The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Beith on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what (a) arrangements and (b) contracts NHS England has for non-emergency specialist care and treatment of English residents in Scottish hospitals.
Jane Ellison
NHS England has a block contract (value £250,000 a year) for vein of Galen malformation services with the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2014-04-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many staff in the Hull Official Receiver’s office have been offered voluntary redundancy terms.
Jenny Willott
All 43 employees in Hull have been offered work in the Insolvency Service’s Leeds office as well as assistance with travel. Voluntary redundancy terms have also been offered to all 43 employees in case they do not wish to or are unable to make the move. Employees who choose not to relocate will be eligible for assistance from the Insolvency Service’s outplacement support programme, and will be given priority access to vacancies across the wider Civil Service.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much the NHS spent on hearing aids in each of the last five years.
Norman Lamb
Information on National Health Service expenditure on hearing aids is not collected centrally. However, reference costs, which are the unit costs to NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients, provide some information which is shown in the following table.
Estimated cost to NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts of hearing aid provision, 2008-09 to 2012-13, £ million
|
Year |
Hearing aid costs |
Associated hearing aid costs |
Cochlear implants and bone anchored hearing aids |
|
2008-09 |
60.7 |
89.0 |
18.7 |
|
2009-10 |
57.7 |
96.0 |
17.7 |
|
2010-11 |
55.8 |
103.2 |
19.2 |
|
2011-12 |
62.1 |
118.5 |
26.6 |
|
2012-13 |
62.7 |
127.6 |
25.8 |
Source: Reference Costs, Department of Health
Notes:
1. Hearing aid costs are the actual costs of the hearing aids excluding other associated costs.
2. Associated hearing aid costs include assessment, fitting, follow-up and aftercare.
3. Reference costs are submitted on a fully absorbed basis, which means that all the costs of running the organisation are included in the return except where their exclusion is permitted.
4. Some relevant costs may be excluded. For example, maintenance and reprogramming costs for cochlear implants and bone anchored hearing aid costs were excluded from reference costs for these years.
5. The supply and fitting of hearing aids is also commissioned from the independent sector, and this expenditure is not reflected in the table.
6. 2012-13 is the latest year for which reference costs data are available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen O’Brien on 2014-04-10.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, in what circumstances he uses a calculation of the (a) value of preventing a fatality, (b) willingness to pay and (c) cost-per-quality adjusted life year approach to quantify the value of a policy intervention; what other tools he uses to quantify the benefit of a policy intervention; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Nick Hurd
These things are not easy to quantify. Approaches to quantifying benefits of a policy intervention are used in accordance with principles outlined in HM Treasury’s guidance on conducting appraisal and evaluation in central government (known as the “Green Book”). The Green Book recognises that using these approaches to quantify the benefits of an intervention is challenging, and that the approaches should be used appropriately.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Huppert on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department takes to ensure that accommodation provided by the COMPASS contracts meets the Decent Homes Standards.
Karen Bradley
It is a statutory requirement that social housing meets the Decent Homes
Standard as defined in the Housing Act 2004.
All COMPASS contracts incorporate the requirements of the Decent Home Standards
for social housing as part of the contractual performance management
arrangements and are robustly monitored through three key performance
indicators which relate specifically to property standards.
Providers are required to inspect all properties on a monthly basis or at the
point when a service user first occupies the property. In addition, the Home
Office has a team of 17 contract compliance officers who also closely monitor
property standards as part of their contract compliance and assurance role.
Any failure of the critical service levels may result in financial penalties.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2014-04-10.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure continuity in local authority provision of youth services during commissioning processes to tender those services.
Mr Nick Hurd
Local authorities are expected to make arrangements for continuity of provision of services and activities to young people throughout any commissioning activity. Statutory guidance on this duty was issued by the Department for Education in July 2012.
Local authorities are required to submit to Government separate budget and outturn statements outlining planned and actual expenditure for their education and children’s social care functions annually. This includes spend information on youth work and youth services, however this information does not allow a complete breakdown by different categories of organisation to be calculated.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Nuttall on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on what earliest date a still unresolved investigation by the Claims Management Regulation Unit under regulation 35 of the Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006 was begun; and on what earliest date such an investigation was begun but no proceedings have yet commenced.
Mr Shailesh Vara
The CMR Unit aims to conduct all investigations in a proportionate and efficient manner. This means determining as quickly as possible whether a CMC under investigation is in breach of the conditions of its authorisation. If following an investigation it is clear that those conditions have been breached and there is a public protection issue, any proposed enforcement action will be expedited.
(1) 6 June 2013 was the earliest date from when the Claims Management Regulation (CMR) Unit began an investigation under regulation 35, which remains unresolved but no enforcement proceedings have yet commenced.
(2) Information is available for the period, 12 months to 18 June 2014. The CMR Unit conducted 46 investigations under regulation 35, which took an average of 5 months, 21 days before enforcement proceedings were taken, and an average of 2 months, 8 days before being closed without the requirement for enforcement proceedings.
(3) As at 18 June 2014, the CMR Unit was investigating 24 CMCs under regulation 35.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Redwood on 2014-04-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what levels of stock his Department holds of (a) stationery, (b) printer cartridges, (c) treasury tags and other fasteners and (d) other office consumables.
Mrs Helen Grant
DCMS holds a minimal stock of stationery to supply staff, and orders items as required.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Yasmin Qureshi on 2014-06-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many child victims and witnesses have given evidence from a remote site in each of the last five years.
Damian Green
We must do everything we can to support child witnesses and help them give their best possible evidence to bring offenders to justice.
The department does not hold data on the number of child victim and witnesses that use video links to give evidence (either a court building, or from a remote site).
The list below sets out the number of courthouses in each of the seven HMCTS Regions in England & Wales; criminal justice is a devolved matter for Scotland and Northern Ireland. These facilities enable any victim or witness to appear by video link from a different court location to that of the trial court; it is also possible for third party users to access the court system through a secure bridge.
|
HMCTS Region |
Number of courthouses enabled for remote video link. |
|
Wales |
22 |
|
London |
32 |
|
South East |
52 |
|
South West |
35 |
|
Midlands |
40 |
|
North West |
31 |
|
North East |
37 |
|
Total |
249 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to deal with emotional neglect of children.
Mr Edward Timpson
Our revised statutory safeguarding guidance, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013′, includes a definition of emotional abuse which social workers already act on when deciding on what action to take to keep a child safe.
We want social workers and other professionals who work with children and families to recognise the early signs of all forms of abuse and neglect and take appropriate action. To support this, the Department is working on a number of initiatives. We have brought together a panel of experts to review the evidence concerning indicators of neglect that are associated with a likelihood of future harm to babies, pre-school children and school-age children.
We are reviewing the recommendations in the Action for Children report ‘Child Neglect: The scandal that never breaks’ and the Ofsted report ‘In the child’s time: professional responses to neglect’ and will consider how to support professionals in recognising early signs of all forms of neglect. We are also working with the Department of Health on their proposals for the development of a new criminal offence of ill-treatment or wilful neglect. Following the Narey review, we are improving social work training and developing further the skills of social workers in critical areas including neglect and how to undertake a good quality assessment.
We have also published training materials commissioned from Action for Children and the University of Stirling. These materials, ‘Childhood neglect: Improving outcomes for children’, contain guidance and training resources to help staff identify and respond early to all signs of neglect and to know what types of interventions are the most effective.