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Tag: 2015

  • Andrew Stephenson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Andrew Stephenson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department takes to ensure that overseas development aid spent via the EU is used for its intended purposes.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    DFID officials sit on the management committees of the European Development Fund (EDF) and the Development Cooperation Instrument where they scrutinise EU programming to ensure it is well placed to achieve its development aims. DFID country offices also regularly engage with the EU delegations in-country on their development programming. DFID also uses EU audit systems (including the European Court of Auditors’ annual report which is scrutinised by Parliament) to dissect EU spend.

    The UK has strongly pushed for the introduction of a results framework and the Commission has now published its new framework, providing transparency about what is being achieved and accountability for the money spent. The first publication of results is expected by the end of 2015. The Results Framework has a similar design to that of DFID and other international donors – and will allow more rigorous scrutiny. The UK also secured significant improvements in the Implementing Regulations of EDF 11 which has improved the quality of programme documents and the availability of results data, which will feed into the new results framework. DFID continues to push for more effective programming, monitoring and evaluation, as well as enhanced transparency.

  • Gordon Marsden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gordon Marsden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2015-11-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what discussions he has had with the higher education sector on extending the new postgraduate loans scheme to part-time taught masters students aged over 30.

    Joseph Johnson

    A consultation on support for postgraduate study was launched in March of this year. The consultation sought views on the Government’s intention to introduce a new loan scheme for taught Master’s study and a review of how to broaden and strengthen support for postgraduate research. Consultation responses have been analysed and the Department is preparing its response.

  • Karl Turner – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Karl Turner – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many temporary agency staff were recruited by the Legal Aid Agency to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts; and what proportion of staff assessing the bids for such contracts were external staff.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.

    The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.

    The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-18.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the rate is of (a) unemployment and (b) employment among people living in the UK who (i) were born in Lithuania and (ii) are Lithuanian nationals.

    Mr Rob Wilson

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will set road casualty reduction targets.

    Andrew Jones

    The Government has not set road safety targets for local authorities or the police, and is not considering reinstating them. We do not believe that further persuasion is needed on the importance of road safety through “Whitehall knows best” diktats. However, local authorities and the police are free to set their own targets if they find this useful.

    The Conservative Manifesto 2015 had a commitment to reduce the number of cyclists and other road users killed or injured on our roads every year. We are working closely with road safety groups to consider what more can be done and we believe that every death is a tragedy and is one too many.

  • Nigel Dodds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Nigel Dodds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2015-11-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Warm Home Discount Scheme; and what plans she has to extend that scheme to Belfast.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The Warm Home Discount Scheme helps over 2 million low income and vulnerable households each year and has provided a total of £1.1 billion of direct assistance since the scheme began. The Government announced in the Spending Review on 25 November 2015 that the Warm Home Discount scheme would be extended to 2020/21 at current levels of £320m per year, rising with inflation, to help households who are at risk of fuel poverty with their energy bills.

    The issue of fuel poverty is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive, which decides its own fuel poverty objectives and policies.

  • Jo Stevens – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Jo Stevens – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jo Stevens on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on (a) IT systems and (b) cyber-security in (i) 2010-11, (ii) 2011-12, (iii) 2012-13, (iv) 2013-14, (v) 2014-15 and (vi) 2015-16 to date.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The available information is set out below:

    (a) IT costs which can be found in the published DWP Annual Report and Accounts, are summarised as follows:

    £ (to nearest 1,000)

    2010-11

    2011-12

    2012-13

    2013-14

    2014-15

    2015-16 to September

    Total IT

    960,572,000

    926,912,000

    1,111,308,000

    802,134,000

    732,352,000

    327,006,000*

    *Please note that the figure for 2015/16 to September has not yet been audited for accounts.

    (b) DWP has tracked all core aspects of expenditure on cyber security, apart from in specific IT systems, since April 2015. The current estimate up to September 15/16 is £5.6m, with further significant investment planned for the second half of the year.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the effectiveness of Government’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

    James Duddridge

    The UK intervention in Sierra Leone was instrumental in containing the Ebola epidemic and preventing the dire predictions from global health bodies materialising. Now that Sierra Leone has been declared Ebola transmission-free, our focus is to help the Government to develop a new approach to the delivery of services that will improve resilience and enable the country to handle future crises independently, whether they be health-related or caused by other factors.

  • Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-10-28.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of government IT spending was spent with small and medium sized (SME) enterprises in 2014-15; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of that spending that will be with SMEs in 2015-16.

    Matthew Hancock

    We are finalising the data for government spend with small business during 2014-15 and will publish this information before the end of the year.

    Data for 2015-16 will be published in due course.

  • Jess Phillips – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jess Phillips – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2015-11-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) surgical operations, (b) diagnostic tests and (c) endoscopy procedures which could be used to treat NHS patients and are available from independent sector healthcare providers in winter 2015-16.

    Jane Ellison

    Decisions about whether to use independent sector capacity are made at local level according to local need, as part of the operational management of capacity and demand.