§ Mr. CryerTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of extra staff likely to be needed at his Department's offices at Vicar lane and Leeds road, Bradford, in the light of the 9,000 redundancies over five years announced by Bradford city council; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydLevels of staff in DSS offices are determined through a complementing system which has been developed and agreed by management and trade unions and consists of constant measurement of activity, annual recomplementing and reviews of staffing levels. It is designed to match staff to workloads by calculating the number of staff to be allocated to local offices using statistical information on workloads collected by local offices. This information, together with other factors, is used to forecast future workloads which are converted into staffing resources using the average times required to carry out different tasks. The system is therefore designed to reflect differences in caseloads experienced by different offices.
It is not possible to be specific on the possible effect of redundancies on the local office workloads at this stage. However a broad estimate of two to three staff would be required to service the work generated by 1,000 claims over a year.
§ Mr. CryerTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the likely cost of additional benefits payments arising from the 9,000 redundancies over five years announced by Bradford city council.
§ Mr. Peter LloydNo such estimate has been made.