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20 May 2009 : Column 1392W—continued

Travel: Personal Records

Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether his Department has carried out an impact assessment of the Home Office's proposal to give the police powers to collect advance passenger data in respect of domestic air and sea journeys; and what recent discussions there have been between officials of his Department and officials of the Home Office on this matter. [275500]

Jim Fitzpatrick: Section 14 of the Police and Justice Act 2006 gives the police the power, subject to commencement through secondary legislation, to require a carrier, on request, to capture passenger and crew identity and other service data on domestic routes. The Home Office has not yet made a decision to carry out a formal public consultation on the proposals, which would include a full regulatory impact assessment, though the intention would be to focus the use of this power only on crossings between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Department for Transport officials and those from the Home Office are in regular contact on the range of international counter-terrorism issues.

Work and Pensions

Jobcentre Plus

Justine Greening: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many members of Jobcentre Plus staff in each (a) region and (b) Jobcentre Plus district participated in (i) Foundation Learning Routeway, (ii) Managers who Deliver—Leaders who Inspire and (iii) the Professional Skills for Government framework (A) in each year since the schemes were launched and (B) in each of the last 24 months; [264268]

(2) how much was (a) budgeted and (b) spent in each (i) region and (ii) Jobcentre Plus district on (A) Foundation Learning Routeway, (B) Managers who Deliver—Leaders who Inspire and (C) the Professional Skills for Government framework (1) in each year since the schemes were launched and (2) in each of the last 24 months. [264269]

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.

Letter from Mel Groves:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your questions asking:

how many members of Jobcentre Plus staff in each (a) region and (b) Jobcentre Plus district participated in (i) Foundation Learning Routeway (ii) Managers who Deliver—Leaders who Inspire and (iii) the Professional Skills for Government framework (A) in each year since the schemes were launched and (B) in each of the last 24 months.

how much was (a) budgeted and (b) spent in each (i) region and (ii) Jobcentre Plus district on (A) Foundation Learning Routeway, (B) Managers who Deliver—Leaders who Inspire and (C) the Professional Skills for Government framework (1) in each year since the schemes were launched and (2) in each of the last 24 months.

This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

20 May 2009 : Column 1393W

The new foundation learning materials consist of 14 learning and development products. The suite of products includes elements of mandatory and non mandatory learning and development materials, depending on an individual’s job role. Line Managers in consultation with an individual will agree a pathway of foundation learning targeted at addressing their job role requirements.

In April 2008, the foundation learning was reviewed and revised and therefore any historical information would not accurately reflect the number of individuals who undertook foundation learning over the last 24 months. Our systems are not set up to capture this type of management information, and it would need to be compiled clerically, which would incur disproportionate cost.

The Jobcentre Plus management and leadership development programme (called “Managers who deliver—Leaders who inspire”) is a relatively new programme that was piloted in September 2007 and rolled out nationally from early 2008. It was designed to incorporate the skills required by the Professional Skills for Government (PSG) framework so the two are inextricably linked. There is no separate learning intervention on the PSG framework itself in relation to the middle managers covered by this development programme, however PSG is a framework that is integrated into the appraisal and development planning for such managers.

The available information regarding “Managers who deliver—Leaders who inspire” is attached at Annex 1. The volumes and costs data is broken down by region and operational arm, rather than just by Customer Service Directorate region and district as requested. This is because the Benefit and Fraud and Contact Centre Directorates do not have the same district based organisational structure. Information on how much was budgeted for this training is only collated at national level.

Annex 1

Numbers of participants in the “Managers who Deliver—Leaders who inspire” development programme in Jobcentre Plus from September 2007 to March 2009
Regions	Contact Centre Direct	Benefit Fraud Directorate	Other Directorates
East of England	31	12	8
East Midlands	28	10	1
London	73	26	1
North East	22	31	3
North West	38	32	10
Scotland	42	13	3
South East	49	26	3
South West	38	22	3
Wales	33	14	4
West Midlands	58	11	2
Yorkshire and Humber	26	6	15
Total	438	203	53

20 May 2009 : Column 1394W

Costs of participants in the “Managers who deliver—Leaders who inspire” development programme in Jobcentre Plus from September 2007 to March 2009
£
	Customer Service Directorate	Benefit Fraud Directorate	Other Directorates
East of England	87,400	29,600	1,800
East Midlands	76,700	26,600	16,100
London	192,300	69,200	1,800
North East	49,800	74,500	8,900
North West	105,100	78,400	12,400
Scotland	118,100	38,900	8,800
South East	168,100	72,500	7,100
South West	94,200	59,100	8,900
Wales	90,900	33,700	3,600
West Midlands	168,400	28,500	37,200
Yorkshire and Humber	69,600	44,200	7,100
Total	1,220,600	552,500	113,700

Jobcentre Plus: Manpower

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what roles he expects the planned aditional 6,000 Jobcentre Plus staff to fill. [266130]

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 right hon. Member with the information requested.

Letter from Mel Groves dated 20 May 2009:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking what roles we expect the planned additional 6,000 Jobcentre Plus staff to fill. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

In line with the recent Budget announcements, Jobcentre Plus will be able to recruit up to 10,000 more staff. This is on top of the 6,000 new staff already announced in Pre Budget Report. Some 6,000 staff have been recruited between October 2008 and April 2009.

All of this new resource will be applied to customer-facing services. More than half of these will be Personal Advisers with the rest in customer intervention and support roles within our customer service operations.

Members: Correspondence

Sir Gerald Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he plans to reply to the letter of 6 April 2009 from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Mrs. H Kennedy. [276506]

James Purnell: A reply was sent to my right hon. Friend on 17 May 2009.

Social Security Benefits

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what welfare reform milestones he has set following the publication of the White Paper on welfare reform in December 2008. [266122]

Mr. McNulty: We outlined a number of commitments in the White Paper ‘Raising expectations and increasing support’. I have set these out in the following table.

20 May 2009 : Column 1395W

20 May 2009 : Column 1396W

‘Raising expectations and increasing support’ White Paper
	Milestones/commitments
2008	New benefit rules to help lone parents back into work.
	STAR rating results for employment zone contacts.
	ESA introduced.
	IES trials go live
2009	Housing benefit external review consultation to take place.
	Extension of ‘Better off in work credit’ if it proves successful.
	Right to bid, bidding process opened.
	Pilot personal health budgets.
	Employment advisers as a core component of the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies programme.
2009, April	Drug co-ordinators introduced. ESA rate alignment commences.
	Income support and housing benefit extended to 21 for young persons in non-advanced full-time education by April 09.
2009, October	Phase one, FND launched.
2010	Work for your benefit introduced. Level one devolution by 2010, then fully embedded by 2010.
	Employ ability campaign widened by 2009-10.
	A 26 week minimum contribution period to national insurance in order to qualify for new ESA and JSA claimants.
	Progression to Work pathfinders for new ESA claims and lone parents with young children.
	Some level 2 activities with sub-regional partnerships operation by 2010 (joint-funded contracts with DWP retaining management of commissioning and contracts) in order to implement the ‘multi-area agreement’. Skills screening fully operational.
	Pilot of the new regime for problem drug users implemented.
2010, April	Full child maintenance disregard in all income related benefits.
2010, October	New Specialist Disability Employment programme begins.
Late 2010	Work-focused interviews extended to the two year point of the claim for new ESA claimants.
2010-13	Migration of existing incapacity benefits recipients to ESA.
	JSA joint claims for couples with a youngest child aged who do not have a child under age seven or over, where both members are capable of work.
	As customers are migrated those under 50 will receive a Pathways to Work style approach and those under 50 will have a less intensive regime plus pilots to seek further evidence on what works best for this group.
	Skills health checks for lone parents.
2011	Right to control, personal budgets to be fully operational.
	Universal information, advice and advocacy service for both people who need services and for their carers, for those who need support to articulate their needs and utilise their budget.
2011, March	Invest to save pilots pathfinders are planned to go live. This will enable us to test out recommendations in the Gregg review, including progression to work conditionality.
	Personalised employment programmes go live. We will explore whether proposals for lone parents with children aged three to six can also be tested in this programme. We will also explore the feasibility of using the Accelerator funding model. These pilots will enable us to trial the conditionality framework recommended in the Gregg review, alongside his central recommendation that support should be personalised depending on need rather than the benefit someone receives
2012-13	JSA joint claims for couples with a youngest child aged seven or over. Income related support payable in respect of couples with at least one individual capable of work, will be paid via JSA only.
	Migration of existing IB recipients to ESA. As customers are migrated those under 50 will receive a Pathways to Work style approach and those under 50 will have a less intensive regime plus pilots to seek further evidence on what works best for this group.
2015	An expectation that where this makes good sense (i.e. will deliver more outcomes) some areas will be operating successfully City regions operating successfully at devolution level 3.
2020	Eradication of child poverty.

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