Jobcentre Plus (Hansard, 7 March 2002)

§ Mr. Clappison
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what discussions he has had with staff representatives about the impact of the introduction of Jobcentre Plus on staffing levels; [33504]
(2) how many jobs have been lost to date as a result of the introduction of Jobcentre Plus; and how many have been lost from the (a) Benefits Agency and (b) Employment Service; [33503]
(3) whether job losses will result from the integration of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service; and how many of these will be (a) enforced redundancies, (b) voluntary redundancies and (c) early retirement; [33505]
(4) how many people employed by the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service will be moving to take up employment in new Jobcentre Plus offices; and what the timetable for such movements is. [33506]

§ Mr. Nicholas Brown
The Chief Executives of the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service wrote to all staff on 23 April 2001. They reassured staff that a key aim in developing plans for Jobcentre Plus and the Pension Service would be to enable all current staff to have a job in the new organisations or one of the other agencies in the Department.
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Currently some 112,000 employees work in the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. In April this year some 90,000 staff will move from the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service to Jobcentre Plus with the remainder moving to the Pension Service and a small number moving to other parts of the Department.

§ Mr. Willetts
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much has been paid in interim payments to benefit claimants who would otherwise have been affected by the strike in Jobcentre Plus offices; and how many claimants have received interim payments. [35288]

§ Malcolm Wicks
As at 11 February an estimated £3.2 million had been paid in interim payments to customers affected by the industrial action since the dispute began. The number of customers in total that have received interim payments since the start of industrial action is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Around 4,700 customers are currently in receipt of weekly or fortnightly interim payments.

§ Mr. Willetts
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his answer of 8 January 2002 to the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb),Official Report, column 688W, on incapacity benefit, what information the Government collect about people who claim incapacity benefit at Jobcentre Plus offices. [35296]

§ Mr. Nicholas Brown
Jobcentre Plus collect information about people claiming benefits according to which client group they belong to. Information collected about the incapacitated or disabled persons client group, which includes incapacity benefit customers, includes the number of these people:

Making a claim through Jobcentre Plus;

Attending work-focused interviews;

Failing to attend work-focused interviews;

Having their work-focused interview deferred or waived;

Attending review meetings;

Referred to the new deal for disabled people;

Applying for a job;

Moving into work;

Taking a place on training courses; and

Leaving the system and, where possible, the reasons why.

Information is collected about the number of claims there are to incapacity benefit and the speed and accuracy of processing these claims. This data are not collected in a way that would allow claims made through Jobcentre Plus pathfinder sites to be disaggregated from those made through normal Benefits Agency offices. In addition to statistical data, personal information is collected from incapacity benefit claimants in order to process their claims.