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Dept for Work and Pensions;Jobcentre Plus

Answer

Vera Baird: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what the time taken to process the average benefits claim at Eston Jobcentre Plus was in (a) 2003-04 and (b) 2002-03; [202676] (2) how many personal advisers are allocated to (a) Eston Jobcentre Plus and (b) the other areas of Redcar constituency. [202677] Mr. Pond: The administration of Jobcentre Plus is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Jobcentre Plus, David Anderson. He will write to the hon. Member. Letter from David Anderson to Ms Vera Baird, dated 15 December 2004: The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your questions concerning the time taken to process benefit claims at Eston Jobcentre Plus and the number of Personal Advisers allocated to Eston Jobcentre Plus and other areas of Redcar constituency not covered by Eston Jobcentre Plus. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus. The time taken to process a claim to benefit is shown as the Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT). The Jobseeker's Allowance AACT information for Eston, expressed in days, is as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Period Number of days 2002-03 10.6 2003-04 18.1 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. The AACT figures for Income Support (IS) in Eston are only available as part of the Middlesbrough Site information, which is an average of the performance achieved in the 9 Jobcentre/ Jobcentre Plus service delivery sites in Stockton, Middlesbrough and Redcar/Cleveland. This is because IS processing for all sites in the Tees Valley area is centralised in Middlesbrough. The IS AACT information for the Middlesbrough Site, expressed in days, is as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Period Number of days 2002-03 8.9 2003-04 7.4 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. The number of Personal Advisers (PAs) allocated to the offices within the Redcar constituency are as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Office Eston Redcar Loftus Guisborough Number of PAs Whole-time equivalents 7.29 9.09 3 5.6 Actual staff numbers 8 10 3 6 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. I hope this is helpful.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

428 c1143-4W; 202676;202677

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Applications Administration Advisory services Administrative delays Jobseeker's allowance Jobcentres Jobcentre Plus Staff Social security benefits Redcar Eston

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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