The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he expects Atos to appoint new agency staff to administer appeals on reassessment of eligibility for disability benefits.
Mike Penning
Appeals on the disability benefits are administered and heard by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. Atos has no role to play.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Barry Sheerman on 2014-03-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of free schools approved to date are faith schools.
Edward Timpson
37 of 142 open mainstream free schools have a faith designation (26%); this compares to 34% of all state-funded mainstream schools.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he expects to transfer (a) the first and (b) the last Community Rehabilitation Company to an external provider.
Jeremy Wright
The Transforming Rehabilitation Programme is opening up the market to a diverse range of new providers, so that we can harness the best that the private and voluntary sectors has to offer to reduce reoffending. In mid December 2013, the bidders who passed the first stage of the competition to bid for the rehabilitation contracts were announced. The list includes a mix of private and voluntary sector partnerships with more than 50 organisations represented. We expect to announce the winners of these contracts by the end of 2014 and are committed to the roll out of payment by results by 2015.
The Government has been clear that we want to see a diverse market delivering probation services, rather than being dominated by just a few providers. We have set a market share restriction whereby bidders can win a maximum of 25% of market share based on the indicative contract values set out in the competition documentation. Bidders will be allowed to win multiple contracts up to the point at which their market share cap would be breached subject to meeting any other requirements set out by the Authority.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-13.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, whether his Department’s funding of £3.6 million to improve electoral registration will be given to local authorities which have not used local government databases to improve electoral registration in the individual electoral registration dry run.
Greg Clark
All Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have received funding, based on their levels of under-registration, to support local activities to maximise registration, as part of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration. EROs are best placed to decide how to improve the completeness and accuracy of their registers.
Performance Standard one of the Electoral Commission’s framework encourages EROs to use local data sources to build understanding of local challenges and to identify potential new electors. The Electoral Commission monitors and reports on the performance of EROs against the performance standards. All EROs met performance standard one in 2012 and the Commission will report on the 2013 performance shortly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tessa Munt on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to section 3 of the guidance issued by Monitor on the Commissioning of Radiosurgery Services on 4 April 2014, if he will require NHS England to publish the evidence on which it based its decision not to allow patients to be treated with the gamma knife at University College Hospital London.
Jane Ellison
Section 3 of Monitor’s substantive guidance on The National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No.2) Regulations 2013 provides guidance to commissioners on publishing new contract opportunities for National Health Service health care services.
On page 42 of the guidance, it states that "a commissioner may decide to carry out a detailed review of the provision of particular services (for example, A&E services) in its local area in order to understand how those services can be improved in the interests of patients. The review may involve extensive public consultation and engagement with existing and potential providers and other stakeholders. Reviewing available services and providers in this way is good commissioning practice and something that commissioners should consider doing as a matter of course."
In its role as commissioner, NHS England is currently undertaking such a review of stereotactic radiosurgery services. This will inform procurement decisions for these services.
University College London Hospitals is not contracted by NHS England, nor was it contracted by former primary care trusts, to provide Gamma Knife services. It is for this reason that NHS patients cannot normally be treated at this facility. Instead, NHS patients requiring Gamma Knife treatment should be treated by the Gamma Knife services commissioned by the NHS, that have been shown to meet NHS England service specifications. These can be accessed by patients in London without a waiting time, fully maintaining the continuity of their care and normally with the same consultant and clinical team.
Until the capacity requirements are made clear as part of the review being undertaken, NHS England has said that it would be inappropriate to encourage new market entrants to provide this service as it cannot be clear what the potential consequential impacts on service quality, sustainability (financial and clinical) and potential unintended changes to patient pathways will be. Until the review is complete NHS England has said no substantive changes will be made to the current provision.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Jim Cunningham on 2014-03-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of service leavers (a) applied to and (b) were accepted on initial teacher training in (i) 2008-09, (ii) 2009-10, (iii) 2010-11, (iv) 2011-12, (v) 2012-13 and (vi) the current academic year to date.
David Laws
In the 24 month period between March 2011 and April 2013, 322 service leavers applied to postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT). 132 of these were successful. This is an average of six successful applicants per month.
In the current academic year we have introduced the new Troops to Teachers undergraduate route. This is not comparable to previous years as it is a dedicated undergraduate route which is only for service leavers.
982 service leavers applied to Cohort 1, and the application process ran for 4 months. 41 service leavers joined the programme in January 2014. This is an average of 10 successful applicants per month. We expect a higher acceptance rate for Cohort 2 as we develop this new programme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Ward on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of how many claim management companies operated in each region since 2008.
Mr Shailesh Vara
With rigorous new measures being brought in across the board, we are taking strong action to rein in the rogue firms operating in this sector.
Continued action to remove licenses from companies with poor practices alongside forthcoming Claims Management Regulation reforms, proves just how much work is going on to get tough on companies that defy the rules and bombard the public with unwelcome calls and misleading information.
We are changing the law to further toughen the regime, including introducing fines, and ensuring firms cannot buy in any contact details which have been gathered unlawfully.
The number of claims management companies (CMCs) operating in each region between April 2008 and April 2014 were as follows:
|
Regional Analysis |
Apr-08 |
Apr-09 |
Apr-10 |
Apr-11 |
Apr-12 |
Apr-13 |
Apr-14 |
|
East |
107 |
134 |
165 |
173 |
146 |
138 |
114 |
|
East Midlands |
56 |
97 |
131 |
139 |
152 |
137 |
120 |
|
London |
253 |
378 |
545 |
531 |
524 |
444 |
340 |
|
Northern Ireland |
0 |
0 |
5 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
4 |
|
North East |
30 |
71 |
95 |
98 |
76 |
68 |
49 |
|
North West |
514 |
685 |
784 |
803 |
775 |
706 |
576 |
|
Overseas |
6 |
11 |
9 |
6 |
3 |
16 |
13 |
|
Scotland |
21 |
26 |
30 |
32 |
28 |
29 |
33 |
|
South East |
193 |
294 |
358 |
370 |
361 |
326 |
267 |
|
South West |
62 |
81 |
100 |
113 |
113 |
100 |
93 |
|
Wales |
61 |
73 |
95 |
81 |
101 |
88 |
66 |
|
West Midlands |
206 |
321 |
408 |
404 |
358 |
292 |
208 |
|
Yorkshire & Humbers |
230 |
316 |
366 |
387 |
329 |
245 |
176 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr David Hanson on 2014-03-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the cost of merging the e-borders programme into the border system programme.
James Brokenshire
The activities of the e-Borders programme have been absorbed into the Border
Systems Programme. The estimated cost to close the e-Borders programme and
define the Border Systems Programme was £340,000. These costs are attributable
to civil servants already in post and there has been no additional expenditure
or procurement in order to move the work from e-Borders to Border Systems.
The procurement approach to replacing the primary border security elements of
the Border Systems Programme will reflect broader Government ICT and Commercial
strategy, and there will be no single, large supplier. The Home Office will
lead development, with services procured from a range of providers, potentially
including small and medium enterprises; no tenders have been received at this
time.
By March 2015 the Border Systems Programme aims to:
• Complete resilience of all current business critical systems;
• Develop replacement primary border security systems;
• Provide the capability to support commitments on exit checks;
• Establish a programme for the next generation of Radiological and Nuclear
detection (Cyclamen);
• Continue the implementation of second generation e-Gates across the estate;
• Develop and implement new freight targeting capability for Sea Containers;
• Establish contracts to purchase new detection equipment;
• Continue to assure live operations of existing systems.
The breakdown of FTE Civil Servants engaged by the e-Borders and subsequently
the Border Systems Programme in each year since 2010, is:
| Dec-10 | Dec-11 | Dec-12 | Dec-13 | |
| SCS PB 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| SCS PB 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| G6 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 9.8 |
| G7 | 11.8 | 9.8 | 10.8 | 17.8 |
| SEO/HMI | 33.5 | 34.7 | 48.8 | 49.7 |
| HEO/CIO | 26 | 25.4 | 22.5 | 30.9 |
| EO/IO | 22 | 19.3 | 25 | 20.8 |
| AO/PS | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many mortgage possession claims were approved by the courts in each (a) region of England and (b) London borough in (i) 2011-12, (ii) 2012-13 and (iii) 2013-14; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Shailesh Vara
The Ministry of Justice collects data on mortgage possession claims and these are published at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mortgage-and-landlord-possession-statistics
The tables provided give figures on the number of mortgage claims in the County Courts from 2011-12 to 2013-14.
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-13.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what recent assessment the Electoral Commission has made of reasons for differential turnout between socio-economic groups.
Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it has not made its own assessment of the reasons for differential turnout between socio-economic groups. However, the Commission is aware of the fact of differential turnout between not only social but demographic and other groups and targets its campaigns accordingly.
For instance, the Commission ensures that its campaigns reach young people by advertising on channels used by that demographic, including Facebook and video-on-demand services, and that its television adverts are frequently placed during programmes with a high viewership amongst young people.