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16 Mar 2010 : Column 805W—continued
The following table outlines the number of JSA claims processed in December 2009 and January 2010 in both number and percentage terms. The final JSA AACT in month performance for December was 9.0 days and for January was 9.1 days. Current Year to date performance for the 2009-10 performance year is 9.8 days.
| Month | December 2009 | January 20 10 |
| Source: Management and Information System Programme (MISP) 11.02.10 | ||
Please note that the figures provided in the table indicate cumulative figures not stand alone figures for those time bands. For instance, those cleared within 10 days include the claims that were also cleared within 5 days. The only stand alone figures are those cases cleared within the 22+ days timeband.
I hope this information is helpful.
Lighthouse Project: Finance
Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much funding her Department has provided to the Lighthouse project in each year since it was set up. [320715]
Jonathan Shaw: The Lighthouse project was a charitable organization located in Halesowen and Wednesbury in the West Midlands offering drop-in advice and a wide range of support services to the local community. Jobcentre Plus has not been involved in any of their funding. Their local authority funding was withdrawn and the Lighthouse project closed late in 2009.
Nuclear Submarines: Safety
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on what date her Department received the request from the Health and Safety Executive to review the radius of the emergency pre-planning zone around a berthed nuclear submarine. [321373]
Mr. Kidney: I have been asked to reply.
The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for determining the radius of a Detailed Emergency Planning Zone (DEPZ) around a berthed nuclear-powered submarine. The decision to reduce the DEPZ from 2 km to 1.5 km was based on a hazard assessment for such submarines that the Ministry of Defence submitted to the HSE in February 2008. The HSE completed a review of the assessment and informed the Ministry of Defence of the outcome of that review in December 2008.
Pensions
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what her most recent estimate is of the number of people who have not made sufficient savings for their retirement; and what such estimates her Department has made in the last three years. [321496]
Angela Eagle [holding answer 10 March 2010]: The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that, based on Pension Commission benchmark replacement rates, about seven million people are not saving sufficiently for their retirement. It is precisely to address this issue that the Government have legislated to establish NEST, the National Employment Savings Trust, and introduce automatic enrolment into a workplace pension with a guaranteed contribution from the employer and the Government from 2012
This estimate was published in the May 2006 White Paper, 'Security in Retirement: Towards a New Pension System'. No further updates of this figure have been made in the last three years by DWP.
Social Security Advisory Committee
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 8 March 2010, Official Report, column 78W, on Social Security Advisory Committee: finance, how much the Social Security Advisory Committee spent (a) in total, (b) on staffing costs and (c) on running costs in (i) 2005-06, (ii) 2006-07, (iii) 2007-08, and (iv) 2008-09; and how much expenditure she expects that Committee to incur on each type of cost in 2009-10. [322054]
Jim Knight: The information is in the following table:
| £ | |||||
| 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10( 1) | |
| (1) Estimate. Notes: 1. All figures rounded to the nearest £100. 2. The SSAC is the UK advisory body on social security and related matters, such as links with the labour market and wider social welfare issues. It performs a mandatory scrutiny of most proposals for making the regulations on those issues. Thus, much of the Department for Work and Pensions' policy and legislative proposals-including the progressing of the welfare reform agenda-comes before the Committee. 3. The significant increase in non-staffing costs in 2008-09 mainly reflects the Committee's decision, in the light of rising workloads, to deploy Members and external researchers more intensively to augment the work carried out by the SSAC Secretariat in that year. It also reflects the Committee's costs in undertaking a public appointment exercise in 2008-09; no such exercise took place in the previous year. | |||||
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much and what proportion of known fraud debt stock was fraud debt her Department recovered in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [316098]
Helen Goodman: The following table provides data on the value of fraud classified debt recoveries and the proportion of those recoveries against the fraud debt stock. The information is only available from 2005-06.
| Fraud classified debt recoveries (£ million) | Proportion of recoveries against Fraud Debt Stock (percentage) | |
| Source: Shared Services Debt Manager via Business Objects computer system. This is based on available Management Information, and does not form Official Statistics. | ||
Recoveries are now at an all time high. Since 2005-06, the Department has increased overall recoveries from £180 million per year to over £280 million.
The NAO recognised our improved performance in its report 'Department for Work and Pensions, Management of Benefit Overpayment Debt', May 2009.
As a result of the Department's Debt Management's strategy a greater proportion of outstanding fraud debts are being actively managed each year. Currently, for 90 per cent. of customers with fraud debts, repayment is either being made, being negotiated, or suspended due to inability to repay, e.g. in prison.
We always pursue repayment. For income related benefits overpayment recovery is subject, by legislation, to a maximum rate of recovery. For other benefits the maximum deduction rate is set administratively at one third of the personal rate of the benefit or pension concerned. We will continue to recover this money over the coming years.
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what her latest estimate is of the monetary value of benefit fraud committed by people living outside the UK; and if she will make a statement. [316398]
Helen Goodman [holding answer 8 March 2010]: The amount wrongly paid to customers who are normally resident in United Kingdom but claimed benefits while abroad for longer than the rules allow is available in table 6.1 in the National Statistics report "Fraud and Error in the Benefits System: April 2008 to March 2009" a copy of which is available in the Library. The report can also be accessed online at:
To help us reduce this type of fraud we are increasing the number of countries with which we have arrangements for closer working and data sharing.
We are also reminding people in the latest Targeting Fraud campaign and in leaflets of their responsibility to tell us if they are going abroad.
Unemployment Benefits
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people claiming (a) jobseeker's allowance, (b) income support, (c) incapacity benefit and (d) employment and support allowance have been sanctioned, broken down by the number of such sanctions received. [313161]
Angela Eagle: Data on the number of people claiming income support, incapacity benefit, and employment and support allowance who have been sanctioned are not available. The data that are available for jobseeker's allowance can be found in the following table.
| Number of sanctions applied (adverse decision), by number of individuals (thousands) April 2000 to October 2009 | |
| Number of individuals( 1) | |
| (1 )Individuals and decisions based figures are rounded to the nearest ten and displayed in thousands. Some additional disclosure control has been applied. Notes: 1. This information is published at the Department for Work and Pensions website: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/tabtool.asp 2. Data prior to April 2000 are not available. Source: DWP Information Directorate: JSA Sanctions and Disallowance Decisions Statistics Database. | |
This amounts to an average of 96,000 sanctions and 112,000 adverse entitlement decisions per year, respectively 10 per cent. and 12 per cent. of the average JSA caseload.
Cabinet Office
Business
Mr. Amess: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many small businesses there were in (a) England, (b) Eastern England and (c) Southend West constituency in each year since 1997. [321899]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated March 2010:
As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many small businesses there were in a) England, b) Eastern England and c) Southend West constituency in each year since 1997 (321899).
Annual statistics on business births, deaths and survival are available for 2002 onwards from the ONS release on Business Demography at:
Information on the number of active enterprises by parliamentary constituency is only available from 2004 onwards. The table below contains the latest statistics available on active enterprises with less than 50 employment for England, East of England and Southend West.
| Active enterprises with less than 50 employment 2002-08 | |||
| England | East of England | Southend West | |
| n/a = Not available. | |||
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