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24 Nov 2008 : Column 986W—continued
Departmental Statistics
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what statistical releases and reports (a) his Department and (b) its agencies intend to publish in the next calendar year. [235883]
Jonathan Shaw: All National Statistics released by the Department or its agencies are pre-announced on the Release Calendar run by the UK Statistics Authority, in line with the National Statistics Code of Practice.
Departmental Visits Abroad
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many overseas visits he has made in his official capacity since his appointment. [238392]
Jonathan Shaw: The Secretary of State has made three overseas visits in his official capacity since his appointment.
Deprivation Indicators: Children
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what indicators his Department uses to monitor levels of child poverty; and if he will make a statement on trends in these indicators since 1997. [235557]
Kitty Ussher: The Department uses three indicators to monitor levels of child poverty; they were established in 2003 following a lengthy period of consultation.
Absolute low income measures whether the poorest families are seeing their income rise in real terms. The threshold is fixed as equal to the relative low income threshold for the baseline year of 1998-99 expressed in today’s prices.
Relative low income measures whether the incomes of the poorest families are keeping pace with the growth of incomes in the economy as a whole. This indicator measures the number of children living in households below 60 per cent. of contemporary median equivalised income. This is the indicator which is used to measure performance against the public service agreement target to halve child poverty by 2010-11.
Material deprivation and low income combined provides a wider measure of people’s living standards. This indicator measures the number of children living in households that are both materially deprived and have an income below 70 per cent. of contemporary equivalised median income.
Since 1998 progress has been made against all of the indicators. 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative low income between 1998-99 and 2006-07, a shift from 3.4 million children to 2.9 million children. The number of children living in absolute low income has halved from 3.4 million to 1.7 million.
Between 2004-05, the first year data were available, and 2006-07 the number of children in the UK defined as poor using the combined indicator of relative low income and material deprivation fell by 200,000 from 2.2 million to 2.0 million on the particular material deprivation threshold that was chosen.
Low income is not the only dimension to poverty and a child’s quality of life, including access to health care, education and a safe environment, are critical.
The three indicators are therefore underpinned by the broader Opportunity for all indicators. Opportunity for all is the Government’s report on poverty and social exclusion which includes a wide range of poverty and social exclusion indicators for children and young people (as well as working age adults, older people and communities) including health, education and housing. Details can be found on the Opportunity for all website at
Disability Living Allowance: Sight Impaired
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people with a visual impairment have received (a) the lower rate and (b) the higher rate of the mobility component of the disability living allowance in the last 12 months. [237258]
Jonathan Shaw: The available information is in the table.
| Disability living allowance cases in payment with blindness as the main disabling condition by mobility award rate: Great Britain | ||
| Higher rate | Lower rate | |
| Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. 2. Figures show the number of people in receipt of an allowance, and exclude people with entitlement where the payment has been suspended, for example if they are in hospital. 3. Where the claimant is eligible for both care and mobility components, the disabling condition associated with the mobility component is shown here. Where more than one disability is present only the main disabling condition is recorded. 4. Figures are published on the DWP website at www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/tabtool.asp Source: DWP Information Directorate: Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study 100 per cent. data. | ||
Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) blind and (b) partially sighted people living in Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency received the mobility component of disability living allowance at the lower rate in each year since 2003. [238138]
Jonathan Shaw: The available information is in the table.
| Disability living allowance claimants in Bexleyheath and Crayford parliamentary constituency receiving lower rate mobility component where the main disabling condition is blindness | |
| As at May each year | Number |
| Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. 2. Totals show the number of people in receipt of an allowance and exclude people with entitlement where the payment has been suspended, for example, if they are in hospital. 3. Where the claimant is eligible for both care and mobility components, the disabling condition associated with the mobility component is shown here. Where more than one disability is present, only the main disabling condition is recorded. 4. These figures are published on the internet website at: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk Source: DWP Information Directorate: Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study 100 per cent. data. | |
Disabled
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people with disabilities his Department employs. [238384]
Jonathan Shaw: The number of staff who have declared themselves to be disabled is 6,075, 5.7 per cent. of the work force.
However, while the Department encourages staff to make a declaration, declaration is voluntary. We are aware that not all disabled staff do declare that they
consider themselves to be disabled, and the true figure may be higher than this. For example, the 2008 DWP staff survey (which is completed anonymously), showed that 13.6 per cent. of respondents considered themselves to have a long standing health condition or disability.
Employment and Support Allowance
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much employment and support allowance was paid on average in each week of the last period for which figures are available. [238389]
Jonathan Shaw: Employment and support allowance was introduced on 27 October 2008 for new customers claiming on the grounds of disability. New customers will go onto an assessment rate for 13 weeks while their medical condition is assessed. While on the assessment phase customers are paid the same amount, £60.50. However, we have fast-tracked a small number of customers who are terminally ill directly onto the support group, where they receive the higher rate of £89.50 immediately.
Information about average payments for employment and support allowance is not yet available.
Employment Level
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many British born people of (a) working age and (b) 16 years old and over were in employment in each year since 1997. [237132]
Kevin Brennan: I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated November 2008:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many British born people of (a) working age and (b) 16 years old and over were in employment in each year since 1997. (237132)
The attached table gives the number of people in employment in the UK for the categories requested, from July-September 2001 to July-September 2008. The estimates are derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Estimates for years prior to 2001 are not available because the question asking for the part of the UK in which a respondent was born was not introduced into the LFS until spring 2001. As with any sample survey, estimates from the LFS are subject to a margin of uncertainty.
The figures in the table are derived from the LFS microdata which are weighted using the official population estimates published in autumn 2007. They are not entirely consistent with the figures published in the monthly Labour Market Statistics First Release which are weighted using more up-to-date population estimates.
Employment Service
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) Employment Service and (b) Benefit Agency offices, accessible to the public there were in each year for which records are available, broken down by region. [231472]
Jonathan Shaw: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the acting chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, Mel Groves. I have asked him to provide the hon. Member with the information requested.
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking how many Employment Service and Benefit Agency offices, accessible to the public, there were in each year for which records are available, broken down by region. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
At Annex 1 I have attached information on the number of Jobcentre Plus customer-facing offices there have been since April 2002 when Jobcentre Plus was created. Information on the separate networks operated by the Employment Service and Benefits Agency prior to 2002 is not available.
Jobcentre Plus inherited around 1,500 offices from the merger of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. Often customers would have to walk from one office to the next to look for work and then deal with changes in their benefit claim. As we have modernised to improve customer service, we have been able to rationalise this estate to provide excellent high street coverage and reduce cost to the tax payer. We remain the largest office network in Government with 747 modern Jobcentres which are supported by 31 contact centres and 79 main benefit processing centres. This has brought our customer-facing services together in a more coherent and integrated network.
Jobcentres continue to provide an essential service—especially to those customers most in need of tailored help. However, the great majority of our services (in common with most large, modern organisations) are now also delivered through the telephone and internet. For example, to give customers more convenient access we have more than half a million vacancies on-line at any time (our website receives close to one million job searches every working day), and new claims to benefit are predominantly taken by telephone with some taken on-line.
All this is vastly improving the service Jobcentre Plus can provide for all its customers and ensures that it is delivered in the best way for them.
Annex 1:
| Jobcentre Plus customer-facing offices | ||||||||
| Region | 1 October 2008 | 1 January 2008 | 1 January 2007 | 1 January 2006 | 1 January 2005 | 1 January 2004 | 1 January 2003 | 1 January 2002 |
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