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29 Sep 2008 : Column 2371W—continued

All figures have been centrally gathered by the Department for Work and Pensions Library Services team who manage all publications purchases for the Communications Directorate.

In addition, other teams across the Department may incur incidental expenditure relating to publications. These costs are recorded on a number of different financial systems and this detail is not consolidated by the central team, or included in the figures quoted in the table. The costs of undertaking such an exercise are considered to be disproportionate.

Departmental Procurement

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his Department's policy is on requesting discounts from its suppliers in return for swift payment of invoices. [220419]

Mrs. McGuire: It is both Government and departmental policy to make payment to suppliers in arrears after goods or services have been satisfactorily provided and
29 Sep 2008 : Column 2372W
to pay promptly in accordance with the terms of the contract, which normally would be within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice.

Suppliers will sometimes offer a discount for prompt payment. The conditions attached to these discounts must be stated on the tender or if not they must be obtained. If a tenderer offers a discount, commercial representatives will evaluate whether the discount offered represents value for money.

Consideration is made of the value of the loss of interest that early payment will incur. The prevailing Bank of England base rate is used to calculate this and a comparison of the cost of paying early, with the monetary value of the discount offered, is made.

Payment terms of less than 30 days are never accepted unless there is some advantage to the Department. Payment terms in excess of 30 days are not acceptable.

Departmental Public Expenditure

Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the (a) forecast cost in (i) real and (ii) net present value terms and (b) most recent estimated cost was of (1) the pension transformation programme, (2) the customer information system, (3) the employment and support allowance computer system and (4) the central payment system. [211146]

Mrs. McGuire: The information is as follows:

29 Sep 2008 : Column 2373W

£ million
		Originally planned costs
Project	Purpose	Real	NPV	Latest estimated costs
Pensions Project Transformation(1)	The programme will transform the Pension Service, bringing together business and IT change in ways that improve customer service and deliver efficiencies.	429	350	598
Customer Information System(2)	This project will deliver a database of key citizen information to be shared across DWP. The database will complement information currently available in the Department’s key customer information systems, i.e. Personal Details Computer System and Departmental Central Index, and become their replacement. Consideration is being given for wider use of CIS by other Government Departments.	40	42	89
Employment and Support Allowance	The project delivers the system and processes to implement the new ESA allowance.	295	282	295
Central Payments System (formerly part of Payment Modernisation)(3)	A modern integrated central payment engine and accounts payable system to improve accounting for benefit/pension payments, reduce risks of service failure, increased speed and efficiency, and information for improved customer service and reduced fraud and error.	90	154	169
(1) Pension Transformation Project (PTP): The apparent increase over the original stated costs can be attributed to a fundamental change in delivery approach. When PTP started in April 2002, costs were early high level estimates based on delivery via a private supplier (who would recover development costs of the system through an operating contract). Policy later changed and it was decided DWP would fund the capital costs of PTP itself. As a result, development costs went up but operating costs went down. Overall, this actually means an improved return* on the total investment, although development costs appear higher than the very early estimate provided in 2002. * Net present value of the programme has increased by 40 per cent. to £585 million, compared to £350 million in the initial business case. HM Treasury guidance states the NPV is the primary criteria for deciding whether government action can be taken. This is arrived at by converting all costs and benefits to present values so that they can be compared. (2) Customer Information System (CIS): The original cost estimate of £40 million was based on the original scope of the project. There has subsequently been significant extension of the scope as the CIS Programme has responded to changes in the Departmental Modernisation Programme. The costs originally submitted for CIS in July 2003 assumed that CIS would be developed as a back-end system supporting the Customer Account Managements (CAM) systems intended for deployment in each of the Client Groups. It also assumed that the Standard Enquiry Function (SEF) would be developed to support a very small number of users who would not have access to CAM. Plans evolved with the result that the only Client Group to deliver a CAM system in line with this earlier specification was the Pension Service. The additional costs result from requirements to service both the ‘old’ Legacy applications and the ‘new’ PTP CAM, as well as developing and implementing architectural changes in a seamless way. In addition, the absence of CAM functionality meant that the SEF has been rolled out to in excess of 124,000 users. CIS scope was increased to deliver desktop access to approximately 19,000 staff in 408 local authorities for the administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit replacing remote access terminals, which were provided to only a very limited number of users in each of these local authorities. The increased investment together with the delivery of enhanced requirements has resulted in CIS benefits increasing from £155 million to £533 million which includes direct benefits of £130 million and enabled benefits of £403 million. During this period, the introduction of CIS has led to the decommissioning of two major benefit systems (the Departmental Central Index and Personal Details Computer System) as CIS is now the master of personal details across all of DWP. Additional work has also been carried out with other Government Departments and further work is planned in this area. (3) Central Payments System (CPS): The figure of £90 million relates to the outline business case produced during the feasibility phase in 2004. This related to a scope that is significantly smaller than the current programme. The original scope was for the replacement of existing payment processing software and excluded an integrated accounting solution. Furthermore, the integration scope of CPS has increased from four entitlement management systems to nine. The NPV figure of £154 million relates to the full business case approved in March 2006. The figure of £169 million relates to the latest outline business case approved in May 2008. Note: The costs in the table represent the investment costs of implementing the particular project and programme. Costs of running the solutions implemented by the projects and programmes are not included in the table as in the vast majority of cases, they are more than compensated for by the financial and non-financial benefits they generate. These savings are demonstrated in the NAO report “The Efficiency programme: A Second Review of Progress”.

Departmental Responsibilities

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which projects his Department has commissioned from (a) think tanks and (b) charities in each of the last two years for which figures are available; what the aim of each project was; which think tank or charity was commissioned; and how much was paid. [221619]

Mrs. McGuire: The information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

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Departmental Sick Leave

Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what the average duration of single periods of sick leave taken by staff in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility who gave (i) stress and (ii) mental health and behavioural disorders as the reason for their absence was in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement; [216165]

(2) how many staff in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility have taken sick days due to (i) stress and (ii) mental health and behavioural disorders in each of the last 10 years; what proportion of staff of each body this represented in each year; and if he will make a statement; [216164]

(3) how many sick days were taken by employees in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility due to (i) stress and (ii) mental health and behavioural disorders in each of the last 10 years; what proportion of sick days taken this represented in each case; and if he will make a statement. [216163]

Mrs. McGuire: The information is not available or held centrally, and could only be provided incompletely and at a disproportionate cost. Information on sickness absence for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006-07 has been published and can be obtained from the civil service website:

http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/statistics/sickness.asp

Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average duration of single periods of sick leave taken by staff in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility was in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [216166]

Mrs. McGuire: The information is not available or held centrally, and could be provided incompletely and only at a disproportionate cost. Information on sickness absence for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006-07 has been published and can be obtained from the civil service website:

http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/statistics/sickness.asp

David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what percentage of staff in his Department have had more than two periods of sickness absence of less than five days in each of the last three years. [218699]

Mrs. McGuire: The information currently recorded on the Department's personnel computer system is provided in the following table.

	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Number of staff	17,924	18,939	19,381
Percentage of total workforce	12.1	13.5	14.9

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David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff in his Department have had five or more periods of sickness absence of less than five days in two or more of the last five years. [218959]

Mrs. McGuire: The number of staff currently recorded on the Department’s personnel computer system as having had five or more periods of sickness absence of less than five days in two or more of the last five years is 4,851. DWP currently employs more than 114,000 full and part time staff.

Departmental Sick Pay

Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility have received sick pay for sick leave due to (i) stress and (ii) mental health and behavioural disorders in each of the last 10 years; what the average length of time was for which sick pay was paid in these cases; and if he will make a statement. [216167]

Mrs. McGuire: The information requested is not available because the Department for Work and Pensions does not attribute sick pay to causes of illness.

Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was paid in sick pay to staff in (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) the non-departmental bodies for which it has responsibility in each of the last five years; what proportion of the staffing expenditure of each body this represented in each year; and if he will make a statement. [216168]

Mrs. McGuire: The information is not available or held centrally, and could be provided only incompletely and at a disproportionate cost. Information on sickness absence for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006-07 has been published and can be obtained from the civil service website:

http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/statistics/sickness.asp

Disability Living Allowance

Paul Rowen: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many claims there were for disability living allowance by (a) children and (b) adults with Asperger’s syndrome in each of the last five years; [171065]

(2) how many claims there were from (a) children and (b) adults with autism spectrum disorders for disability living allowance in each of the last five years; and what proportion these constituted of all claims for that allowance; [171463]

(3) how many claims there were for disability living allowance on behalf of (a) children and (b) adults with Asperger’s syndrome in each of the last five years. [171465]

Mrs. McGuire [holding answer 4 December 2007]: The information is not available.

Entitlement to disability living allowance is not linked to particular disabling conditions, but on the extent to
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which a severely disabled person has personal care needs and/or walking difficulties as a result of their disability. Parents can claim disability living allowance for children, including those with autism spectrum disorder, as long as their disability meets the aforementioned criteria.

Mr. MacDougall: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made in his Department's discussions on granting blind people entitlement to the higher rate mobility component of disability living allowance; and if he will make a statement. [220803]

Mrs. McGuire [holding answer 21 July 2008]: We have been in long-term discussions with the Royal National Institute of Blind People and others on whether there is scope to extend the higher rate mobility component of disability living allowance to people with severe visual impairments. While we understand the force of the arguments put forward by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and are sympathetic to their aims, including providing greater financial assistance to allow visually impaired people to return to or remain in work, we cannot, at this time, commit to amending the existing arrangements for the mobility component of disability living allowance.

The Green Paper, "No One Written Off: Reforming Welfare to Reward Responsibility" Cm 7363, published on 21 July, sets out our strategy to help greater numbers of sick and disabled people who want to work, fulfil their aspirations. Part of this strategy is the proposal to increase the Access to Work budget to help greater numbers of disabled people return to, and remain in, work. Currently, around one in four customers of Access to Work are people with a visual impairment.

Employment and Support Allowance

Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much has been spent on (a) employment and support allowance and (b) incapacity benefit in the latest year for which figures are available; and how much is expected to be spent on each in each of the next five years. [220203]

Mrs. McGuire: In 2006-07, nominal expenditure on incapacity benefit was £6,566 million. For the available information about future incapacity benefit expenditure, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 16 July 2008, Official Report, column 472W.

For the available information about employment and support allowance expenditure, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 13 June 2008, Official Report, column 617W.

Employment: Learning Disability

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps his Department is taking to help those with acute learning disabilities find sustainable employment. [221675]

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