Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Helen Goodman

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

When it comes to visitor visas, it is of course important that each case is decided on its own merits, but my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am very happy to work with him, so that there can be better training for visa caseworkers so that they understand the specific points he makes about those from religious communities who may have taken a particular vow of poverty.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Minister was here for Prayers, so I am sure she will be able to answer the question asked of one of my constituents, whom the Home Office initially wanted to send back to a country where he was persecuted: how many books are there in the Old Testament?

[Caroline Nokes]

I very much regret that despite a good convent education we studied only the New Testament, and I simply do not know.

UK Passport Contract

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Helen Goodman

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I never fail to be impressed by my right hon. Friend’s ability to raise the issues about which he rightly campaigns and cares a great deal. Of course we need to consider how we spend any saving to the taxpayer in the best possible way. It is worth reflecting on the fact that the Immigration Act 2016 enables us to use any income received from passport fees to contribute not just towards the costs of the passport, but to securing our borders and making sure that there is easy and safe passage for British citizens through the border.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

How many jobs would have been secured had the contract been awarded to Gateshead?

[Caroline Nokes]

It is important to reflect on the fact that we do not believe in a protectionist policy. I can tell the hon. Lady that we anticipate that 70 jobs will be created in the UK as a result of the award of this contract, but this is about making sure that we get the best deal for the taxpayer, that we have the most secure and up-to-date travel document and, of course, that we abide by the rules and do not seek to implement protectionist policies in this country.

Vinovium House

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Helen Goodman

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) for securing this debate. Its subject, as she has passionately and ably outlined, is Vinovium House in Bishop Auckland, one of the Department’s back-of-house processing sites for child maintenance claims. From the outset of the debate, I want to be clear that the services provided by the Department for Work and Pensions matter to millions of people every single day. But for the Department to continue to deliver its critical services and support across the country, it is vital that arrangements are put in place to protect the long-term sustainability of our services.

There is near-universal agreement that the Department for Work and Pensions needs to continue to provide excellent services for its customers while providing good value for money for the taxpayer. Reducing the amount of under-utilised space that the Department occupies is an excellent way of making sure that the Department is delivering value for money, both for those using its services and for the taxpayer.

On 31 March next year, DWP’s 20-year contract, which covers the majority of its current property portfolio of more than 900 sites, will expire. That portfolio includes Vinovium House, in the hon. Lady’s constituency. To put that into context, the DWP currently occupies about 1.5 million square metres of office space, and we must acknowledge that at least 20% of that is under-occupied. The falling claimant count and the increased use of our online services in recent years means that 20% of the money that the Department is spending on rent is going towards space that we are not using. By paying only for the space that we need and the services required to operate from it, we anticipate saving £180 million per annum over the next 10 years.

In response to the changing demands facing the Department, we have redesigned our estate in a way that delivers better value for the taxpayer. The expiry of the property contract has presented both a unique opportunity and an essential requirement to review our estate. Let me be clear: this is not about reducing services; it is about taking the opportunity to stop spending taxpayers’ money on empty space so that we can spend more on supporting those in most need.

We have carefully considered the challenges that we anticipate in the Department, but the jobs landscape and the way people work have changed significantly in the past 20 years. The Department’s services always have adapted and always will adapt to social trends. Nearly 90% of universal credit claims are made online, and more of our services are moving online. We want to continue making the most of the opportunities that new technologies present to help best meet our claimants’ needs. It is right that we reflect not only the impact of such a digital revolution on meeting our claimants’ needs, but the realities of a more flexible labour market and the significant falls in unemployment since 2010. The employment rate is at 74.6%—a new record high—and unemployment is down 913,000 since 2010, as the economy has grown. Only by building a more modern and more dynamic DWP estate can we take full advantage of new opportunities and ensure that we have sufficient flexible capacity to allow us to expand in the event of an economic downturn.

In every case where change is proposed, including that of Vinovium House, we have sought to minimise disruption and to listen carefully to those who might be affected. As I have already said, Vinovium House is a back-of-house processing site for child maintenance claims. It is a comparatively small processing site, which has total capacity for only about 135 people, and is currently only 64% used. As a result of modernisation and efficiencies, the Department’s Child Maintenance Service now takes fewer people to deliver than it did previously. Across the whole of the DWP estate, there is significantly more capacity than is needed, and it is only right that we consider our options.

Delivering a modern and dynamic service to claimants requires modern and dynamic working environments, and we are striving to work towards that as part of our vision for the DWP in 2020. Our aim is to maintain and improve the services offered across the country, and we recognise how important DWP staff are to achieving that aim. In fact, DWP staff are our most valuable resource. It is as a result of their immense effort that the Department is able to provide such a high level of service to our customers. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out the high performance of our staff at this location and to comment on the office’s top-five rating. I recognise and celebrate how great our staff are, and I reassure her that our staff are our highest priority. My colleagues and I have been clear that the proposals put forward for the DWP’s redesigned estate do not mean a reduction in the number of frontline staff. In fact, we are recruiting, and we expect to have more work coaches in every nation and region in March 2018 than we have today.

For staff at Vinovium House, we are currently working through options with each individual, identifying relocation opportunities in the event of closure, but, most of all, listening carefully to them to understand fully the impact on staff. To that end, every member of staff has been offered a face-to-face meeting with their manager as part of the current consultation. This will allow us to hear the opinions of any of the staff members who would be impacted by the proposed changes. We are listening to the views that the staff are expressing. The hon. Lady was good enough to write to the Department in advance of this debate, and she has highlighted in her letter and this evening the concerns that the staff have already raised. I want to reassure her that we are taking those concerns very seriously indeed.

In the event of site closure, the Department has already made a commitment to support anyone who chooses to relocate, including the payment of additional travel expenses for up to three years. However, the fact remains that the Department has significantly more capacity across its network than is needed to serve the needs of child maintenance group clients.

Vinovium House in Bishop Auckland accommodates a team of Child Support Agency staff working on the 2003 scheme cases. These staff ensure that compliance is maintained on ongoing cases. We recognise the vital importance of compliance and of as many children as possible benefiting from the maintenance they are owed by their non-resident parent. Although we do not envisage this, should the closure of Vinovium House result in a shortfall of staff, we are committed to deploying appropriate resources to make sure we continue to keep the money flowing for the children.

[Helen Goodman]

Before the hon. Lady moves on to another aspect of this problem, may I say that when someone phones up non-resident parents to get them to pay the money that the parent with care is entitled to receive, they have to have a bit of a negotiation. It is not like applying for child benefit—I agree that people can apply for child benefit online—because, as she must know, such discussions are particular, personalised and specific. All this about being able to do it online is irrelevant to the work done by these people in this office.

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have sat with Child Maintenance Service officers, listening to the calls that they make to non-resident parents. My first visit as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pension was to the north-east. I went to Cobalt House and saw the Child Maintenance Service in action. I have also been to the compliance unit in Hastings. She is right that those discussions are not easy—they are negotiations. That is something the staff made very clear to me. I want her to understand that one of my highest priorities is ensuring that we keep the money flowing to the children who are owed it by their non-resident parents.

I emphasise the need to cleanse the cases on the old CSA system that we are transferring to the new CMS caseload. While compliance work is immediate and happens, the arrears cleanse process can be undertaken as resources are available. We will, therefore, be able to flex our rate of cleanse in line with the amount of resources needed, to ensure that compliance work is not affected.

The overriding story to be told about the child maintenance group is one of immense improvement. All ongoing maintenance liabilities, like those managed by Vinovium House, will be managed by the Child Maintenance Service once all case closure is complete. We are seeing non-resident parents contributing to maintenance liability in seven out of eight cases. That has resulted in nearly 90% of the money due being paid towards the liability. Arrears growth is slowing and is down to 13% of total liability from 17% in 2015. Those figures reflect the Department’s commitment to improving the performance of the Child Maintenance Service.

We have made a number of changes in line with the recommendations of the Henshaw report. We have simplified the administration of the service; we have made our calculations faster and simpler through the use of HMRC income information; and we have introduced new applications in a staged pathfinder approach to ensure smooth delivery of the new scheme. All of those measures have put collaboration between parents and increased parental responsibility at the heart of the Child Maintenance Service. I am proud to say that, according to the latest figures, approximately 250,000 children are benefiting from maintenance, in part due to the excellent work of the DWP’s child maintenance service.

The proposed changes—I emphasise to the hon. Lady that they are proposed changes—are the result of careful analysis and planning. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns about the proposals and thank her again for this debate, but the rationale for them is very clear: Vinovium House is currently only 64% utilised, and across the whole DWP estate 20% of the occupied space is underutilised. We are striving towards a more modern, dynamic DWP estate. That will ensure that we continue to have sufficient flexible capacity and to deliver the best services we can to our customers. To that end, we are considering whether the work currently undertaken at Vinovium House could be redistributed across the existing DWP network. In the event that that course of action is required, we would expect it to have no impact on the services we continue to provide to child maintenance group users. It is important to stress again that the closure of Vinovium House is still only a proposal at this stage, and we are continuing the consultation process with our staff to assess how each of them might be affected.

Question put and agreed to.