Written Statement of 6 April 2004

  Veterans Agency: Performance Targets 2004–05
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach)
  My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

  The key targets set for the chief executive of the Veterans Agency (VA) for the financial year 2004–05 are as follows:

  Service

  Key target 1: To issue decisions on claims to war pensions in an average of no more than 63 working days. This represents a cumulative improvement of 38 per cent against our 2000–01 baseline level of 100 working days.

  Key target 2: To issue decisions on war widows' claims in an average of no more than 25 working days. This represents a cumulative improvement of 31 per cent against our 2000–01 baseline level of 36 working days.

  Key target 3: To achieve an externally validated claims accuracy rate of at least 97 per cent.

  Key target 4: To achieve an externally validated medical adjudication accuracy rate of at least 95 per cent.

  Valuing our people

  Key target 5: To undergo a successful, externally managed IiP reassessment exercise by June 2004.
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  Working in Partnership

  Key target 6: To work with the Department for Constitutional Affairs' Court Service to reduce the average time it takes an appeal to pass through the war pensions appeals process. By 31 March 2005 the average time should reduce to no more than 240 working days. This is an improvement of 10 working days on our 2003–04 target; and it represents a cumulative improvement of 57 per cent against our 2000–01 baseline level of 565 working days.

  Efficiency

  Key target 7: To use the agency output costing methodology developed in 2002–03 to help to identify and generate such administrative efficiencies and other savings as will enable the agency to achieve a 3 per cent reduction in 2004–05 against its 2003–04 final outturn figure.

  Reservists: Call-out Order for Former Yugoslavia
  Lord Bach
  My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

  A new call-out order has been made under Section 56 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 so that Reservists may continue to be called out into permanent service to support military operations in the former Yugoslavia. The order will take effect from 1 April 2004.

  At present, some 300 Reservists are serving in the former Yugoslavia. They are providing a wide range of individual skills as well as a composite signals squadron. We do not expect to have to mobilise any Reservists compulsorily for this particular deployment and we are most grateful for their continuing support to an important stabilisation operation.