The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many miscellaneous items as recorded by the Incident Report System were confiscated in each prison in the last 12 months.
Andrew Selous
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2016-03-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the (a) cost to GPs of and (b) average time taken per week by GPs for administration of the new Capita patient note transfer system.
Alistair Burt
Capita are improving the process for moving medical records between general practitioner (GP) practices. The changes will ensure that records can be fully tracked and traced through the movement process, to both increase the security of the record in transit and reduce the frustration for GP practices of waiting for records to arrive and not knowing where they are.
The service will continue to be provided to GPs for free.
In designing the new solution, Capita have engaged with GP practices via a stakeholder forum, user panels, observational studies and a National Engagement Team.
The user panels and observational studies have included consideration of any additional time taken to place medical records in secure pouches for transit. This needs to be considered against the time savings that GPs will make by no longer needing to chase records for which they are waiting, since they will be able to track these on the Capita system. Although we do not have a precise estimate, the studies indicate the new process takes a few seconds per record.
A national simulation was successfully completed during February 2016, and a live pilot is being undertaken in the West Yorkshire area during March 2016 to further test the solution ahead of national rollout.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Compass asylum accommodation contract with Clearsprings Ready Home Limited for the region of London and South East England, how many faults were reported or identified from Compass inspections for each contractual pay period in 2014-15 and 2015-16; and how many such faults were not resolved within the agreed contractual timescales.
James Brokenshire
Providers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the Decent Homes Standard. Providers are monitored closely to ensure accommodation meets these standards and the contracts include measures to ensure any issues are quickly addressed. These performance standards are defined in the contract and are managed using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including those which measure whether an individual property is compliant with contractual obligations following an inspection and also the number of service users effected if a fault is not repaired within the contract timescales.
The Home Office does not centrally record the number of individual faults reported or identified during accommodation inspections, or the number of individual faults not resolved within the agreed timescales. The requested information could therefore only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2016-05-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2016 to Question 34094, if he will provide examples of what his Department might consider an adequate justification for clinical commissioning groups not investing in mental health services as planned.
Alistair Burt
The Mental Health Taskforce report was published on 15 February 2016. The taskforce marks a big step towards our ambition of parity of esteem for mental and physical health. The spending of clinical commissioning group (CCG) resources on mental health as indicated in proportionate increases to general CCG spending is a priority for the Department.
Mental Health Parity of Esteem is a key plan metric for NHS England and any commissioners not planning to achieve this are being scrutinised locally at regional level and centrally at director level. NHS England’s central and regional teams are working with local commissioners to assure that spend on mental health services increases in line with the growth in each organisations programme allocation other than in exceptional circumstances.
In assessing whether a case is exceptional, consideration is made of the level of medium term investment in mental health services by individual commissioners and instances where individual commissioners are working with other commissioners to increase spend for the wider health economy. But any such instances will require clear evidence that will be scrutinised as part of the assurance process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-06-28.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure (a) that all Government services are available through the gov.uk website and (b) that that website remains operational at all times.
Matthew Hancock
Since its launch in October 2012, GOV.UK has handled over 2.6 billion visits. The site needs to continue operating during major events such as the annual Self Assessment peak and a national emergency. The GOV.UK website has been designed to handle issues and failures in a way which would not impact the public. We have robust incident management processes in place and regularly run disaster recovery simulations to test our response to any outages.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-09-08.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 22 July 2016 to Question 43066, on Cabinet Office: Ministerial policy advisers, whether his Department has now calculated the information requested in that Question on severance pay.
Ben Gummer
This information will be published in due course, as part of the full and detailed list of special advisers, salary bands and total pay bill costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 17 December 2015 to Question 20082, what the (a) dates, (b) locations and (c) organisations of the 19 visits and meetings referred to in that Answer were.
Alistair Burt
Details of the 19 visits to or meetings with mental health trusts undertaken by Simon Stevens and Sir Bruce Keogh since their appointments as Chief Executive and Medical Director respectively are given on the attached table Details of meetings with and visits to mental health trusts undertaken by Simon Stevens and Sir Bruce Keogh since their appointments as Chief Executive and Medical Director respectively of NHS England.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2015-11-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Answer of 2 November 2015 to Question 13491, if she will make it her policy to designate all the areas supplying aquifers used for drinking water as Source Protection Zones 1.
Andrea Leadsom
Source Protection Zones identify the area of an aquifer that provides the water abstracted at the drinking water supply borehole. Source Protection Zones 1 (SPZ1) are the area within which pollution would take less than 50 days to reach an abstraction point and where the consequences of groundwater pollution would therefore be greatest. They are used by the Environment Agency as a tool for regulation. The Environment Agency will not permit drilling for oil or gas in an SPZ1. Outside SPZ1s the Environment Agency will require a site specific risk assessment and will only permit drilling for oil or gas if it is satisfied that there is no significant risk to supplies of drinking water and no unacceptable impact on groundwater.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Caulfield on 2015-12-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment her Department has made of the ethnic diversity among pupils of Catholic schools and non-Catholic schools.
Edward Timpson
All schools are subject to the Equality Act 2010 and must comply with the requirements of the Schools Admission Code. The legislation is already available within the Equality Act 2010 and the Admission Code, which ensures schools meet their statutory requirements ensuring that a diverse ethnic group of pupils attend both Catholic and non-Catholic schools.
The department does not conduct comparative assessments of ethnicity diversity among pupils of Catholic schools and non-Catholic schools.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2016-01-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the role of district councils in two-tier areas in the maintenance of drainage systems, the prevention of local flooding, and action when flooding occurs.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
District councils have several responsibilities and powers in relation to flooding and land drainage. These include powers to carry out flood risk management works on ordinary watercourses, powers to make bye-laws to manage flood risk in the authority’s area from ordinary watercourses and to secure the efficient working of a drainage system in the authority’s district or area. Those in coastal areas are also Coastal Protection Authorities.
District councils are also responsible for a set of civil protection duties for emergencies. Plans are regularly reviewed and tested as part of local exercise arrangements.
Defra commissioned an independent evaluation into the arrangements for managing local flood risk under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The evaluation has now concluded and will be published in due course. One of the areas the evaluation explored was partnership working between the Lead Local Flood Authority and other risk management authorities, including district councils.