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23 Jan 2008 : Column 2081W—continued
Kenya: Elections
Mr. Andrew Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the £600,000 spending allocated to the monitoring of the recent election in Kenya. [180964]
Mr. Douglas Alexander
[holding answer 22 January 2008]: DFID contributed £600,000 to a pooled fund to support the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Elections Assistance programme. The total
budget was $12 million. Many other donors supported this programme, including the USA who led the donor group.
DFID’s judgment is that some of the assistance, such as support to the media centre and to domestic observers, has enabled greater transparency around the flawed tallying processes than might otherwise have been the case. The voting process itself was also supported by voter education; work with the media, hate-speech monitoring and flexible technical assistance. However, subsequent irregularities have highlighted institutional weaknesses that were tested by such a close contest.
With international partners we will look at lessons that have emerged, in particular how we can further strengthen the institutions that can underpin stable democracy in Kenya.
Kenya: Financial Institutions
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to the answer of 14 January 2008, Official Report, column 1079W, on Kenya: financial institutions, what direct assistance his Department is giving to assist existing microfinance businesses in Kenya where the owners need immediate help. [180587]
Mr. Thomas [holding answer 21 January 2008]: DFID is providing direct assistance to the multi-donor Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Trust, which is working in partnership with the Kenya Association of Microfinance Institutions (AMFI) on assisting existing microfinance businesses in Kenya which need urgent help. FSD is providing technical assistance to AMFI, to assess and design emergency programmes and to secure financial resources for these. DFID has allocated £11.3 million to the FSD Trust, with other donors making up the total budget of £19 million.
AMFI is leading the industry response to the crisis, looking at three areas of potential support: (i) micro-finance institutions (MFIs) using their strong grassroots involvement in affected communities to build peace and reconciliation between people and mitigate ethnic tensions, (ii) an emergency liquidity facility to support MFIs facing liquidity constraints as a result of the crisis, and (iii) cash transfer schemes targeting people with micro-enterprises who have suffered catastrophic losses, to provide a base from which to rebuild their livelihoods.
Work and Pensions
Capita
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what meetings (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) officials have held with (i) directors and (ii) senior executives of (A) Capita Group plc and (B) its subsidiaries since 1 January 2001; what the (1) location and (2) duration of each meeting was; whether a record of each meeting was kept; and if he will make a statement. [180708]
Mrs. McGuire: Ministers and civil servants meet many people as part of the process of policy development and advice. It is not the usual practice of Government to disclose details of such meetings.
Child Support Agency
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many active cases the Child Support Agency has. [179550]
Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 23 January 2008:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many active cases the Child Support Agency has.
The information requested can be obtained from Table 1 of the September 2007 Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary Statistics which is available in the House of Commons library or via the internet at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/child_ support/csa_quarterly_sep07.asp
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Children: Maintenance
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of (a) the number of unrecovered child maintenance payments in each constituency in the UK, (b) the value of those payments and (c) the value of payments expected to be unrecovered. [175647]
Mr. Plaskitt: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive. He will write to the hon. Member.
The table has been placed in the Library.
Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 23 January 2008:
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Chief Executive.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of (a) the number of unrecovered child maintenance payments in each constituency in the UK (b) the value of those payments and (c) how much is expected to be unrecovered in each case. [175647]
The Agency does not hold information in the format requested. Such information as is available is shown in the attached table which sets out the total amount of debt owed by non-resident parents in cases processed on the new system (CS2). The Agency is not able to estimate debt on old rules cases processed on the old system (CSCS) at Parliamentary Constituency level. Although the Agency does estimate the collectability of debt, this estimate is based on past performance and on an Agency wide sample exercise which does not take account of geographic or regional variation. Therefore the Agency is not able to provide a geographic analysis of the collectability of debt.
This debt is owed by non-resident parents as a result of their failure to meet their responsibilities to their children. Debt recovery is very much dependent on the willingness of non-resident parents to co-operate with the Agency. Some non-resident parents do their utmost to avoid their responsibilities, for example by moving house or changing jobs whenever the Agency tries to collect maintenance.
The Agency is working hard to collect more maintenance arrears and benefit more children. Measures introduced under the Agency’s Operational Improvement Plan, such as enabling credit and debit card payments and employing the services of external debt collection agencies are helping the Agency in this aim.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Christmas
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department spent on (a) Christmas cards and (b) postage of Christmas cards in 2007. [176910]
Mrs. McGuire: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 17 December 2007, Official Report, column 933W.
Departmental E-mail
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will take steps to reduce the number of hard copies of e-mails printed by officials in his Department. [179426]
Mrs. McGuire: The Department takes the volume of its printing seriously and is introducing plans in 2008 to reduce the cost and environmental impact of printing within the Department. Additionally, an awareness campaign will remind staff of their responsibilities and to only print documents, including hardcopies of e-mails, if absolutely necessary.
Departmental Marketing
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many branded plastic bags his Department has purchased in the last 24 months for which figures are available; and at what cost. [176243]
Mrs. McGuire: Information that is recorded shows that in the last 12 months, the Department purchased some 632,490 branded plastic bags at a cost of £22,667.62. The vast majority of these were purchased by the Health and Safety Executive for use in national campaigns. To comply with DWP’s Sustainable Development policy and cross government targets to reduce waste and make procurement more sustainable, all orders placed since September 2007 have been for biodegradable plastic bags.
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what products featuring departmental or Government branding were procured by (a) his Department and (b) its agencies in each of the last five years. [179786]
Mrs. McGuire: The Department for Work and Pensions and its agencies procure products featuring relevant branding when communicating with its customers and stakeholders. The information requested can only be gathered at a disproportionate cost.
Departmental Procurement
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether the standard terms and conditions of purchase used by his Department in the procurement of goods and services from the private sector prohibit the assignment of debt. [172437]
Mrs. McGuire: The standard terms and conditions of purchase used by my Department in the procurement of goods and services from the private sector do not prohibit the assignment of debt.
DWP standard terms and conditions state:
“The Contractor shall not assign, sub-contract, or in any other way dispose of the Contract or any part of it without prior Approval”
“Approval” and “Approved”—refer to the written consent of the Authority’s Representative.
This is in line with the standard terms and conditions issued by Office of Government Commerce for use across the public sector.
Performance Appraisal
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions at what intervals staff in his Department are subject to appraisals; how long his Department’s probationary period for new staff is; and what percentage of staff did not have their employment continued at the end of their probationary period in the last 12 months. [177963]
Mrs. McGuire: Staff in DWP are subject to formal appraisal at six and 12 monthly intervals. They receive ongoing feedback on their performance throughout the year.
The probationary period for new employees is normally six months. Exceptionally the probationary period can be extended by up to three months.
In the last 12 months the percentage of newly recruited staff who did not have their employment continued at the end of their probation was 2.31 per cent.
Personal Accounts
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate his Department has made of the return an individual saving in a personal account would receive with (a) a full saving record, (b) 10 years saving, (c) 20 years saving, (d) 30 years saving and (e) 40 years saving as (i) a percentage of salary and (ii) weekly cash value in retirement if they had an average salary over the period of (A) £10,000, (B) £11,000, (C) £12,000, (D) £13,000, (E) £14,000, (F) £15,000, (G) £16,000, (H) £17,000, (I) £18,000, (J) £19,000, (K) £20,000, (L) £21,000, (M) £22,000, (N) £23,000, (O) £24,000, (P) £25,000, (Q) £26,000, (R) £27,000, (S) £28,000, (T) £29,000, (U) £30,000, (V) £31,000, (W) £32,000 and (X) £33,000. [177953]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: As part of its research and analysis programme over the last few years, the Department has published several analyses regarding the impacts of saving under the reformed pension system. This includes Financial incentives to save for retirement, the Pensions Bill—Impact Assessment, and the Gender Impact Assessment of Pension Reform.
Personal Accounts: Information Services
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the funding that will be made available for advice and information on personal accounts in each year from now until 2050. [177956]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: We envisage that scheme information costs will be borne by membership charges and will be a matter for the trustees.
The question of what additional information will be given to all those auto-enrolled, whether into personal accounts or another pension scheme, is one which we will address in the years leading up to the reforms. We will do this in partnership with organisations which already provide information on pensions, bodies such as The Pensions Advisory Service, and pension providers, as well as organisations representing consumers.
We will be building on the considerable provision that already exists, and the funding implications will emerge from those discussions. The Thoresen Review, and the Government action plan on financial capability will also assess the need to add to the services on offer.
Poverty
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what baseline data his Department uses to measure material deprivation; [174832]
(2) what proportion of children in (a) workless households, (b) households where one parent is working, (c) households where both parents are working and (d) each region were living in material poverty in each quarter in the last 10 years for which records are held. [174833]
Caroline Flint: Material deprivation is one of the three indicators for measuring child poverty. The other two measures are absolute low income, which includes households with incomes below 60 per cent. of the median income held constant in real terms from a 1998-99 baseline, and relative low income, which includes households with incomes below 60 per cent. contemporary median income. The material deprivation indicator includes households with incomes below 70 per cent. of the median and a material deprivation score of 25 or more.
Information on the base lining of material deprivation can be found in ‘PSA Delivery Agreement 9: Halve the number of children in poverty by 2010-11, on the way to eradicating child poverty by 2020’; Page 24, available on the HM Treasury website.
Data on material deprivation are collated annually by the Family Resources Survey and are only available from 2004-05 onwards. Our most recent data are for 2005-06. In 2004-05, 2.2 million children in the UK were defined as poor using this combined indicator, while in 2005-06, the figure was 2.1 million children.
The proportion of children in material deprivation by economic status of household is shown in the following table. A breakdown by region is not currently available because this requires three years’ Family Resources Survey data for robust statistics.
The available material deprivation figures and details of the methodology can be found in ‘PSA Delivery Agreement 9: Halve the number of children in poverty by 2010-11, on the way to eradicating child poverty by 2020’, available on the HM Treasury website.
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