The forthcoming business in the Council of the European Union from September 2003 to March 2004 is as follows:

I am today placing in the Library of this House copies of a consultation document on proposals for a new licensing scheme for public collections for charitable, philanthropic and benevolent purposes.

I have today laid before both Houses the Annual Reports for 2002 of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Swinton Thomas, the Intelligence Services Commissioner, the right hon. Lord Justice Simon Brown and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, the right hon. Sir Andrew Leggatt. Some sensitive information has been excluded from the reports of the Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Intelligence Services Commissioner in accordance with Section 58(7) and 60(5) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.I am grateful to the Commissioners for their reports and the work that has gone into preparing them.

On 14 July, I announced that I intended to assemble an expert team to assess Cross London Rail Link's business case proposals for the East-West Crossrail project. I am pleased to announce today that Adrian Montague will lead the expert review team for the Crossrail project. He is the Deputy Chairman of Network Rail, the Chairman of British Energy and is a former head of HM Treasury's Private Finance Taskforce. He has enormous experience in both railway projects and corporate finance and is ideally suited to this important task.The Government remain keen on the principle of a new East-West Crossrail link. Crossrail has the potential to relieve some of the serious congestion across central London. However, the costs are substantial. A project of this size needs the appropriate level of scrutiny and it must be funded in a way that reflects the distribution of the benefits.I have therefore asked the team to look closely at CLRL's proposals to see whether they are likely to be deliverable to time, scope and budget, and, if so, whether they are likely to provide proper value for money. I have also asked the team to consider whether there are alternative ways of delivering a Crossrail project that would offer better performance than the proposals set out in the Business Case. I have asked the team to report to me as soon as practicable and hope that its findings will be available around the turn of the year. The final report will be published.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on Castle Morpeth Borough Council was published on 29 July 2003 and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.The BFI inspected Castle Morpeth Borough Council against the Performance Standards. The report finds that the council is not at Standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments.The council needs to make considerable improvements if it is to achieve standard in any area, and there was little awareness at senior management or member level of the key areas.Management information was very limited and there was little awareness of the issues affecting performance. There were significant backlogs in claims processing and overpayments, with claims taking on average 82 days to process. There was little deterrence to potential benefit fraudsters.In July 2002, the council began to replace its existing IT systems. This was done with very little additional resource and has had an adverse impact on the council's housing benefit and council tax benefit performance, which was already poor. The council's ability to recover overpaid benefits has been hampered by a lack of effective management and IT problems.The council assured BFI that it would act on the report to bring the benefits service up to standard. It had submitted bids for additional resources to the Department for Work and Pensions' Performance Standards Fund and Help Fund. In 2001–02, Castle Morpeth Borough Council administered some £3.8 million in housing benefits, about 29 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on East Renfrewshire Council was published on 21 August 2003 and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.The BFI inspected East Renfrewshire Council against the Performance Standards. The report finds that the council is not at standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments.The BFI found evidence of the council's commitment to improving its benefit administration as it had provided additional resources. Responsibilities for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit administration and counter-fraud transferred to the Finance Department in 1998, when the full-time equivalent number of staff increased from 11 to 17. The council planned to increase this again by a further two staff in May 2003.However, this increased commitment needs to be directed by a clear vision for the benefits service supported by a broad range of formal policies and clearly communicated performance targets.The council also needs to undertake routine performance monitoring and regular reporting of performance results to senior managers and elected members to assure them that performance complies with regulations.Such arrangements should help bring about required improvements in the quality of fraud investigations much needed management assurance from regularly performed management checks, and ensure that systems are adequately safeguarded. When completed, the council will be in a better position to progress to standard in all seven functional areas of the performance standards, particularly in the area of overpayments.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) follow-up inspection report on the London Borough of Harrow Council was published on 19 August 2003 and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.The BFI inspected the London Borough of Harrow Council against the performance standards to assess progress since the first BFI inspection report, published in September 2000.The report finds that the council is not at standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments.The council had fully implemented 31 and partially implemented a further 22 of the 67 recommendations made by the BFI in the first inspection report. The council's failure to implement 11 recommendations on counter-fraud contributed to poor quality investigations and the incorrect use of sanctions.Verification of benefit claims was strong. However, the backlog of claims outstanding had not decreased since the first inspection, with over 5,800 cases outstanding.The average time taken to process a new claim for benefit was 78 days and only 47 per cent. of renewal claims were processed on time. There were also delays in dealing with changes of circumstances and appeals. The level of management checks was insufficient.Customers experienced difficulties in contacting the council's benefits service with telephones and reception closed one day each week, and 43 per cent. of telephone calls made by customers were going unanswered.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) follow-up inspection report on Manchester city council was published on 31 July 2003 and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.The BFI inspected Manchester city council against the performance standards to assess progress since the first BFI inspection report, published in June 2001, and found clear evidence of performance improvements in the council's benefits service.The report finds that the council is not at standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments. However, the council had fully embraced the concept of performance standards, and had carried out a full self-assessment against them. The BFI found aspects within the individual standards where the council met or exceeded the criteria.Manchester city council displayed commitment and professionalism in its efforts to improve benefits administration. The benefits service had strong support from senior officers and members, and there were clear improvements in performance. Processing times for claims and changes of circumstances were markedly better. Customer services had also improved, with longer opening hours, improvements to the public counter, better training for staff, and improved decision notices.

On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) has provided further details of its work programme of inspections, as part of its Phase 8 programme for 2003–04. This is in addition to the Phase 8 announcement made on 20 March 2003.The BFI is an independent unit within the Department for Work and Pensions that inspects and reports directly to my right hon. Friend on the standard of benefit administration and counter-fraud activity in local authorities and departmental agencies.As part of the additional Phase 8 activity, BFI will be undertaking a first inspection of the Isles of Scilly local authority. As this authority is unique in that the Housing Benefit team administers less than 100 claims, BFI proposes to produce a summary report.Follow-up inspections on 12 other local authorities will also be undertaken. Seven of these authorities have been identified from post inspection monitoring of performance. Six were judged as poor or fair for their benefits services during the Comprehensive Performance Assessments in 2002, and another has failed to implement key recommendations from the first inspection.The remaining five local authorities have been identified from management information provided by them. The local authorities chosen are some that have continuously been in the bottom quartile of best value performance indicators for 2002–03. These authorities have previously been inspected by BFI but have failed to improve in the administration of housing benefits.BFI will also be assessing 197 district local authorities as part of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment programme, and five Scottish local authorities as part of the Scottish best value programme.

For many years there has been symmetry within the direct tax system: the Inland Revenue normally has the right to go back six years to assess outstanding tax and those who have overpaid tax have the right to make claims to repayment for a similar period. A recent High Court case has the potential to upset this balance.Yesterday I announced that legislation will be included in Finance Bill 2004 to restore this balance. The period for claiming repayments of overpaid tax will be generally limited to six years (or five years in Scotland) from the date of the original payment. The legislation will apply to proceedings commenced on or after 8 September 2003.A copy of yesterday's Inland Revenue news release giving the relevant background to this measure and draft clauses for inclusion in the Finance Bill 2004 has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and is accessible on the Inland Revenue's website at

I have agreed to proposals by the Head of the Scotland Office, in consultation with the Permanent Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs, for re-organising the Scotland Office. These will result in the number of posts reporting to me reducing from 96 to 65.