§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what was the total of Departmental HQ and the Employment Service, gross running costs in 1997–98; what are the planned totals for gross running costs for the years up to 2004; and if he will give the total of administration costs referred to in Table 7.1 on Page 48 of the Spending Review 2000. [132412]
§ Mr. BlunkettThe gross running costs of the Department and the Employment Service since 1997–98 are as follows:
£000 1997–98 1 1998–99 1 1999–2000 2 2000–01 2 DfEE 255,175 269,309 267,927 269,403 ES 823,986 795,326 830,704 841,672 Total gross 1,079,161 1,064,788 1,099,474 1,111,075 1 Outturn figures 2 Estimated outturn The planned totals for gross running costs for the years up to 2004, and the total of administration costs within the Year 2000 Spending Review settlement have not yet been finalised.
§ Angela SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when the Employment Service Annual report and Accounts for 1999–2000 will be laid before Parliament. [133690]
§ Mr. BlunkettI have today laid before the House the Employment Service's Annual Report and Accounts for 1999–2000 which gives full details of the Agency's performance and expenditure for that year.
The Annual Report records an excellent year's work by the Employment Service. For the first time since 1994–95 it has achieved and in many cases significantly exceeded all its targets for helping unemployed people into jobs. Jobcentres have also been giving record levels of customer service to jobseekers.
During the course of an extremely challenging year, the Employment Service:
855Wplaced directly into work more than 1.33 million unemployed people, including over 220,000 who had been unemployed for six months and just under 97,000 people with disabilities;handled 2.7 million job vacancies; andhelped 191,000 young people through the New Deal for Young People and directly placed over 111,000 into jobs.This has been achieved against a background of major change and new challenges. During 1999–2000 the Employment Service also:
built on the continuing success of the New Deals, including the national implementation of the New Deal for Partners of Unemployed People and the launch of pilots for New Deal 50plus;worked with partners in the public, private and voluntary sectors to launch 12 pilots of the ONE service to provide a work-focused, one-stop entry into the welfare system and, as part of the Working Links partnership, to bid for, and run, nine of the 15 Employment Zones;introduced a programme to improve the service it gives to its employer customers, including a set of explicit service delivery standards; andprepared the ground for its ambitious Modernisation programme which will see touch-screen kiosks in every Jobcentre, place all vacancies handled by ES on the Internet and introduce a single, national telephone number for employers to register job vacancies.The Employment Service missed only one of its targets last year, for the correct application of the Jobseeker's Allowance process. It ended the year on 90 per cent. against a target of 96 per cent. Even here, however, there was a substantial improvement in performance during the course of the year.
1999–2000 was a very good year for the Employment Service. Its success was down to the effort and enthusiasm of everyone working in it. I am very grateful to them for that effort, commitment and determination to succeed. I look forward to building on this success in the year ahead and in setting up the new agency to deliver work-focused services to people of working age. I know that people in the Employment Service will rise to the new opportunities and challenges involved in making it a success.