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17 Oct 2007 : Column 1097Wcontinued
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the
Belfast unit of the Child Support Agency over the last (a) six months and (b) year in handling claims involving children from Northamptonshire. [154969]
Such information as is available for Northamptonshire cases is set out in tables S1a to S4b of the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS). Unfortunately, these tables have recently been added and only give information back to December 2006. These tables show that at end of June 2007 the compliance rate for the Nottinghamshire area is 67%, slightly above that of the national average of 66%. The Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics is available in the House of Commons Library or on the Internet via the following link: www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/child_support/csa_quarterly_jun07.asp.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
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estimate he has made of the proportion of HM Revenue and Customs gross income data which will be (a) less than one year out of date, (b) more than one year out of date and (c) more than two years out of date when calculating child maintenance under the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission; and if he will make a statement.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 Majestys 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been made on the proportion of Her Majestys Revenue and Customs gross income data which will be (a) less than one year out of date, (b) more than one year out of date and (c) more than two years out of date when calculating child maintenance under the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.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
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 parents 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.
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.
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.
Consultancy firm | Project title | Approximate value (£ million) |
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 | |
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.
Atos Healthcare only began keeping records of complaints received by local benefits office in 2004 and by Jobcentre Plus region in 2005. Information about
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 |
(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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