Written Statements

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Improving Public Services

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

Too often people get passed around different public services rather than having their problems solved first time. This can be incredibly frustrating, wasting time and energy trying to track down the right people or repeating their story because services do not share information.

Councils account for a quarter of public spending and must play their part in finding sensible savings to help tackle the budget deficit inherited from the last Administration.

This Government know that joined-up services can save taxpayers’ money and that local authorities are best placed to help improve public services. This has been proven by the community budget pilots and the ground-breaking and extremely successful troubled families programme.

As a result, the troubled families programme will now be accelerated, with up to 40,000 additional families worked with a year earlier than planned. This will get more children back in school; cut youth crime and anti-social behaviour; put more parents on a path back to work; and deal with more problems in the home, such as domestic violence.

New figures today showed that over 100,000 families have now been identified as meeting the criteria for the programme, with councils actively working with more than 78,000 of them. Local authorities will be asked to submit expressions of interests to expand their programmes shortly.

On the back of this, I am announcing today a £410 million funding package and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I will also appoint a panel of experts to advise on how these kinds of local service reforms could be sped up to go further and faster.

The £410 million fund will reward authorities that cut duplication and build services around the needs of local people. £90 million of that will be distributed immediately to all councils so they can start investing to save.

The remaining £320 million will form a new transformation challenge award to be made available in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to areas with ambitious plans for improving services. This could be in health services to support elderly residents at home, rather than in hospital, getting people back into work or early learning for pre-school children. A prospectus for local authorities has been published today. The service transformation challenge panel will be drawn from independent experts from across the public, private and voluntary sectors. Building on the work of the public service transformation network, the panel will advise on what needs to happen locally and nationally to take advantage of more opportunities to go further and examine how to overcome barriers so that it can happen faster.

Resident satisfaction with council services has improved or been maintained since 2010 and these reforms will ensure that local authorities can continue to deliver the quality local services people deserve, while making the sensible savings we need to make as part of this Government’s long-term economic plan to secure our future.

Afghanistan (Roulement)

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

The next roulement of UK armed forces in Afghanistan is due to take place in June 2014. As HQ Task Force Helmand will have integrated into Regional Command (South West) on 1 April 2014, around half of the units deploying will come under Command of a UK one star within the United States Marine Corps Commanded Headquarters. The remainder will deploy elsewhere within Camp Bastion and in Kandahar and Kabul as part of the UK’s overall contribution. The forces deploying include¹:

Adult Autism Strategy for England

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

In line with duties under the Autism Act 2009, and following the review led by the Department of Health into progress in relation to the 2010 adult autism strategy for England “Fulfilling and rewarding lives”, the Department of Health is today publishing “Think Autism”, the follow up to “Fulfilling and rewarding lives”, the 2010 adult autism strategy for England on world autism day.

The cross-Government adult autism strategy is an essential step towards realising the Government’s long-term vision for transforming the lives of and outcomes for adults with autism.

“Think Autism” is an update to the 2010 autism strategy and reaffirms the importance of the five areas for action aimed at improving the lives of adults with autism identified in the strategy.

An update is being published for three reasons:

in line with the Autism Act, we undertook a review of the autism strategy in 2013-14 and are reflecting what we heard from people with autism, their families and from services in this update;

to reflect progress that has been made since 2010 and commitments that have been delivered; and

to take account of changes in public services and new organisations.

During the review of the autism strategy we ran a comprehensive exercise to listen and learn about how it is working. Nearly 2,000 people took part in focus groups, conferences and events. Over 1,100 people took part in an online survey. Local authorities worked with partners and local people to complete self-assessment exercises looking at the progress they are making.

From this review, 15 priority challenges for action were identified by people with autism, carers, professionals and others who work with people with autism. In particular, “Think Autism” has a new focus on building communities that are more aware of and accessible to the needs of people with autism, on promoting innovative local ideas, service or projects that can help people in their communities and on how advice and information on services can be joined up better for people.

“Think Autism” sets out a clear programme of action we will take across Government to improve the lives of people with autism, primarily through supporting local authorities, the NHS, other public services and their local partners with their local implementation work.

We intend to publish new statutory guidance to support the updated strategy later in 2014, following a public consultation exercise.

Public Health England has also published fuller results and the individual area responses from the second national autism self-assessment exercise, which reported on progress by the end of September 2013 across all 152 local authority areas in England. This information is found at: www.ihal.org.uk/projects/autism2013. This is a key means of identifying progress in implementing the strategy as a whole and for demonstrating local accountability.

“Think Autism: Fulfilling and rewarding lives, the strategy for adults with autism in England: an update” has been placed in the Library. Copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

My hon. and learned Friend, the Minister for Justice, Lord Faulks, has made the following written ministerial statement:

I am pleased to announce that, today, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority will become an Executive agency.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) was established in 1994. During 2012-13, a triennial review was carried out on CICA. The recommendation of the review was that CICA should become an Executive agency as this would better reflect its current operating model.

Today, the framework document which details the governance arrangements between the Department and the CICA agency has been published. In line with the requirements for all Executive agencies, the framework document sets out the overarching framework for the governance and accountability arrangements between the Department and the agency.

The creation of the CICA as an agency will not lead to any change in the CICA’s core function of paying money to people who have been physically or mentally injured because they were the blameless victim of a violent crime.

I have, today, placed copies of the framework document in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Department’s website at: www.justice.gov.uk.

State Pension Top-up

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Following an announcement in the Budget, I am today providing further details on a new class of voluntary national insurance contribution—class 3A. We are calling this the state pension top-up and it is specifically designed to allow some of today’s pensioners and those close to pension age to boost their retirement incomes.

This change will allow existing pensioners and those reaching state pension age before 6 April 2016 the opportunity to gain additional state pension by paying class 3A voluntary national insurance contributions. It will provide an opportunity for pensioners to improve their retirement income by obtaining inflation-proofed extra additional state pension. This could be particularly beneficial to women and other groups such as self-employed people who have not done well under additional state pensions and have not previously been able to top these up. Along with the newly announced pensioner bond that will be available from National Savings and Investments in 2015, it further demonstrates the Government’s commitment to improving outcomes for those in retirement and providing increased flexibility for people to make the most of their savings.

There are two entitlement conditions—contributors must have entitlement to a UK state pension and must reach state pension age before 6 April 2016.

The rules on additional state pension will apply to entitlements resulting from class 3A contributions including inheritance—a surviving spouse or civil partner will be entitled to at least 50% of the additional state pension.

On 20 March 2014, the Department for Work and Pensions published the results of an online polling exercise conducted by Ipsos MORI, which was used to estimate potential take-up of the class 3A voluntary contributions. The online poll was conducted in February 2014 and 2,000 people at or close to state pension age took part. We provided them with indications of the class 3A contribution rates and what this would mean in terms of additional state pension throughout their lifetime. We found that one in five (20%) of those polled were either “very” or “fairly interested” in taking up this offer. The level of interest seems to differ by age group with those under age 70 showing the highest level of interest. I have placed copies of the report in the Library of the House and it is available on the gov.uk website.

These results have been used to make some assumptions about take-up rate using a proportion of those who said they were “very interested” and “fairly interested”. The Office for Budget Responsibility has agreed a conversion rate between levels of interest expressed through the polling and possible take up. Using these agreed assumptions we estimate that around 265,000 people may take up this offer.

This new measure is in addition to the existing class 3 voluntary national insurance contributions which allow people to fill gaps in their contributions record for basic state pension.

I have established the facility for people to register their interest so that they can receive updates in advance of the state pension top-up becoming available from October 2015. This includes a personal calculator for people to work out the contribution needed to increase their pension by a weekly amount. This will be available at www.gov.uk/state-pension-topup or by searching for “state pension top up”. A dedicated telephone line facility will also be available: 0845 600 4270 or 0345 600 4270 from mobile lines.

Primary legislation for this measure has been introduced in the Pensions Bill 2013. We also intend to bring forward secondary legislation covering the prices and features of the state pension top-up.

The following features will be defined in regulations, that:

£25 per week should be the maximum amount that contributions can provide;

class 3A VNICS will be available for 18 months from October 2015; and

there will be a cooling-off period of 90 elapsed days.

The state pension top-up has been set at an actuarially fair rate that ensures that both individual contributors and the taxpayer get a fair deal. The rates set out below show the contribution needed for £1 per week of additional state pension, according to age. The rates are the same for males and females. As an illustration, the contribution required for an extra £1 pension per week for a person aged 65 is £890. This means that for £4,450, the individual could receive an additional £260 per year for life, increased in line with prices and inheritable on death in the same way as existing additional state pension: with a minimum of 50% for the surviving spouse or civil partner. For a 70-year-old the rate reduces to £779 and at age 75 the rate is £674.

I will place a table in the Library of the House of the rates at which pensioners can make class 3A voluntary national insurance contributions.