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The key targets for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency are:

Secretary of State Targets (target measures are italicised)

Maintain or improve customer satisfaction by private motorists to 90 per cent and commercial customers to 90 per cent

Maintain or improve on the standard of services to the customer

To achieve at least 16 out of the 18 customer service measures

Accuracy (traceability)—increase the accuracy of the vehicle and driver register by being able to trace registered keepers from the record in 95 per cent of cases.

Launch 24/7 electronic access to vehicle and driver details for approved enquiries by police force or court partners from September 2008.

Collect around £5 billion of VED and through enforcement action collect £30 million.

By restraining transaction unit costs and through other initiatives deliver financial savings of £19.5 million.

Increase customer take-up of electronic transaction channels by March 2009 to 42 per cent.

Reduce average number of days absence for 2008-09 to 10.2.

The key targets for the Vehicle Certification Agency are:

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Secretary of State Targets (target measures are italicised)

To provide a class-leading service in type approval and certification.

90 per cent turnaround of system and component type approval certificates within nine working days.

98 per cent of appraisal reports on technical performance from independent panel members deemed to have no critical defects

Maintain or improve customer satisfaction.

Achieve an average of 85 per cent of customer satisfaction ratings across all measures.

Delivery of services under the terms of the Recast Framework Directive.

To have the systems and processes in place to deliver ECWVTA and National Small Series Type Approval under the Recast Framework Directive by March 2009.

To ensure the continued consistency and quality of VCA’s type approvals.

Carry out a programme of Conformity of Production verifications in accordance with the provisions of Directive 70/156.

Development of a mechanism so that a risk-based approach to Conformity of Production verifications can be implemented in 2009-10.

To carry out a programme of conformity of production inspections for dangerous goods packaging.

To monitor compliance of safety critical vehicle systems and components in the UK marketplace to meet EU standards.

To deliver the agreed 08/09 DfT test and enforcement programme.

To carry out and enforce an annual programme of in-service emissions testing.

Complete agreed 08/09 DfT in-service emissions test programme.

To achieve efficiency savings consistent with the CSR07 settlement, whilst investing in VCA infrastructure and skills.

Delivery of the first year of the CSR 07 Efficiency plan of a reduction in DEL cover over 2007-08 of £300,000 by:

Increasing utilisation to 62 per cent or above in line with VCA's 10/11 end state of 65 per cent

Investing £150,000 in professional skills and capability development.

Achieving a surplus on full cost basis in excess of £50,000.

The key targets for the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency are:

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Secretary of State Targets (target measures are italicised)

To maintain or improve overall customer satisfaction on 07-08 levels of 87 per cent

Increase the range of electronic services available to citizensand businesses—four new electronic services available by 31 March 09.

Book and pay for bulk annual tests online.

Receive updates on changes to legislation and standards.

Start application process for technical tests with forms available online.

Where requested, be reminded of private vehicle MOT test date by e-channels.

Improve the quality and availability of commercial vehicle tests.

85 per cent of tests at test station of choice within one working day of requested date, for tests booked at least 10 days in advance.

Improve road safety through better targeting of non-compliant operators, vehicles and drivers.

Deliver a programme of increased enforcement activities at hotspots on the strategic road network, contributing to a 15 per cent increase in the number of dangerous vehicles and drivers being taken off the road compared with 07/08.

Improve the quality and consistency of vehicle testing.

4 per cent reduction in vehicles with a wrong MOT test result compared to 07/08.

10 per cent improvement in consistency of commercial vehicle tests compared to 07/08 national average.

Implement a revised headlamp aim test.

Reduce the administrative burden of commercial operation.

Deliver DfT plan for graduated fixed penalties and deposits.

Implement simplified fees structure for licensing and annual roadworthiness testing in readiness for implementation in April 2009.

Deliver first year of the three year CSR07 plan.

Reduce the cost base, excluding depreciation, by £4 million.

Reduce the average number of days lost per employee through sickness absence to 9.5 days (and 7.5 days by 2010-11).

Increase the take-up of existing electronic services available to customers to 32 per cent.

The key targets for the Government Car and Despatch Agency are:

Secretary of State Targets (target measures are italicised)

Maintain a Customer Satisfaction index (CSI) score of at least 87.

To maintain accreditation for ISO 9001.

The quality of service is measured by means of ISO 9001, the internationally recognised standard for quality Management Systems.

To maintain accreditation for ISO 14001.

Measured by means of ISO 14001, the internationally recognised standard for environmental management systems.

By March 2009 to reduce average CO2 tailpipe emissions of our fleet by at least 5 per cent compared with March 2008 levels.

To break even on an accruals basis.

As a not-for-profit organisation GCDA aims to recover costs. In delivering this target we will seek to ensure that our administration is as effective as possible, delivering excellent value for money to our customers.

To reduce sickness absence rates to eight days per employee per annum.

To commission an on-line payment system for customers.

UK Border Agency

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jacqui Smith) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

In a Statement to Parliament on the 14 November 2007 (Official Report, col. 667), my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced a wide range of measures to counter terrorism, increase the resilience of communities to resist extremism and to strengthen our borders. The Statement announced the decision to establish a UK Border Agency, a global organisation that will improve the UK's security through stronger border protection whilst welcoming legitimate travellers and trade.

The new UK Border Agency is today established as a shadow agency of the Home Office. The agency's purpose and objectives are set out in its first business plan, which I am laying in the House today. That purpose is clear. It is to secure our border and control migration for the benefit of our country: protecting our borders and national interests, preventing border tax fraud, smuggling and immigration crime and implementing decisions quickly and fairly.

The UK Border Agency will unite the work of the Border and Immigration Agency, Customs detection work at the border from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and UKvisas from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), to create an organisation with a budget of over £2 billion, 25,000 staff, and operating in local communities, at our borders, and across 135 countries worldwide. The agency will deploy unprecedented power in pursuit of its goals.

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The new agency will deliver new powers to front-line officers. I can announce that by the summer we will have cross conferred customs and immigration powers on over 1,000 front-line staff. In addition, staff in England and Wales will be equipped with police-like powers as set out in the UK Borders Act. Passengers and goods will now be checked at a single primary line. Uniformed UK Border Agency officers will protect the UK searching for signs of smuggled goods or immigration abuse and will have new powers to improve their ability to detain suspected law breakers. Legislation to provide for full integration of customs staff will be presented to the House shortly. Wider powers demand tough accountability. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has therefore taken over investigation of individual cases from 25 February and we intend to appoint an independent inspector of the UKBA shortly.

Further, the new agency will unlock a new relationship with 1,600 uniformed police officers at ports and airports and the UK's 1,400 Special Branch officers for whom funding has been increased to around £75 million. Today I am placing in the Library of the House a new framework of co-operation between the police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The framework establishes strategic direction for intelligence sharing and delivery of front-line operations.

In response to a recommendation in the Cabinet Office report Security in a Global Hub—Establishing the UK's new Border Agency Arrangements, published last November, the Home Office is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to consider how policing—which is currently delivered by the local force for each port and airport—may be best organised to deliver a fuller level of integration at the border, taking into consideration the drive for greater collaboration, which is at the heart of the Government’s programme for improving protective services.

We are discussing with the Scottish devolved Administration and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland ways of strengthening working relationships between the Scottish police service and the new agency taking into account the devolved nature of policing in Scotland.

By working in partnership with HMRC and the FCO, the UK Border Agency will contribute to the collection of £22 billion in tax revenue and the facilitation of international trade worth £600 billion per annum.

The agency will be more powerful than today's separate forces and will therefore deliver on tougher targets. It will:

expel 5,000 FNPs from Britain, up from 4,200 last year;sustain last year's increase in the seizure of class A drugs by seizing at least 2,400 kgs of cocaine and 550 kgs of heroin by April 2009;increase by 50 per cent the number of asylum cases concluded in less than six months;extend the UK's visas regime to cover a larger proportion of the world's population; and

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increase our detention capacity by 20 per cent over the next two years to help us increase the number of immigration offenders we can remove from the country.

Lin Homer as chief executive will be supported by a board including an HMRC Commissioner, Mike Eland, a senior FCO representative, James Bevan, and a senior police representative, Roger Baker, the Chief Constable of Essex.

I am also placing in the Library of the House a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Home Office and the FCO, which underpins the move of UKvisas into the new global agency.

The MOU sets out the respective commitments of the Home Office and the FCO. It details the financial, resource and management framework within which the UK Border Agency's overseas operations will

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function. From today UK Border Agency's overseas staff, drawn from the FCO, the Home Office and from external organisations will work as an integrated team to achieve the Government's objectives for immigration and border security.

Finally, on 1 April, my honourable friends the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration (Liam Byrne) and the Minister for the Middle East (Kim Howells) wrote to the Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Select Committees outlining the new procedures for dealing with correspondence on visa-related matters. On the same day my right honourable friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane Kennedy) wrote to the Treasury Select Committee about procedures for dealing with correspondence relating to frontier detection. I am placing a copy of these letters in the Library of the House today.

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