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Jobcentre Plus

Volume 454: debated on Tuesday 5 December 2006

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in (a) Blandford, (b) Bridport, (c) Christchurch, (d) Dorchester, (e) Wareham and (f) Wimborne visited Jobcentre Plus offices in the last three months for which figures are available. (100806)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the estimated cost of the new Jobcentre Plus office in Bournemouth is; what its gross area is; how many people will be employed there; and what its estimated annual running costs are. (100808)

The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. I have asked her to provide the hon. Gentleman with the information requested.

Letter from Lesley Strathie:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking what the estimated cost of the new Jobcentre Plus office in Bournemouth is; what its gross area is; how many people will be employed there; and what its estimated annual running costs are. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

Our partners, Land Services Trillium, are constructing the new building for Jobcentre Plus. They will bear the cost, including charges for facilities, of approximately £1 million a year. Jobcentre Plus will be responsible for fitting the building to Jobcentre Plus standards at a cost of approximately £2.7 million.

The office will be on three floors, covering 2,888 square metres. The building, on present staffing levels, will house 181 staff, but this is subject to change due to staff movement and business need.

The new building will house staff from 2 existing offices in Old Christchurch Road and Cotlands Road Bournemouth, and centralise all Jobcentre Plus functions on one site. The new office is well served by public transport and close to the local railway station.

I hope this is helpful.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which (a) full and (b) part-time Jobcentre Plus offices have been closed in each of the last four years. (102106)

The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. I have asked her to provide the hon. Gentleman with the information requested.

Letter from Lesley Strathie:

The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking which (a) full time and (b) part time Jobcentre Plus offices have been closed in each of the last four years. This is something, which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.

I enclose a list of the offices that were closed and have indicated in each case whether the office was open full-time or part-time prior to closure. I have placed a copy in the House of Commons Library.

Firstly, as part of the rollout of the new Jobcentre Plus network we have rationalised our estate. We inherited around 1500 offices from the former Employment Service and Benefits Agency, several of which were unsuitable for the new processes, or were in the wrong place or in a poor state of repair. Often, the former agencies had offices situated at either end of the High Street and, in some instances, neither was suitable for conversion to Jobcentre Plus so we closed one or both of them. In each District we undertook detailed service delivery planning exercises in consultation with local stakeholders, identifying the sites which we would convert to the new standard and those, which needed to close. We also explained how, particularly in more rural locations, we would offer outreach services (“flexible service delivery”).

Secondly, as a result of our programme to centralise benefit processing we have identified sites which will no longer be viable once processing work has been taken away from them.

Thirdly, we have been looking very closely at the need for public-facing sites in a number of locations. The increased availability of new channels means that Jobcentre Plus customers can access services directly by telephone or Internet rather than needing to call into one of our offices. Reducing expenditure on our office network is part of our wider strategy for focusing resources more effectively on frontline advisory services to help our customers move into work.

The list of closures should also be set against the 837 offices that we have rolled out to date under our restructuring programme, plus over 150 locations where we have installed flexible service delivery arrangements.

I would emphasise that the closure of any of our offices involves consultation with local stakeholders, including MPs, and putting in place suitable alternative arrangements for delivering services to our customers.

I hope this is helpful.