§ The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith)I have today laid before Parliament the 2002–03 annual reports and accounts for each of our four executive agencies: Jobcentre Plus (HC 981), The Pension Service (HC 790), Child Support Agency (HC 844) and Appeals Service (HC 792).
I am pleased to be able to announce today additional performance targets in respect of the customer facing businesses of the Department for Work and Pensions: Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service, Child Support Agency and Disability and Carers Directorate.
In line with the Department's public service agreement we are committed to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our services. In order to demonstrate this, we are developing a range of unit cost and other efficiency targets. The full implementation of these targets is dependent on the implementation of a new suite of accounting and resource management systems.
49WSIn the meantime, to demonstrate our continuing commitment to driving down the costs of our services, I am announcing a series of interim targets that use a basic measure of the unit costs of the services we provide to customers.
Details of the targets are in the table.
Cost Category Target Jobcentre Plus Job placements Staff cost per job point1 £64.60 Benefit processing activity Staff cost per transaction £10.20 The Pension Service Staff cost per customer £25.00 Child Support Agency Staff cost per live case £184.00 Disability and Carers Staff cost per customer contact £138.00 Note: 1 Jobcentre Plus has a performance measure that awards a different number of points for the job placement of different groups of the population with a greater number of points for those that it is more difficult to find work.