What recent progress has been made in implementing city strategies on welfare to work.

We announced on 2 April that city strategy pathfinders have now succeeded in bringing together new partnerships capable of planning and driving through real change to local employment and skills services. We are now working with them to agree ambitious targets to tackle worklessness and expect to finalise these targets by the end of May.

I thank the Minister for that answer and congratulate him again on the work that he has done in getting the city strategies under way—certainly in my city of Nottingham, with 31,000 incapacity claimants and those on related benefits, we need it. However, does he share with me a small degree of impatience that in setting up the city strategies over many months, we have yet to begin the delivery? What does he expect in terms of targets and outcomes, not least in respect of my city?

My hon. Friend has championed the city strategy approach for some months now, not least because Nottingham is, uniquely, the sixth richest city in the country and the seventh poorest. He also chairs the consortium in Nottingham. Let me say to him and, through him, to the partnership in Nottingham that we are looking for a real change in outcomes. Of course we have to get the processes right, but it is the transformation of people's lives that is important. In that sense, we have set aside additional money to incentivise further success so that the consortiums can share in the success of getting people off benefit and into work. That announcement was made to the 15 city consortium pathfinders when we set out the details of the flexibilities to them recently.