---

Child Support Agency

The Secretary of State’s targets have been designed to ensure that the agency is firmly on track to achieve its operational improvement plan commitments in this crucial second year of the programme. They are:

Number of children	Maintenance will be collected or have been arranged by the agency on behalf of 720,000 children, as measured by the monthly average over the quarter ending March 2008.
Total maintenance collection (Arrears)	Collect or have arranged £970 million in child maintenance between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2008; of which at least £120 million will be arrears.
Maintenance outcomes	By 31 March 2008, in 66 per cent of cases across both the new and old schemes in which a liability to pay maintenance exists, the non-resident parent has either made a payment via the collection service or a maintenance direct arrangement is in place.
Uncleared applications to the new scheme	By 31 March 2008, the volume of uncleared new scheme applications will be no more than 140,000.

Disability and Carers Service

28 Mar 2007 : Column WS137

Performance Standards for 2007-08

Ensure that at least 92 per cent of calls to the DLA/AA Helpline, our national telephone service, are answered first time.

Ensure that less than 1 per cent of all calls attempted to the DLA/AA Helpline receive an engaged tone.

Increase the percentage of customers satisfied with the service provided by DCS to 86 per cent.

Clear new claims for DLA within an average of 38 or fewer working days; new claims for AA within an average of 18 days and CA within an average of 13.5 days.

Achieve an accuracy rate of 90.5 per cent on decisions on claims for DLA.

Achieve an accuracy rate of 92 per cent on decisions on claims for AA.

Achieve a financial accuracy rate of 98 per cent on CA.

Reduce sick absence to eight average working days lost.

Meet the efficiency challenge by delivering a staffing level of 5,603.

Reduce the cost of processing benefits to: DLA/AA claim £154.98^*; DLA/AA load £7.80^*; CA claim £80.72^*; andCA load £11.05^*.

Number of DLA/AA cases referred to the tribunal service to be no more than 4.5 per cent of all cases.

Of the referred cases heard by the tribunal service no more than 45 per cent to be overturned.

^* figures to be confirmed

The Rent Service

Service Delivery

Customer Satisfaction

Local Authority Housing Benefit Department Customers

Ensure that at least 95 per cent of our local authority customers rate our service as satisfactory or better during the year.

Fair Rent Customers and Housing Benefit Inspections

Ensure that at least 95 per cent of our fair rent customers, and those housing benefit claimants whose properties we inspect, rate our service as satisfactory or better during the year.

Quality

95 per cent of all housing benefit determinations that are checked as part of our quality assurance processes are verified as being accurate.

95 per cent of all fair rent valuations that are checked as part of our quality assurance processes are verified as being accurate.

Speed of Processing

Type of Determination	Timescale for the Year	2007-08 Target Outturn
Housing Benefit:
With an inspection	within 15 working days	94 per cent
Without an inspection	within 3 working days	94 per cent
Pre-Tenancy	within 4 working days	94 per cent
Redetermination	within 15 working days	94 per cent
Fair Rents	within 40 working days	94 per cent

Value for Money

Productivity

To increase productivity by 5 per cent by the end of the year.

Cost per case

To reduce cost per case by 1.5 per cent in real terms by the end of the year.

28 Mar 2007 : Column WS138

Sickness Absence

To reduce average sick absence to no more than eight working days per employee per year.

Department for Work and Pensions: Social Fund Allocations

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (James Plaskitt) has made the following Statement.

I am pleased to announce that the gross discretionary Social Fund budget for 2007-08 will be £752 million.

This includes a £50 million injection of net funding, being the second of three which in total comprise a substantial £210 million boost to support changes to the loans scheme.

With the net funding available, I have been able to allocate a gross national loans budget of £610 million and a national community care grants budget of £141 million from 1 April 2007.

£1 million will be retained centrally as a contingency reserve. For example, it is available to provide additional help to Jobcentre Plus budgets facing unexpected and unplanned expenditure.

Details of individual budget allocations will be placed in the Library.

The discretionary social fund budget is cash limited. Budgets are allocated to districts on 1 April each year. The gross discretionary social fund budget allocated for 2007-08 is £752 million made up of:

new money (net AME) £228.2 million;

forecast loan recovery £523.8 million.

This was allocated as follows:

loans £610 million;

grants £141 million;

contingency reserve £1 million.

Education: Diploma Gateway

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Adonis): My honourable friend the Minister for Schools and 14-19 Learners (Jim Knight) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I have today announced the outcome of the Diploma Gateway process to approve consortia to offer the first new diplomas to young people in selected areas of the country in September 2008. A list of the consortia and their approval status has been placed in the Library.

The diplomas will broaden the options available to young people, encouraging more to continue learning for longer and gain the qualifications they need to progress into further and higher education, and employment. They are fundamental to our proposals

28 Mar 2007 : Column WS139

on raising the participation age, as set out in last week's Green Paper Raising Expectations: staying in education and training post 16.

The availability of the first 5 diploma lines from 2008 shows that we are on track with our priorities set out in our 14-19 Education and Skills Implementation Plan (2005).

EU: Berlin Declaration

The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): EU heads of state and government met in Berlin over the weekend 24 to 25 March to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. The Berlin declaration recalls the historic achievements of the past 50 years, and looks ahead to the challenges that we the countries of the European Union need to face together. Copies of the declaration have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

EU: Transport Council

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Douglas Alexander) has made the following Ministerial Statement.

I attended the transport session of the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council, held in Brussels on 22 March. The German Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, Mr Wolfgang Tiefensee, was in the chair.

Two aspects of the Galileo satellite navigation programme were on the agenda.

The presidency and Commission reported to the council on the current difficulties with the concession contract negotiations for the PPP and the impact on the overall development of the project. There has not been any recent progress on the negotiations because of internal problems among the partners in the consortium bidding to run the Galileo PPP. In the light of the delays, the presidency recently convened a meeting with the consortium but no satisfactory solution had been found to the current deadlock. At council, it was therefore necessary to consider what action could be taken to get the process back on track. The bidding consortium has now been given a deadline of 10 May 2007 to take the necessary measures to allow negotiations to move forwards effectively. If the deadline is not met, the Commission will begin to develop alternative options for taking forward the Galileo project. A more detailed discussion on these issues would then follow at the June Transport Council. Council conclusions, acceptable to the UK, were agreed to this end.

The council adopted a decision setting out the framework for third country participation, as associated members, in the Galileo supervisory authority. The decision, with which the UK is content, authorises the Commission to open negotiations with non-EU countries that apply, with final approval resting with the council.

28 Mar 2007 : Column WS140

There was unanimous support for an EU-US air services agreement. The presidency reported that, following the most recent negotiations with the US, the proposed text for a first stage agreement had been considerably improved and was a good starting point for reaching a full open aviation area. However, negotiations should resume quickly to make further progress on a second stage. A number of Ministers spoke to welcome the agreement. I pointed out that the UK accounts for a 40 per cent share of the EU-US market. The deal on the table did not go the full way to achieving a fully liberalised open aviation area, so it was essential to have a clear timetable for delivering a stage 2 agreement and have real leverage if the negotiations did not proceed as we wished. I proposed a mechanism be established for the automatic withdrawal of rights by the EU if an agreement had not been reached within the timetable set down in the draft agreement. Each member state would decide which rights it would wish to withdraw. This suspension would apply unless the council agreed unanimously otherwise. In addition, it was proposed that the start of the agreement be delayed until 30 March 2008 to give airports and airlines more time to prepare. These points were agreed and are reflected in the council conclusions, which were adopted unanimously.

The council adopted a decision on the signature and provisional application of the agreement reached with Russia on Siberian overflights, including the establishment of a cost equalisation mechanism during the transitional period. We strongly welcome this agreement and support the decision.

There was a debate on the contribution of the transport sector to the Lisbon Strategy. The presidency put questions to member states for this debate, focusing on how to stimulate consumer demand for cleaner vehicles and how to ensure that rail, shipping and inland waterways play their part. Most member states focused on the proven or potential benefits of: taxation measures for vehicles or fuels; alternative fuels (particularly biofuels); eco-driving; eco-labelling; information campaigns to buyers and drivers; and new technologies. The UK was among those which expressed support for the Commission’s proposal for mandatory CO2 limits for cars and light vans, while pointing to the need to work towards even lower limits by 2020. The Commission summarised its plans for sustainable transport, including car CO2 reduction; an action plan for logistics and a green paper on urban transport; and binding biofuels targets.

Under AOB, the Commission presented two recent communications: one on extension of trans-European transport axes to neighbouring countries, including those in Asia and Africa; and the other on the implementation of the SESAR programme for the modernisation of the European air traffic management system. The presidency is aiming for a decision at the Transport Council in June on the establishment of the SESAR joint undertaking.

Among items adopted without debate was an amending regulation on the accelerated phasing-in of double-hull or equivalent design oil tankers.

28 Mar 2007 : Column WS141

---