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Jobcentre Plus: Standards

Answer

The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus, Mel Groves. I have asked him to provide the hon. Member with the information requested.Letter from Mel Groves:"The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question asking what assessment he has made of the performance of Jobcentre Plus in each (a) region and (b) Jobcentre Plus district against each of the indicators for its interventions delivery target (i) in each year since the target was launched and (ii) in each of the last 24 months. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Acting Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus.""The Intervention Delivery Target (IDT) was introduced in April 2007.1 am therefore able to provide in month district and regional performance for the last 19 months to October 2008. This is because Jobcentre Plus has a time delay of approximately 4 months in its recording of data for IDT.""The target for 2008/09 is made up of the following three components, and measures whether we conduct a number of our main interviews within a given time:""85% of initial Incapacity Benefit work-focused interviews are conducted between week 9 and week 13 of the claim;""85% of Income Support lone parent work-focused interview reviews that become due are conducted within 3 months; and""90% of 13, 26, 52, and 78 week Jobseeker's Allowance interviews (including New Deal initial interviews) that become due are conducted within 6 weeks.""These three components make up the overall national target of 86%, with each component having an equal share of the target.""The target for 2007/08 was made up of the following four components, and measured the timeliness of several of our key mandatory work-focussed interviews:""80% of initial Incapacity Benefit work-focused interviews are conducted after the end of the 8th week and up to the end of the 13th week stage of the claim;""85% of Income Support Lone Parent work focussed interviews that become due are conducted within 3 months;""85% of 13 and 26-week Jobseeker's Allowance advisory interviews that become due are conducted within 6 weeks; and""90% of Jobseeker's Allowance Labour Market Interventions and follow up activity are conducted.""These four components were used to make up the overall national target of 85%. Performance for the Interventions Delivery Target is the mean average of the four components weighted equally.""As the components of the target within these 2 years differed slightly we would not recommend making any direct comparisons of the data.""The available data has been placed in the Library."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

492 c320-1W; 264239

Session

2008-09

Related items

Deposited Paper DEP2009-1327
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Deposited papers
House of Commons

Subjects

Jobcentre Plus Standards

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk