The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the chief executive of Jobcentre Plus, Lesley Strathie. I have asked her to provide my hon. Friend with the information requested.
Letter from Lesley Strathie, dated 25 April 2007:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question what the latest performance statistics are for the processing of National Insurance Number applications at each of the London offices dealing with such applications. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.
There are currently four National Insurance Number processing sites in London—Tooting, Cityside, Camden, and Hounslow. There is also a satellite office at Harlesden. Cityside, our newest site, opened in November 2006. The centres in London deal with 36% of all applications nationally.
We aim to process applications for National Insurance Numbers as quickly and securely as possible. In order to manage performance we have set an internal target for our teams to clear 86% of applications within 30 days.
The current performance figures are shown in the table below.
Proportion cleared within 30 days (Percentage) Camden 83.50 Cityside 75.38 Harlesden 82.07 Hounslow 82.07 Tooting 91.07 London 83.34 Note: The figures quoted are up to the end of February 2007.
I hope this is helpful.