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17 Oct 2007 : Column 1097W—continued

Children: Maintenance

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the proportion of HM Revenue and Customs gross income data which will be (a) less than one year out of date, (b) more than one year out of date and (c) more than two years out of date when calculating child maintenance under the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission; and if he will make a statement. [154619]

Mr. Plaskitt: Under the proposed scheme, non-resident parents’ maintenance liabilities will be based on their gross income for the latest tax year available from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs at the time that a case is opened or is subject to an annual review.

With the increased focus on parents agreeing to voluntary arrangements and the ending of the requirement that parents with care on benefit be treated as applying for child maintenance, not all of the current Child Support Agency case load will choose to use the statutory maintenance service. Since we do not know the precise composition of the resulting case load, no estimates have been made on the proportion of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs gross income data which will be (a) less than one year out of date, (b) more than one year out of date and (c) more than two years out of date when calculating child maintenance under the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.

Anne Moffat: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps the Department is taking to enable the recovery of historical debt of non-resident parents by the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. [156491]

Mr. Plaskitt [holding answer 8 October 2007]: We want to take firm action at the earliest opportunity against non-resident parents who do not fulfil their responsibility to pay maintenance.

The Child Support Agency has already begun to improve the recovery of debt as part of the Operational Improvement Plan and is committed to recovering over £200 million historic debt by 2009.

The Commission will build on the current Child Support Agency debt strategy and the success of the Operational Improvement Plan. Through the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill we intend to strengthen the range of enforcement and debt management powers that will be at the disposal of the
17 Oct 2007 : Column 1099W
Commission. The Bill proposes new and streamlined enforcement provisions such as administrative liability orders, disqualification from holding or obtaining a travel authorisation, collection of maintenance directly from accounts held by financial institutions, enforcing the surrender of a non-resident parent’s passport and imposing a curfew.

New debt management powers, such as the ability to accept part payment of arrears in full and final settlement, will, where appropriate, take account of the wishes of the parent with care. These powers will help the Commission manage debt, including interim maintenance assessment debt. The new debt management and enforcement measures will be used both to encourage ongoing compliance to prevent the new debt building up, and to enable more of the accumulated debt to be recovered.

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many children he estimates will be taken out of poverty when the new £40 disregard for child maintenance is introduced. [158797]

Caroline Flint: We estimate that around 50,000 children will be lifted out of poverty by increasing the child maintenance disregard to £40 a week from April 2010.

Commission for Equality and Human Rights: Manpower

Jo Swinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what representations he has received on staffing levels at the Commission for Equality and Human Rights; and if he will make a statement. [157817]

Barbara Follett [holding answer 15 October 2007]: The Equality and Human Rights Commission currently plans to employ approximately 500 staff. There is no intention to make a statement.

Departments: Consultants

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which private consultancy firms (a) his Department and (b) agencies which report to his Department engaged in each of the last three years; which programmes or projects each firm worked on; and what the approximate cost to the Department or agency concerned was of each engagement. [155875]

Mrs. McGuire: The details of consultancy engagements and related costs by all projects across the Department for Work and Pensions and all its agencies over the last three years are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. A particular exercise to obtain this information for the 12 projects with the largest engagement with consultancy firms over the last three years has been conducted and the results are shown in the following table.


17 Oct 2007 : Column 1100W
Consultancy firm Project title Approximate value (£ million)

IBM

Finance Transformation Programme

63

Booz Allen Hamilton

Pensions Transformation Programme

55

Capgemini

Programme and Systems Delivery Transformation

26

PA Consulting

Payment Modernisation Programme

25

Capgemini

HR Modernisation

17

Capgemini

DCS Change Programme

16

Capgemini

DWP Change Programme

7

Deloitte

PSD Transformation Support—network services integration

7

Deloitte

PSD Transformation Support—network services integration

6

Atos Origin

Finance Transformation/Procurement Modernisation

6

PA Consulting

JCP and DCS Integrated Delivery

6

Deloitte

Central Payment System Programme

5


Departments: Dismissal

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many departmental staff have been dismissed for gross misconduct in each of the last five years. [157175]

Mrs. McGuire: The information on the number of people dismissed for gross misconduct for the period July 2003 to March 2007 is shown in the following table.

No information is available for the period before July 2003.

Information for the period from April 2007 to March 2008 is not available.

Number of employees dismissed in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for gross misconduct
Number of employees

July 2003 to March 2004

53

April 2004 to March 2005

223

April 2005 to March 2006

227

April 2006 to March 2007

121


Jobcentre Plus: Doctors

Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many complaints were received about doctors contracted to Jobcentre Plus to carry out incapacity benefit assessments, in each of the last five years, broken down by local benefits agency; and if he will make a statement. [154866]

Mrs. McGuire [holding answer 10 September 2007]: Medical services are provided to DWP under contract by Atos Healthcare. Doctors carrying out incapacity benefit (IB) assessments are engaged by Atos Healthcare not Jobcentre Plus.


17 Oct 2007 : Column 1101W

Atos Healthcare only began keeping records of complaints received by local benefits office in 2004 and by Jobcentre Plus region in 2005. Information about
17 Oct 2007 : Column 1102W
the number of complaints received per Medical Services Centre, relating to IB is in the following table.

Number of complaints received per Medical Services Centre relating to IB
Medical Services Centre 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007( 1) Grand total

Birmingham

62

71

78

88

23

27

349

Bootle

105

114

91

89

51

33

483

Bristol

54

70

47

43

29

28

271

Croydon

116

89

95

71

45

37

453

Cardiff

49

60

56

32

25

22

244

Edinburgh

36

21

31

36

9

14

147

Glasgow

98

78

67

50

27

28

348

Leeds

102

116

113

89

59

41

520

Manchester

77

61

50

37

25

15

265

Newcastle

78

82

105

63

40

25

393

Nottingham

89

56

63

60

70

50

388

Wembley

107

138

125

110

50

49

579

Customer relations team

86

35

32

37

33

20

243

Total complaints

1,059

991

953

805

486

389

4,653

Total IB examinations

522,803

507,479

461,000

485,237

499,895

358,207

2,834,621

Percentage complaints/examinations

0.20

0.19

0.21

0.17

0.10

0.11

0.16

(1) January to August
Note:
The last row of the table indicates the number of ‘Official Correspondence’ complaints that the Customer Relations Team received, which are not differentiated by Medical Services Centre.

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