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26 Nov 2008 : Column 1964W—continued


For Special Advisers, I refer the hon. Member to the written ministerial statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 22 November 2007, Official Report, columns 147-150WS.

Departmental NDPBs

Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many staff were employed by (a) Jobcentre Plus, (b) the Health and Safety Executive, (c) the Pensions Regulator and (d) the Pension Protection Fund in (i) 2005-06, (ii) 2006-07 and (iii) 2007-08. [238202]


26 Nov 2008 : Column 1965W

Mr. McNulty: The following table shows the number of staff employed at 31 March for each of the years 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 at Jobcentre Plus and the Health and Safety Executive. For the Pension Regulator and the Pensions Protection Fund the table shows an average of headcount for each of the aforementioned years as this is the normal basis on which these units report staffing information.

Business area 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08

Jobcentre Plus

79,366

75,906

74,341

Health and Safety Executive

4,006

3,797

3,805

Pensions Regulator

288

325

328

Pensions Protection Fund

64

99

151

Notes:
1. HSE figures include agency staff and staff in the Health and Safety Laboratory which is an in-house agency of HSE.
2. HSE figures at 1 April 2007 include staff in the Office for Civil Nuclear Security and the UK Safeguards Office who transferred from DTI on that date.
3. HSE figures at 1 April 2008 include staff in the Pesticides Safety Directorate who transferred to HSE from DEFRA on that date.

Departmental Pay

Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what bonuses were paid by his Department in 2007-08; to which members of staff; and for what purposes. [239660]

Jonathan Shaw: The information requested is as follows.

End of Year Performance Bonuses

For the senior civil service end of year bonuses are determined on an individual basis by the relevant DWP SCS Pay Committee.

Performance awards from the year 2006-07 are paid in the financial year 2007-08.

A total of £36.61 million was paid in performance bonuses in the 2007-08 financial year broken down as follows:

Table 1 : D epartmental total
Financial year Total paid (£ million) Total number of recipients

2007-08

36.61

113,425


Table 2: Total at grades below SCS
Financial year Total paid (£ million) Total number of recipients

2007-08

34.88

113,223



26 Nov 2008 : Column 1966W
Table 3: Total at SCS
Financial year Total paid (£ million) Number of recipients

2007-08

1.73

202

Notes:
1. The information in tables 1 and 2 is based on the numbers of employees recorded on the DWP payroll systems as having received a qualifying performance mark. These are headcount.
2. Some individuals may have received more than one type of bonus payment in the year, which is why the information has been presented separately and not as an aggregated total.
3. The performance bonus is paid in the financial year following the performance year of 1 April to 31 March.
4. The total amount paid includes Employers National Insurance Contribution (ERNIC).

Individuals may also be entitled to special bonus payments either as cash or vouchers. These are one-off recognition awards, payable at any time during the performance year and are not linked to the annual pay award.

The cost in a typical year for cash bonuses is around £2.7 million with payments made to approximately 11,250 individuals.

The cost for voucher payments was £1.77 million in 2007-08. 31,237 vouchers were issued, but some individuals might have received more than one voucher.

Departmental Procurement

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether there has been any nugatory cost to his Department and its agencies relating to tendered procurement where the tender process has been cancelled prior to the award of the contract in the last three years. [239646]

Ms Rosie Winterton: My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, announced on 13 November that the Government had decided to award a contract for a successor to the current Post Office card account to Post Office Ltd.

I shall write to the hon. Member with an estimate of the costs of the staff directly involved in the procurement and will place a copy of my letter in the Library. Some of these costs would have been necessary in any event to put in place a new contract with the Post Office so have not been ‘abortive’.

No other tender processes undertaken by my Department in the last three years have been cancelled prior to the award of a contract.

Departmental Public Opinion

Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department has spent on (a) focus groups and (b) opinion polls in each year since 1997-98; how much he estimates will be spent on each category in 2008-09; and if he will make a statement. [239054]

Jonathan Shaw: Focus group research is often an integral part of the development of communications campaigns. However the cost of such is often included within those campaign development costs and the specific costs are not held separately. disproportionate costs would be incurred to cover 10 years of expenditure.

Focus groups are also used as elements within the Department's larger evaluations but as above, specific costs are not always held separately and disproportionate costs would be incurred to cover 10 years of expenditure.


26 Nov 2008 : Column 1967W

The Department has conducted omnibus surveys on public attitudes to the Government's welfare reform programme since 2001. To date in 2008, the Department has conducted omnibus surveys designed to raise awareness of the change to state retirement age for women, to encourage planning and saving for retirement and on young people's attitudes to work and benefits.

Details per financial year are provided in the following table.

Cost (£)

2000-01—Public Attitudes—Wave 1

9,350

2001-02—Public Attitudes—Wave 2

9,600

2002-03—Public Attitudes—Wave 3

10,450

2003-04—Public Attitudes—Wave 4

11,100

2004-05—Public Attitudes—Wave 5 and new 1 and Public Awareness

86,000

2005-06—Public Attitudes

50,000

2006-07—Public Attitudes

32,030

2007-08—Public Attitudes

40,850

2008-09—Public Attitudes (includes predicted costs until end of the financial year)

90,000

2007-08—Attitudes to pension saving

1,550

2007-08—Attitudes to retirement

4,480

2008-09—Young people's attitudes to work and benefits

25,665

Total costs

371,075


This research was limited between 2001 and 2004. In 2005 an increased number of new attitude statements were included in omnibus research and we also conducted a piece of research to monitor public awareness of the Department and its responsibilities. This year, we have increased the frequency of the surveys in order to most effectively inform the development of our communications activity.

The Department does not conduct opinion polling since the quick turn around necessary to reflect the pressing issues of the day often involves:


26 Nov 2008 : Column 1968W

Departmental Translation Services

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was spent by his Department on providing translation services for customers in each of the last five years. [226157]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The DWP provides a range of language translation services for customers across the UK, namely:

We are also able to offer a service to convert documents into Easy Read format.

The contractual arrangements for the services have been developed over a number of years and as a result spend has not been applicable for some of these services in each of the last five years or data has not been able to be gathered for spend during some years. Disproportionate cost would be incurred in trying to identify such spend.

The range of services also includes the translation of departmental information leaflets that are provided to customers into a range of ethnic languages, as well as all publications for Welsh speaking customers.

The following table contains the spend across the DWP for all translation services as recorded on a number of departmental systems and as reported in previous parliamentary questions or freedom of informations requests.

Type of translation service 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09( 1)

Face to Face and Telephone

2,643,448

2,967,756

3,443,334

4,496,008

3,515,722

1,452,800

Ethnic

(2)

(2)

120,720

267,500

134,945

159,166

Welsh

24,973

30,855

20,766

50,759

65,789

40,787

Braille

(2)

(2)

(2)

(2)

45,309

44,879

Audio

(2)

(2)

(2)

(2)

35,572

14,977

Easy Read

(2)

(2)

(2)

(2)

(2)

(2)

Totals

2,668,421

2,998,611

3,584,820

4,814,267

3,797,337

1,712,609

(1 )Year to date August 2008.
(2) Not available without disproportionate cost as data not held centrally.

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