Written Ministerial Statements
Thursday 28 October 2004
Treasury
Citizen Information Project
On January 6 2004, Official Report, column 7WS, I announced that the Registrar General for England and Wales would lead on the next stage of development work for a UK population register. This work is being conducted by a project team based within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is known as the citizen information project (CIP). It is concerned with whether or not the use of a population register would improve the quality of basic data held by Government, generate efficiency savings across Government and support improved public services. I am now able to update the House on progress and on the programme of work over the rest of this stage of development.
The work has confirmed the feasibility study findings that a UK population register has the potential to generate efficiency benefits and service improvements across Government. The CIP team has investigated the costs and benefits of a range of potential options for delivering a population register. It has recommended that proposals for a national identity register (NIR), as part of the Government's proposals for ID cards, mean that if ID cards were to become compulsory then it may be more cost effective to deliver these benefits through the NIR, rather than develop a separate register. The Government have accepted this recommendation.
ONS is now in the second stage of project definition and will report to Ministers by June 2005. This includes examining in more detail how the NIR could function as a population register and exploring opportunities for adding value to existing database developments that could be cost effective ahead of the NIR reaching maturity. ONS is also exploring how efficiency and analytical requirements that cover the whole population, rather than just adults, can be met.
Constitutional Affairs
Judicial Appointments Annual Report to Parliament
The judicial appointments annual report, covering the period 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004, is published tomorrow, 29 October. This year the report focuses on developments and achievements within the judicial appointments process and the work undertaken ahead of the new judicial appointments commission. We have taken the opportunity to avoid duplication of data by placing the statistical tables and their supporting narrative on the Departmental website,www.dca.gov.uk. The report also shows that:
Some 480 appointments were made in 2003–04 from around 3,000 applications.
Appointments, including lay appointments, of minority ethnic candidates rose by 6 per cent. from 8.90 per cent. in 2002–03 to 14.80 per cent. and is more than triple the 1999–2000 figure.
Women accounted for 32.92 per cent. of appointments, a slight increase on last year's figures.
The success of the early assessment centre pilots has led to all deputy district judge competitions being conducted by assessment centres and the planned introduction of similar centres for recorder and employment tribunal competitions.
Copies of the report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The report is also available on the internet.
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Gibraltar
I visited Madrid for bilateral talks with my Spanish counterpart, Miguel Angel Moratinos, on 27 October. The following joint statement was agreed at this meeting:
"The Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Spain and the United Kingdom, Miguel Angel Moratinos and Jack Straw, have met in Madrid on 27 October 2004. During their meeting they discussed Gibraltar.
The Ministers have agreed to consider and consult further on how to establish a new forum for dialogue on Gibraltar, with an open agenda, in which Gibraltar would have its own voice. The modalities for this dialogue will be agreed by all the concerned parties.
Minister Straw welcomes the decision of the Spanish Government to promote local co-operation between Gibraltar and its surrounding area. Both Ministers are glad about the establishment of a Joint Committee Gibraltar Government-Mancomunidad del Campo de Gibraltar to promote the identification and implementation of mutually beneficial local co-operation projects and wish to set out their support for this initiative because of its intrinsic value and the confidence-building atmosphere that it could create. It is understood that for the Spanish Government this local co-operation is within the objectives of the Spanish Government in relation to the sovereignty of Gibraltar. It is also understood that the British Government fully maintains its commitment to honour the wishes of the people of Gibraltar as set out in the preamble of the 1969 Constitution.
In the Annex are set out several co-operation measures to facilitate the start of the work of the previously mentioned forum.
Annex
To explore the possibilities to reach an agreement on the airport of Gibraltar under a formula acceptable to all parties.
To allow the inclusion of Spanish airports as alternative airports in the flight plans whose final destination is the airport of Gibraltar.
To establish a technical working party to examine and to exchange information on the pensions issue of Spanish ex-workers in Gibraltar, without prejudice to any outcome in respect thereof.
The Spanish Government shall allow calls at Spanish ports of all pleasure cruise liners having the port of Gibraltar as a previous or subsequent port of call, without any restriction."
I was in contact with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Peter Caruana, throughout these discussions. The Chief Minister authorised me to say that he was entirely content with the terms of the joint press release.
Work and Pensions
New Child Support Scheme: Progress Report
The new arrangements for child support came into operation for new cases and some linked old scheme cases from 3 March 2003. Ongoing problems remain with the new computer and telephony systems and this has meant that progress has been slower than anticipated. The Department continues to withhold substantial payments from EDS. The payment each year is determined by the contract and is linked to service levels and to the degree of functionality delivered. Between 3 March 2003 and 19 September 2004, the agency retained £12.1 million of payments due to EDS because of performance problems.
The Child Support Agency is working to improve compliance and increase its clearance rates. The number of cases cleared this quarter was over 40,000, taking the total number of clearances, calculations and closures, to over 238,000 for the scheme to date.
The agency now has the information required to make reasonable assessments of compliance, thus improving their ability to start properly to manage performance in this area. Figures for this quarter show an average monthly performance estimated at just over 50 per cent. for both cash and case compliance. This is too low, but with reliable information now available the agency can better plan to improve this. The agency has recently appointed a new director of enforcement to lead the work on this.
The poorest families are benefiting from the new scheme with a further 8,000 families receiving child maintenance premium during this last quarter. This brings the total number of beneficiaries to over 33,000.
Achievement of the agency's accuracy target is determined at the end of March 2005 by means of a special exercise. However, the current level of accuracy, to the nearest penny, is estimated at 83 per cent. against a target of 90 per cent.
The agency recognises that performance this quarter has fallen back in some areas, partly reflecting time invested in extra training following their decision further to prioritise activity on compliance. This should permit a more balanced approach to managing cases from first application to first payment and the agency's executive managers assure me that they anticipate that this will lead to progressive improvements in performance levels over the next year, as the new arrangements become more established and better information becomes available to enable performance improvements to be targeted more effectively.
Summary of Agency Performance to September 2004 Table 1—Average Weekly Payments
1 Qualifying child 2 Qualifying children 3 Qualifying children Average Weekly Payment 1 £33.72 £46.76 £55.67
Table 2—Agency Quarterly Performance
Quarter 1Mar-Jun 2003 Quarter 2Jul-Sept2003 Quarter 3Oct-Dec 2003 Quarter 4Jan-Mar 2004 QuarterJun 2004 Quarter 2Jul-Sept 2004 Scheme toSept 2004 Applications received 73,582 78,982 85,306 83,652 83,094 73,534 478,150 Applications cleared 2 of which: 12,648 38,583 49,453 51,876 45,097 40,465 2 238,122 Maintenance Calculations 6,671 23,857 29,672 31,229 25,657 23,526 2 140,612 Closures 3 5,977 14,726 19,781 20,647 19,440 16,939 97,510 First payments made through the Agency 461 5,164 11,473 14,017 14,974 15,098 61,187 First Child Maintenance Premium payments made 4 77 3,314 6,173 7,484 8,070 8,055 33,173
Table 3—Agency Monthly Performance
July 2004 August 2004 Sept 2004 Quarter 2 Jul-Sept 2004 Applications received 22,860 27,300 23,374 73,534 Applications cleared2 13,308 13,862 13,257 40,4652 Of which: 7,654 8,278 7,449 23,5262 Maintenance Calculations Closures3 5,654 5,584 5,808 16,9392 First payments made through the Agency 5,071 5,528 4,499 15,098 First Child Maintenance Premium payments made4 2,541 2,857 2,657 8,055
Notes:
1. Average weekly child support maintenance payments to parents with care are shown in the table. Figures are for September 2004 only and are calculated as the total amount received and allocated divided by the number of cases.
2. Figures from Quarter 4 2003–04 onwards and scheme to date figures include clerical cases, new scheme cases unable to be progressed on the new system. Quarter 2 figures also incorporate some adjustments to take account of a reconciliation of clerical cases. The clerical case position is as follows:
Scheme to June 2004 Scheme to September 2004 Applications cleared 1,345 2,130 Maintenance calculations 1,134 1,937 Closures 211 193
3. Applications close for a variety of reasons. The main reasons are that the parent with care withdraws the application, perhaps due to reconciliation, or having agreed private arrangements with the non-resident parent.
4. Figures for child maintenance premium payments include an estimate of the number of parents who receive the premium by way of a disregard to their income support/income-based jobseekers allowance.
5. A proportion of cases that have a maintenance calculation in place may already be receiving payment directly, but will not be reflected in the figures shown above.
Cold Weather Payments Scheme
I am pleased to announce that, following advice from the Meteorological Office, the annual review of the cold weather payments scheme has now been completed. Amending regulations were laid on 11 October and will come into force on 1 November, in time for the beginning of the winter period.
One of the weather stations used in the scheme last winter, Ringway, is closing and one new weather station is being introduced at Woodford to provide data for the scheme. In addition to changing 12 weather station linkages to more representative links, 12 postcode to weather station linkages have been changed on the advice of the Meteorological Office following representations made by hon. Members. An error from last year's scheme affecting one postcode has been corrected.
I have written to each of the hon. Members affected by these changes.
In order to maintain the policy intention of making cold weather payments to vulnerable groups, people in receipt of income support or income based jobseekers allowance who are also receiving the disability element of child tax credit have been added to the list of eligible customers.
Cold weather payments are separate from, and in addition to, winter fuel payments that are paid to eligible people from age 60.