will make a statement. [102192]
Mrs. McGuire: International comparisons of benefit receipt are difficult to make because of differences in benefit design, definitions of disability and demographics. Although information is not available to make comparisons with other EU countries, the available evidence shows that the proportion of the working age population in the UK in receipt of incapacity benefits is 6.6 per cent., slightly below the OECD average of 7 per cent.
Source:
OECD
Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what average number of working hours was required to conduct a personal capability assessment in the most recent year for which figures are available, including any subsequent hours involved in assessing continuing entitlement to incapacity benefit. [119461]
Mrs. McGuire: The average time taken to complete a personal capability report during the period January 2006 to December 2006 was 39 minutes.
Information about the time involved in the specific part of the incapacity benefit administration process requested is not available.
Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance
Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) Incapacity Benefit and (b) Severe Disablement Allowance claimants claimed the benefit for (i) up to three months, (ii) between three to six months, (iii) between six to 12 months, (iv) between one and two years, (v) between two and three years and (vi) more than three years in each quarter since 1992. [121435]
Mrs. McGuire: The information is not available in the format requested. The available information is in the following tables:
| Incapacity benefit claimants in Great Britain by duration of claim May 1998 to May 2006 | |||||||
| Quarter ending | All durations | Up to 3 months | 3 months to 6 months | 6 months to 1 year | 1 year to 2 years | 2 years to 3 years | 3 years and over |
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