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Employment

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that it is actually 25 Jobcentre Plus offices that will be affected. I was slightly perplexed by his reference to rising processing times because they are within target and have been falling. Thanks to Jobcentre Plus staff, who have been working overtime and opening at weekends, we have maintained the service to which we are committed. We could not do that without extra investment next year, which is why the money coming in now is so important. It is the same for budgeting loans and crisis loans. We process crisis loans within two days, which is again under our target. It is important that we maintain those processing times because it is clearly important for people to get their money as quickly as possible. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we are looking at the social fund. We commissioned a report from KPMG on it, and we will make proposals shortly. There is probably some agreement around the House that, if we can use that money to improve people's financial skills and give them the help to bridge their way through difficulties and get back into work, that will be a very good thing. We obviously want to make sure that the flexible new deal is effective. The proposals that we will make build very much on David Freud's recommendations. He said that the new deal should work effectively, but having separate new deals for disabled, older and younger people meant that we were treating people according to their category rather than their personal circumstances. The flexible new deal frees providers to do what they do best, which is to innovate, and rewards them according to their achievements. The better they do, the more money they will get and, again, the money that we have announced today means that we can cope with the higher volumes and give providers confidence that we will be able to do that. We keep under review whether we should fast-track people on to the flexible new deal. People in many of the categories that the hon. Gentleman mentioned can already volunteer to go to that stage and young people who have been out of education or training—NEETs—can and will be fast-tracked to the intensive stage of Jobcentre Plus help and then on to the flexible new deal. We will keep that under review. It is important to say that the rapid response service and the £100 million allows that help to be provided to people even before they fall out of work, so the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell was wrong to say that people have to wait to get trained; they do not even have to be unemployed to get training because they can get access to it before they fall out of work. The earlier we help people, the easier it is to ensure that they find their next job.