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Jobcentre Plus

There is no question whatever of that occurring. Our efforts to support a net reduction of 1 million in the number of people on incapacity benefit will be assisted by support from pathways-style personal advisers, who are renowned as having been a success. To return to the point about contact centres and outreach, I acknowledge the significant problems that some contact centres experienced with the telephone service last year. However, a process is now in place for managing work flows and matching them to staff resources, and that process has been tested. Jobcentre Plus successfully managed the annual peak in call volume in January this year and has strengthened its contingency planning. I am confident that we now have effective strategies for maintaining service during the peak staff leave period over the summer, and I have asked officials and management of Jobcentre Plus to ensure that that is indeed the case. When problems arose last summer, Jobcentre Plus put in place temporary working arrangements in a limited number of contact centres, which was the appropriate thing to do. Based on the efforts that are being made in Jobcentre Plus, I am confident that we will not see a repeat of the problems of last summer. However, those difficulties were not caused by staff cuts, as has been suggested. In fact, Jobcentre Plus is building up its contact centre network and was recruiting contact centre staff during the period in which problems arose. For a period, standards were not what they should have been, but that was the result of a transition to a new way of delivering our services that will ultimately enable us to support our customers more effectively. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) raised some points about value for money and IT. We will provide the Committee with the cost of future IT systems and information on the negotiations with Electronic Data Systems in a report to the Committee before the summer recess. The hon. Member for Daventry made a further point about financial issues. In answer to him, I can say that we will give the Committee the unaudited performance and resource accounts for 2005-06 before the recess as well.