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10 Oct 2007 : Column 626W—continued
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the (a) estimated and (b) outturn (i) cost and (ii) duration was of each IT contract tendered by his Department since 1997. [155378]
Mr. Mike O'Brien
[holding answer 17 September 2007]: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was created in June 2001, prior to that, contractual
arrangements were the responsibility of different departments and agencies. Information is provided for contracts awarded since the formation of the Department in 2001.
Outturn figures are not available until the contract has ended, so the most recently estimated contract outturn or cost to date has been provided in the following table.
Departments: Telephone Services
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of telephone calls to his Department from members of the public are recorded for training purposes. [154643]
Mrs. McGuire: All calls to the Department’s contact centres are recorded and may be used for training purposes except:
when technical issues arise;
textphone calls;
eight Jobcentre Plus sites do not have the technical ability to record calls; and
National Benefit Fraud Hotline calls due to their sensitive nature.
Calls made directly to the operational teams and local services are not recorded.
Disability Living Allowance
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 17 September 2007, Official Report, columns 2281-2W, on disability living allowance, whether a decision by a customer to begin work amounts to change in circumstances; and to what extent such a decision affects eligibility for disability living allowance or the amount awarded. [155653]
Mrs. McGuire: Customers in receipt of Disability Living Allowance who begin work do not have to report that event as a change of circumstances unless their care and/or mobility needs have changed in the period leading up to them beginning work or as a result of beginning work.
Disabled
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what mechanisms are in place to assess the likely effect of proposed legislation on people with disabilities; and if he will make a statement. [153751]
Mrs. McGuire: To meet the requirements of the Disability Equality Duty, Government Departments must assess the likely impact of proposed legislation on disability equality. The disability equality duty, which was introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, came into force on 4 December 2006. It requires public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate disability discrimination and promote disability equality when carrying out their functions.
The general duty applies across the full range of public sector activity, including service delivery, policy making, procurement and performance management. Additional duties are imposed by regulations on certain public authorities, including all Government Departments, to produce and implement a disability equality scheme in which the authority must set out its methods for assessing the impact on equality for disabled people of its proposed policies and practices.
While the Disability Equality Duty provides the framework for assessing the impact of policies on disabled people the precise mechanism for carrying out the assessments is up to each Government Department to determine and set out in their scheme.
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many disabled people are resident in the UK; what mechanisms are used to estimate that figure; and if he will make a statement. [153752]
Mrs. McGuire: The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that there are over 10 million disabled people in Britain.
This estimate covers the number of people with a longstanding illness, disability or infirmity, and who have a significant difficulty with day-to-day activities. It is based on data taken from the Family Resources Survey (FRS).
Everyone in this group would meet the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA); however, these estimates do not reflect the total number of people covered by the DDA as the FRS does not collect this information.
The estimates are based on sample counts that have been adjusted for non-response using multi-purpose grossing factors which align the FRS to Government Office Region populations by age and sex. Estimates are subject to sampling error and remaining response bias.
The Government's vision is that by 2025 all disabled people should have the same opportunities and choices as everyone else, be respected as equal members of
society and be able to participate as equals in every aspect of family and community life.
National Insurance: Peterborough
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many National Insurance numbers were issued to non-UK citizens living in (a) Peterborough constituency and (b) the Peterborough city council area in each year since 1997, broken down by nationality. [154072]
Mr. Plaskitt: Information is not available prior to 2002-03. The available information has been placed in the Library.
UK Commission for Employment and Skills: Public Appointments
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how appointments will be made to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills; and what matters in respect of environmental sustainability will be taken into account in the work of the Commission. [152218]
Caroline Flint: Appointments will be made to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills through fair and open competition and under the guidelines issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Skills development is a fundamental part of the drive for environmental sustainability and the UK Commission will be aiming to increase skill levels in all sectors and in all disciplines as it moves to meet the aspirations set out in the Leitch report.
Employment
Mr. Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) women and (b) single parents were unemployed in (i) Jarrow constituency, (ii) south Tyneside, (iii) the north-east and (iv) the UK in each year since 1997. [156032]
Angela Eagle: I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply. The relevant tables have been placed in the Library.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 9 October 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Questions about employment and unemployment. (156032, 156033, 156034, 156035)
These questions ask for the same information as questions received in July this year, and I refer you to the answer given in Official Report volume 463 of 26 July, column 1460.
However, since the previous questions were answered, we now have new employment and unemployment data from the Annual Population Survey (APS) for April 2006 to March 2007, and the April to June 2007 Labour Force Survey (LFS) household dataset.
As in the previous answer, Table 1, attached, shows the number of males, females and people, who were (i) aged 16 and over, (ii) young persons aged 16 to 24 and (iii) persons aged 25 and over, resident in the Jarrow constituency, who were in employment, for the 12 months ending in March 2007 from the APS. The table also shows employment rates which allow changes to be seen in the
context of changing population numbers. Tables 2 to 4 show data for South Tyneside metropolitan borough, the North East and Great Britain respectively.
For unitary and local authorities, the ONS produces estimates of total unemployment, following ILO definitions, from a statistical model. Annual estimates for other areas and breakdowns are compiled from the annual local area LFS and the APS following ILO definitions.
Table 5, attached, shows the number of males, females and people, who were (i) aged 16 and over, (ii) young persons aged 16 to 24 and (iii) persons aged 25 and over, resident in the Jarrow constituency, who were unemployed, for the 12 months ending March 2007, from the APS. The table also shows unemployment rates which allow changes to be seen in the context of changing population numbers. Tables 6 to 8 show data for South Tyneside metropolitan borough, the North East and Great Britain respectively.
Table 9, attached shows employment levels, unemployment levels and rates for lone parents aged 16 and over and employment rates for lone parents of working age, resident in the South Tyneside metropolitan borough, the North East and Great Britain, for the three months ending in June, for 2007 from the LFS household datasets. Data for the Jarrow constituency are unavailable as Parliamentary Constituency markers are not held in this dataset.
The estimates in Tables 1-9 are for a subset of the population in small geographical areas, they are based on small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty. In this case, the sample sizes for the Jarrow constituency and South Tyneside metropolitan borough are not sufficient to give an accurate estimate of even the direction of the change over time.
Justice
Arrests: Foreigners
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many individuals arrested in the Northern Basic Command Unit of Cambridgeshire Constabulary area were non-UK citizens of the European Union in each quarter since May 2004. [156825]
Maria Eagle: The arrests collection undertaken by my Department only provides data on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) by age group, gender, ethnicity and main offence group. Aggregated data, collected centrally from the 43 police force areas in England and Wales, are available at police force area level only and do not record the nationality of arrestees.
Driving Offences: Insurance
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there were of uninsured drivers in the Cambridgeshire Constabulary area in each recording period since May 2004; and if he will make a statement. [156826]
Maria Eagle: Available information for the Cambridgeshire police force area are taken from the Court Proceedings database held by my Department, from May to December 2004 (latest available) shows there were 1,840 proceedings and 1,560 findings of guilt for the offence of ‘using motor vehicle uninsured against third party risks’.
2005 data will be available later this year.
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