My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (James Purnell) has made the following Statement.
On 27 March 2008, I issued a Written Statement (col. 21 WS) announcing the annual performance targets in 2008-09 for the executive agencies of the Department for Work and Pensions.
One of the targets for the Pension, Disability and Carers Service—“clear new applications and changes of circumstances to pension credit within an average of 15 working days”—was incorrect.
The correct target should have read—“clear new applications to pension credit within an average of 15 working days”.
A further target for the Pension, Disability and Carers Service—“achieve 82 per cent of customers satisfied with the service they receive” requires clarification.
An explanatory footnote is required to explain that the 2008-09 customer satisfaction survey will focus on customers of the former Disability and Carers Service. The target of 82 per cent will relate to the former agency and not all the customers of the Pension, Disability and Carers Service.
For completeness, the full set of targets is set out below.
Performance Standards
Performance Standards for Pension Customers To deliver an annualised value of new successful pension credit applications of £767 million and to secure at least 250,000 successful new pension credit applications. Achieve an accuracy rate of 92 per cent on new claims and changes of circumstances to pension credit Achieve an accuracy rate of 98 per cent on new claims and changes of circumstances to state pension Clear new applications to pension credit within an average of 15 working days Clear at least 95 per cent of new claims to state pension within 60 days
Performance Standards for Disabled People and Carers The number of disability living allowance/attendance allowance cases referred to the Tribunal Service to be no more than 4.5 per cent Achieve 82 per cent of customers satisfied with the service they receive*** Clear new claims for disability living allowance within 38 days Clear new claims for attendance allowance within 16 days Clear new claims for carer’s allowance within 13.5 days Reduce the costs of processing benefits to £34.35 Achieve an accuracy rate of 94 per cent on decisions on claims for disability living allowance Achieve an accuracy rate of 94 per cent on decisions on claims for attendance allowance Achieve a financial accuracy rate of 98 per cent for carer’s allowance
* The 2008-09 customer satisfaction survey will focus on customers of the former Disability and Carers Service. The target of 82 per cent will relate to the former agency and not all the customers of the Pension, Disability and Carers Service.
** Disability and Carers Service had adopted the same methodology for establishing a base for customer satisfaction since 2004 while continuing to review the structure of the MORI poll. 2007 provided the opportunity to expand the scope of the annual survey to better represent the cases where benefit is disallowed. From 2004-05 to 2007-08, the results of the survey are comparable. For 2007-08, an additional figure for the revised baseline will also be provided that will be used for target and comparison purposes for 2008-09.
Joint Performance Standards for the Pension, Disability and Carers Service To have less than 1 per cent of calls receiving an engaged tone To have at least 93 per cent of calls answered by an adviser We aim to reduce staff sickness absence to less than 8.2 average working days lost We will undertake throughout the year, specified checks and other actions designed to prevent and detect fraud and correcting fraud and error in a minimum of 50,600 cases as a result