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30 Mar 2010 : Column 945W—continued
There are no costs recorded for 2007.
The DWP Corporate website was redesigned as part of our response to the Sir David Varney transformational government recommendations that customer-facing content should move to Directgov and employer facing content to Business Link. We are currently working with Cabinet Office to conduct a survey that will act as a benchmark to measure customer satisfaction of the site.
The Office for Disability issues website was redesigned as part of improvement work using customer feedback and research. Formal accessibility audits are carried out every year to ensure the website continues meet customer needs.
All external contracts are tendered within agreed DWP contractual framework agreements.
Departmental Senior Civil Servants
Mr. David Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many grade 2 civil servants are employed in her Department. [325054]
Jonathan Shaw: Grade 2 as a description of staff level is no longer in general use. Senior civil servants in roles at a similar level to the former grade 2 are now referred to as being in Senior Civil Service Pay Band 3 and usually have the job title of Director-General.
The Department has 11 full time Senior Civil Service Pay Band 3s including two in DWP sponsored Non- Departmental Public Bodies; one in each of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission and the Health and Safety Executive.
Employment Schemes: Young People
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether young people taking part in the Young Person's Guarantee are to be allocated for (a) job searches and (b) job interviews whilst taking part in one of the full-time options mandated through the guarantee. [322167]
Jim Knight: Before a young person participates in the Young Person's Guarantee they will already have undergone an extensive period of supported job search and, where appropriate, will have received help with interviews for suitable job vacancies.
Young people participating in the Young Person's Guarantee will continue to receive help with job search and interviews:
As part of the in-work support given to Future Jobs Fund employees, employers are expected to provide training and support to help them move into permanent, sustained employment. From April, Jobcentre Plus will also contact FJF employees as they come towards the end of their job to provide information about jobs available in the local area. This support will complement the activities employers are undertaking to help young people in to sustained jobs.
Young people on other strands of the Young Person's Guarantee also receive tailored help with job search and interviews.
Greg Mulholland: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what programmes sponsored by her Department are designed to assist young people into employment in Leeds North-West constituency. [322703]
Jim Knight: Young people in the Leeds North-West constituency are able to access a wide package of measures that the Government have implemented to address youth unemployment. From day one of their claim Jobseekers can access provision that includes targeted group sessions in jobsearch techniques, access to Local Employment Partnership vacancies and access to additional financial support towards the costs associated with finding work. We have also quadrupled funding to the Rapid Response Service which provides advice and support to people facing redundancy.
Longer-term jobseekers who remain unemployed after six months can access provision that includes the Young Person's Guarantee, which offers the guarantee of a job, training or work experience to all long-term jobseekers aged 18-24, through the Future Jobs Fund (FJF), Routes into Work, Work Focused Training, the Community Task Force and provides access to help with self employment. To date, the Government have agreed to fund around 117,000 jobs through the FJF, and, while details of these jobs are not broken down to constituency level, we know that this total figure includes the creation of up to 734 FJF jobs by Leeds city council.
The Backing Young Britain Campaign brings together business and public and voluntary sectors to provide jobs, internships, apprenticeships and work experience to young people aged 16-24.
Eligible young people can also access a wide range of flexible Jobcentre Plus provision which is tailored to meet other needs, such as those with special needs due to a disability or who are lone parents.
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many individuals (a) are eligible for assistance under and (b) have participated in the Young Person's Guarantee scheme since its inception. [325251]
Jim Knight: The information requested is as follows:
(a) The latest available figures show that 117,400 young people (please note these are provisional figures for February 2010 and are subject to change) have been claiming jobseeker's allowance for six months or over, and all are eligible to access the wide range of provision available through the Young Person's Guarantee (YPG).
(b) Figures on the number of young people who have participated in the YPG are currently unavailable. We are planning to publish statistics on the YPG later this year possible, in line with the UK Statistical Authorities Code of Practice on official statistics.
Foreign Workers
Mr. Leech: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate she has made of the effects on expenditure on benefits of offshoring of jobs. [324962]
Jim Knight: No specific estimate of the effect of offshoring on benefit expenditure has been made.
Funeral Payments
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many funerals received funding from the Social Fund in each of the last three years; and what assessment her Department has made of trends in the cost of funerals. [324481]
Helen Goodman: The available information is in the table.
All aspects of the social fund are kept under review to ensure that they deliver relevant, timely and appropriate support to the right people. The Green Paper "Social Fund reform: debt, credit and low income households" was published on the 15 March 2010 and it includes some discussion of funeral payments. The consultation period began on 15 March 2010 and runs until 7 June 2010.
Future Jobs Fund
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many successful bidders for Future Jobs Fund funding have (a) reduced the number of jobs to be created from the number of the original bid and (b) withdrawn from the scheme; [323495]
(2) what change there has been in the number of jobs to be created by successful bidders for Future Jobs Fund funding compared to the number of jobs contained in those bidders' original bids. [323559]
Jim Knight: No successful bidders have withdrawn from the Future Jobs Fund.
The remaining information requested is not available in the format requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Hewlett Packard
Jim Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what effect the recent industrial action by Hewlett Packard employees has had on the payment by her Department of benefits by girocheque. [325181]
Helen Goodman: The recent industrial action by Hewlett Packard employees has had no effect on the payment of DWP benefits by cheque (formerly girocheques).
Jim Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether service level agreements between Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services and her Department have been breached since 22 January 2010. [325182]
Jim Knight: There have been six minor breaches of the service level agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services since 22 January 2010. None of the breaches has affected the Department's service to its customers. The Department took appropriate action within the terms of the service level agreement.
Housing Benefit: Cambridgeshire
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in (a) Peterborough and (b) Cambridgeshire are receiving local housing allowance. [325062]
Helen Goodman: The available information is in the table
| Housing benefit recipients-local housing allowance (LHA) tenants in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire; as at December 2009 | |
| Number | |
| Notes: 1. Recipients are as at second Thursday of the month. 2. Local housing allowance tenants may include a small number of non-LHA cases making a new claim since 7 April 2008. This will include recipients in caravan accommodation. 3. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. 4. The data refers to benefit units, which may be a single person or a couple. 5. SHBE is a monthly electronic scan of claimant level data direct from local authority computer systems. It replaces quarterly aggregate clerical returns. The data is available monthly from November 2008 and December 2009 is the most recent available. 6. Housing benefit figures exclude any extended payment cases. An extended payment is a payment that may be received for a further four weeks when they start working full time, work more hours or earn more money. 7. Data from SHBE incorporates the local authority changes from 1 April 2009. Source: Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE). | |
Industrial Diseases: Compensation
Lembit Öpik: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what her policy is on compensation awarded to former coal miners diagnosed with work-related physical and mental medical conditions; and if she will make a statement. [325308]
Jonathan Shaw: Jobcentre Plus administers the Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits (IIDB) scheme which provides non-contributory no fault benefits for disablement at work arising from an accident or one of over 70 prescribed diseases known to be a risk of occupation.
Miners may qualify for a payment if they have been disabled as a result of an accident or have one of the following diseases which have been specifically prescribed for diseases caused by work in the coal mining industry:
Prescribed Disease D12-chronic bronchitis and emphysema (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Prescribed Disease A14-osteoarthritis of the knee.
Prescribed Disease B4-ankylostomiasis-exposure to blood sucking parasites and hookworms.
Where appropriate, miners commonly claim for the following other diseases under the IIDB scheme, although these also cover other occupations:
Prescribed Disease A6-bursitis (commonly known by miners as 'beat knee').
Prescribed Disease A11-Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome, commonly known as vibration white finger.
Prescribed Disease D1-pneumoconiosis.
Prescribed Disease A10-occupational deafness.
Prescribed Disease D5-non-infective dermatitis.
There may also be entitlement to Reduced Earnings Allowance if the date of onset of the disease is before 1 October 1990.
Miners may also qualify under the Pneumoconiosis etc (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 which makes lump sum payments to sufferers of certain dust related diseases.
Jobcentre Plus
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many Jobcentre Plus branches there were in (a) rural and (b) urban areas in (i) England and (ii) Wales in each of the last 10 years. [323316]
Jim Knight: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is the responsibility of the chief executive, Darra Singh. I have asked him to provide the hon. Member with the information requested.
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking how many Jobcentre Plus branches there were in (a) rural and (b) urban areas in (i) England and (ii) Wales in each of the last 10 years. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
I am only able to provide information on Jobcentre Plus offices since April 2002, when Jobcentre Plus was created by the merger of the former Employment Service and Benefits Agency. Our public facing network is designed to provide reasonable access to our services throughout England and Wales. Offices open to the public are not categorised as constituting part of an urban conurbation or being sited within a rural location.
Jobcentre Plus inherited around 1,500 offices from the merger of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service in 2002. At the time of merger the two organisations had many offices which were geographically close to each other, often in the same street. We have modernised our Jobcentre network to improve customer service, rationalising our estate to provide excellent high street coverage and a single, integrated customer facing office, at the same time reducing cost to the tax payer. We remain the largest office network in Government with 741 modern Jobcentres. This high street presence is supported by 31 modern contact centres and 79 main benefit processing centres.
The great majority of our services (in common with most large, modern organisations) are now also delivered through the telephone and internet. For example, to give customers more convenient access, we have almost half a million vacancies on-line at any time (our website receives close to one million job searches every working day), and new claims to benefit are predominantly taken by telephone with some taken on-line. In order to make our services more accessible to customers we are providing a range of support through outreach, often delivering advisory and other support on partners' premises This has brought our customer facing services together in a more coherent and integrated network and I believe Jobcentre Plus is well-placed to respond to the full range of economic conditions.
I hope this is helpful.
Jobcentre Plus: Recruitment
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much Jobcentre Plus spent on recruitment in 2008-09; and what proportion of staff costs such expenditure represented. [321361]
Jim Knight: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, Darra Singh. 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 Jobcentre Plus spent on recruitment in 2008-09; and what proportion of staff costs
such expenditure represented. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
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