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25 Mar 2009 : Column 452W—continued
| Contact centre locations | Average staff numbers (FTEs) |
| Source: Contact Centre Directorate | |
Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent assessment he has made of the likely effects of changes in levels of unemployment on staffing levels in (a) his Department and (b) Jobcentre Plus. [265296]
Mr. McNulty:
The Department and its agencies keep headcount plans under continuous review. Jobcentre Plus is increasing its staffing levels to deal with changes in the level of unemployment and announced an increase of 6,000 staff for 2009-10 on the 25 November 2008 to
maintain the delivery of help and support for people who have lost their jobs. The Department will provide further details of its headcount plans, including those in Jobcentre Plus, in its revised three year plan which will be published after the Budget.
Disability Living Allowance: Age
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) if he will estimate the cost to the Exchequer of removing the rule that prevents people from making an initial claim for disability living allowance over the age of 65 for all new claims from people over this age, in each of the next six years; [257088]
(2) if he will estimate the cost to the Exchequer of increasing the age at which people can claim disability living allowance for the first time to (a) 70, (b) 75 and (c) 80 years old; and if he will make a statement; [257089]
(3) if he will estimate the cost to the Exchequer of paying disability living allowance in place of attendance allowance to all pensioners currently receiving attendance allowance in each of the next six years. [257199]
Jonathan Shaw: The information is not available. Entitlement to disability living allowance can only be established when a claim is made and the actual care or mobility needs of the individual are assessed.
There are no reliable data available on which estimates could be made of abolishing or extending the upper age limit up to which disability living allowance can be claimed.
Economic and Monetary Union
Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions with reference to the Answer of 14 July 2008, Official Report, column 132W, on economic and monetary union, whether his Department's updating of its euro changeover plan has been completed; and if he will place in the Library the latest version of the plan. [250047]
Jonathan Shaw: The plan is a high-level technical document summarising the main activities and time scales for work on DWP IT systems that would need to be set in hand if an announcement were to be made that the UK were joining the euro. It would not be appropriate or informative to place this in the Library.
Housing Benefit
Willie Rennie: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many people in each constituency have received local housing allowance in each of the last three years; [265353]
(2) how much housing benefit has been dispensed to people in each constituency by local authorities under (a) local reference rents and (b) local housing allowance in each of the last four years; [265354]
(3) how much of the housing benefit dispensed to people in each constituency by local authorities under (a) local reference rents and (b) local housing allowance in each of the last four years was for housing in the private rented sector. [265355]
Kitty Ussher [holding answer 20 March 2009]: Housing Benefit information is not currently available at constituency level.
Willie Rennie: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate his Department has made of (a) the number of applications for local housing allowance and (b) the estimated Government expenditure on local housing allowance in (i) 2009, (ii) 2010 and (iii) 2011. [265356]
Kitty Ussher [holding answer 20 March 2009]: The Department has not estimated the total number of applications to housing benefit assessed according to local housing allowance rules in each year.
The Department estimates expenditure for local housing allowance by financial year rather than calendar year. Estimates of expenditure are provided in the table.
| £ billion | |
| Estimated cost of local housing allowance | |
As the local housing allowance is being rolled out initially to new claims and those who move address, expenditure increases as more of the private rented sector caseload moves on to local housing allowance each year.
It is important to note that these estimates are subject to a number of assumptions and estimates are sensitive to small changes in these assumptions.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many housing benefit recipients there have been in each region in each year since 1997. [265388]
Kitty Ussher: The information is in the following table.
| Date | East | London | South East | South West | Wales | Scotland |
| Notes: 1. The data refer to benefit units, which may be a single person or a couple. 2. The figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. 3. Figures for any non-responding authorities have been estimated. 4. Housing benefit figures exclude any extended payment cases. 5. From February 2007, DWP has been collecting more detailed housing benefit/council tax benefit data electronically from local authorities. Over time this will improve the accuracy, timeliness and level of detail available in the published statistics. However, until the new data have been fully quality assured to National Statistics standards, the most recent summary statistics available are for August 2007. Source: Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Management Information System Quarterly 100 per cent caseload stock-count taken in August 1997 to August 2007. | ||||||
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