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21 Apr 2009 : Column 657W—continued
Calor Gas: Canvey Island
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will extend the public information zones for the Canvey Island (a) Calor Gas and (b) OIKOS sites; and if he will make a statement. [265735]
Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 26 March 2009]: HSE determined the existing public information zones following a detailed assessment of the hazards and risks associated with the Calor Gas Ltd. and OIKOS sites in line with HSE’s—Health and Safety Executive—published policy. There are no plans to extend these public information zones.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what substance was spilled at the Canvey Island Calor Gas site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; what volume of each substance was spilled; and if he will make a statement. [265733]
Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 23 March 2009]: HSE was not notified by Calor Gas Ltd. of any spillage at its Canvey Island site on 15( )October 2008.
HSE understands that Calor Gas Ltd. reported to Castle Point borough council a release of a stenching agent (ethyl mercaptan) on 10 October 2008 during maintenance work at the plant. This incident was not reportable to HSE.
HSE was not notified by Calor Gas Ltd. of any spillage at its Canvey Island site on 25 October 2008.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) when and to whom Calor Gas reported the spillages which occurred at its Canvey Island site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; [265694]
(2) what the location was of the spillage at the Canvey Island Calor Gas site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; [265695]
(3) what investigations have been conducted by the Health and Safety Executive into the spillages at the Canvey Island Calor Gas site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; and if he will make a statement; [265696]
(4) what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the operation of the spill and leak detection systems during the spillages at the Canvey Island Calor Gas site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; [265697]
(5) what information was provided to Canvey Island residents in the public information zone surrounding the Calor Gas site about the spillages at the site on (a) 15 and (b) 25 October 2008; and when it was given. [265699]
Jonathan Shaw: HSE was not notified by Calor Gas Ltd. of any spillage at its Canvey Island site on 15 October 2008.
HSE understands that Calor Gas Ltd. reported to Castle Point borough council a release of a stenching agent (ethyl mercaptan) on 10 October 2008 during maintenance work at the plant. This incident was not reportable to HSE.
HSE was not notified by Calor Gas Ltd. of any spillage at its Canvey Island site on 25 October 2008.
Calor Gas Ltd. has reported to HSE an incident involving the release of approximately 163 tonnes of liquefied propane gas from a bursting disc fitted to pipe work at its Canvey Island site during a routine ship to shore transfer of the liquefied gas from a marine vessel to a storage tank at the site on 27 October 2008. The liquefied gas was released into a catchment area specifically designed to contain spillages of hazardous liquids.
HSE is currently undertaking a detailed investigation of the incident. The investigation includes an assessment of the effectiveness of the spill and leak detection systems at the site.
In March 2003 residents in the public information zone (PIZ) surrounding the Canvey Island site were provided with information about the off-site consequences of possible major accidents. This included information about how people would be warned of an incident with off-site consequences, what action they should take and how they will be kept informed in the event of an emergency at the site.
Calor Gas Ltd. did not warn or provide specific information to residents within the PIZ in relation to the incident on 27 October 2008 as the release was contained within its Canvey Island site.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will meet a delegation including the hon. Member for Castle Point to discuss the safety of the operation of the Canvey Island Calor Gas site. [265698]
Jonathan Shaw: Lord McKenzie of Luton (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State [Lords] with responsibility for health and safety at work) will be happy to meet a delegation including the hon. Member for Castle Point to discuss the safety of operations of the Calor Gas Ltd. site at Canvey Island.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment the Health and Safety Executive has made of the risk of a spillage at the Canvey Island Calor Gas site igniting. [265734]
Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 25 March 2009]: In 1997 HSE assessed the likelihood of a major accident at the Canvey Island site, including a fire and explosion from an unintended release of liquefied petroleum gas, as part of its role in advising the Hazardous Substances Authority on the site’s application for a change to the hazardous substances consent.
In 2005 HSE also assessed Calor Gas Ltd.’s safety report required by the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 to demonstrate that they were taking all measures necessary to prevent major accidents at the Canvey Island site. HSE found no serious deficiencies in the safety report.
Natural Gas: Safety
Mr. Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he plans to take to inform the public to the change in the scheme for registrations of gas fitters from Corgi to the Gas Safe Register. [267742]
Jonathan Shaw: The Health and Safety Executive and the Gas Safe Register are publicising the change, notably through a range of television, radio, newspaper, sports and other advertising, and through a variety of other initiatives such as road shows in major shopping centres across Great Britain. Full details of the change are also available on the HSE and Gas Safe Register websites.
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate: Finance
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer to the right hon. Member for Pontypridd of 23 March 2009, Official Report, columns 173-74W, what proportion of the time expended by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on the generic design assessment work conducted in the third and fourth quarters of 2008-09 has been recovered from the applicants to date; and what the monetary value of the recovered resource is for each quarter. [267753]
Jonathan Shaw: 99 per cent. of the time expended by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on generic design assessment work in quarter 3 has been invoiced to applicants and one-third (£394,454) has been recovered. HSE is awaiting payment of the remaining two-thirds whose value is £802,600, and this is expected shortly. The remaining £13,341 (1 per cent.) will be invoiced at the end of quarter 4. HSE invoices for its recoverable costs at the end of each quarter, hence none of the time expended in quarter 4, the current quarter, has yet been invoiced or recovered.
Pension Credit
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners in the UK received the full pension credit because they had (a) a low contributory state pension and (b) no additional savings in 2007-08. [267280]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The guarantee credit element of pension credit, an income related benefit, works by topping the recipient’s net income (from all appropriate sources) up to their appropriate guarantee. It would not therefore, be appropriate to attribute entitlement to pension credit, to the absence of a particular element of a person’s overall income.
Social Fund
Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was paid out from the Social Fund in the last five years. [268699]
Kitty Ussher: The information requested is given in the following table.
| Social fund gross expenditure in Great Britain | ||
| £ million | ||
| Total including winter fuel payments | Total excluding winter fuel payments | |
| Note: The social fund consists of winter fuel payments, Sure Start maternity grants, cold weather payments, funeral payments, community care grants, budgeting loans and crisis loans. Source: Annual report by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the social fund and, for winter fuel payments, the unrounded version corresponding to the table 3 entry at: www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd4/medium_term.asp | ||
Social Security Benefits
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department has spent on each benefit delivery centre in each month since April 2006; and what assessment he has made of the efficiency of the centres in operation. [257203]
Mr. McNulty: 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 for Work and Pensions has asked me to respond to your questions asking how much his Department has spent on each benefit delivery centre in each month since April 2006; and what assessment he has made of the efficiency of the centres in operation. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
Information on the amount spent on each benefit delivery centre in each month since April 2006 is provided in the tables, copies of which have been placed in the Library.
The key indicators used by Jobcentre Plus to measure the efficiency of the Benefit Delivery Centres are the Average Actual Clearance Times for claims and the number of claims processed per person per day i.e. productivity, both of which show an improvement in the efficiency of the Benefit Delivery network over the period since April 2006.
There has been an increase in the average number of claims processed per person per day on Income Support of 58% from the position in 2006/07 to current performance levels in 2008/09. Similarly there has been an increase of 49% on Jobseekers Allowance over the same timeframe.
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the (a) minimum, (b) average and, (c) maximum amount of time required to complete each of the (i) previous and (ii) current versions of claims application forms for (A) means-tested and (B) non-means tested benefits; and if he will make a statement. [268186]
Jonathan Shaw: My Department does not undertake research in this area across our range of claim forms, principally because time taken to complete a form is very closely linked to each individual's abilities, their circumstances and which parts of the form need to be completed. Given this, research into this aspect would not necessarily deliver any meaningful outcomes.
Customer testing has been conducted for claim forms introduced recently, such as the new employment and support allowance, and the results were taken into account before the forms were introduced. Major changes to content or new forms to be introduced are also tested with customers.
Most new claims for benefit are now taken over the telephone and our contact centre operators guide claimants through the process. The number of new benefit claimants helped over the telephone by Jobcentre Plus contact centres in the period April 2008—February 2009 was 6,734,620. 80 per cent of pension credit and state pension claims are made by telephone and 20 per cent. by paper form.
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Justine Greening: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the level of fraud and error losses in working age income support and jobseeker's allowance in each (a) region and (b) Jobcentre Plus district (i) in each year since Jobcentre Plus's fraud and error targets were launched and (ii) in each of the last 24 months. [264236]
Mr. McNulty: The level of fraud and error in income support and jobseeker's allowance is estimated using results from a sample survey of benefit claims, which is designed to produce a robust estimate at the national level.
The first Monetary Value of Fraud and Error (MVFE) target for Income Support/Jobseeker's Allowance (IS/JSA) in SR02 ran from a baseline year of 1997-98 through to 2005-06. During this period as well as the national estimates used to evaluate progress against the target, tables were also published that showed estimates of MVFE for Government Office Regions, which were equivalent to JCP regions from 2002.
With the introduction of a new SR04 target in 2005-06 DWP statisticians analysed the historical regional estimates produced during SR02 to assess whether they had been a robust indicator of MVFE at regional level. Analysis showed that for many regions the estimates of fraud and error fluctuated substantially year on year. These fluctuations were judged to be due to the relatively small sample of claims investigated in any one region. Since the sample survey is designed to produce the best estimate at a national level, estimates of fraud and error at a lower geographical level are based on a small
sample of claims and have a high risk of not accurately representing the amount of fraud and error for all claims in a region.
Following this analysis DWP have not published regional estimates from 2006-07 onwards as they were judged to be not robust enough to meet the standards required of national statistics and there was a high risk that fluctuations in the estimates would be misinterpreted as indicating real change in fraud and error in the regions.
Social Security Benefits: Lone Parents
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how much he has allocated to fund the childcare costs of lone parents with young children wishing to return to work in 2009-10; [255134]
(2) from what source funding to cover the childcare costs of lone parents with young children wishing to return to work will come. [255135]
Kitty Ussher: As set out in the discussion paper on the next steps in implementing the Gregg Review (28 January 2009) we stated that the costs of childcare for lone parents with young children wishing to return to work are funded from the Department's core DEL—Departmental Expenditure Limited—budget, and from within that the budget allocated to New Deal for Lone Parents. The initial allocation for New Deal for Lone Parents for 2009-10 is anticipated to be £34 million(based on current assumptions and may be subject to change). We do not specifically allocate budgets for the various components of the New Deal for Lone Parents programme. However, in 2008-09 childcare costs have accounted for just over 18 per cent. of the total spend.
State Retirement Pensions
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the cost to the Exchequer of raising the state pension by (a) 10, (b) 25, (c) 50 and (d) 100 per cent. [260265]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The net additional cost of increasing the basic state pension by 10 per cent. 25 per cent. 50 per cent. or 100 per cent. instead of the current baseline assumption of RPI or 2.5 per cent. whichever is the highest, in the year 2009-10 is given in the following table.
| Uprating the basic state pension in 2009-10 by: | Net additional annual cost in 2009-10 (£ billion, 2008-09 prices) |
| Notes: Estimates are presented in net terms reflecting that the estimated savings from reduced income related benefit payments (pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit) have been deducted from the cost of increasing the basic state pension. The proportions of additional expenditure saved through reduced income related benefit payments have been estimated using the Department's Policy Simulation Model and are assumed to remain constant overtime. In the baseline costing for the financial year 2009-10 Treasury Economic assumptions consistent with the pre-Budget report 2008 have been used to model basic state pension uprating. Estimates are in 2008-09 prices and have been rounded to the nearest £100 million. Source: DWP modelling | |
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