Tag: 2016

  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to implement the findings of the Report of the Independent Farming Regulation Taskforce, published in May 2011.

    George Eustice

    The Government (Defra, the Department for Transport, Food Standards Agency and the Home Office) accepted 137 of more than 200 recommendations made by the Farming Regulation Task Force in 2011.

    The Farming Regulation Task Force Implementation Group published a final assessment of our delivery in April 2014 in which they concluded that we had completed or made progress against the vast majority of the accepted recommendations. The remaining 27 recommendations are currently being reviewed as part of the ‘Cutting Red Tape: Review of the Information managements in the Agricultural Sector’. A report on the findings of this review will be published shortly.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many incidents of face-down restraint there have been in mental health services in each year since 2010.

    Alistair Burt

    The information requested has only been collected by the Health and Social Care Information Centre since January 2016 with the intention of publishing a report when a meaningful data set is available.

  • Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-04-25.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evaluation has been undertaken to ensure that the £200 million National Transformation Fund for 2015–16 provided value for money.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    For the new care models programme, vanguards were selected based on a transparent and rigorous process, which considered the full range of value that they could deliver for their patients and for the wider National Health Service.

    New care model vanguards were required to submit ‘value propositions’ making the case for investment from the transformation fund. Money was only released once these were assessed, and approved.

    National support was designed based on what the vanguards said they needed to support them to deliver, and included work with them to develop a robust monitoring and evaluation framework. The national support helped ensure that vanguards are well positioned for success, and checks that money has been spent as planned, quarterly in arrears.

    An independent, multi-year evaluation will examine the longer-term impact of the new care models programme and its cost effectiveness.

    Other transformation programmes (for example, the Diabetes Prevention Scheme or the Healthy New Towns programme), not directly connected with the new care models programme, each have their own evaluation work-streams based on similar principles to those being used in the new care models programme. The results from these evaluations are not yet available as the implementation of these programmes has just begun.

  • Lord Bradshaw – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Lord Bradshaw – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-06.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are aware of any assessment of the impact on operational resilience by an experienced and professional railway operator of the decision by the Office of Road and Rail to allow further open access operators onto the East Coast Main Line.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The Department for Transport is not aware of any assessment of operational resilience in connection with the decision to extend open access operations on the East Coast Main Line. We expect Network Rail as network operator to ensure that their routes are able to operate effectively, whichever train operators are running on them.

  • Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union

    Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-07-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, how much his Department has spent to date on legal advice; and how much he estimates will be so spent during 2016-17.

    Mr David Jones

    The Department has been billed for £12,711 in relation to legal fees since it was established. Detailed work is underway to establish the Department’s future budget requirements, including for legal advice.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to provide support for (a) junior doctors and (b) other medical staff employed in hospitals who are experiencing stress.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    Employers across the National Health Service are responsible for the health and wellbeing of all their staff. They will provide access to a range of services and support to staff including doctors who feel they are experiencing stress.

    The Department continues to commission NHS Employers to provide advice, guidance and good practice to the NHS on improving staff physical and mental health and wellbeing. This includes an emotional wellbeing toolkit enabling staff to check their own emotional wellbeing and encourage discussion with colleagues. NHS Employers is also working with NHS England who are investing £5 million in a new NHS staff physical and mental health and wellbeing initiative, with the support of Public Health England.

    There are particular additional issues for junior doctors relating to the need for them to move between different hospitals in the course of their training. Health Education England, which is responsible for doctor training arrangements has a programme of work to address these issues. This includes looking at reducing the number of training rotations to help balance doctors’ work and other responsibilities such as family and caring commitments, giving doctors ten weeks’ notice of new placements and reviewing the process for the annual review of competence progression to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy.

  • Michael Fabricant – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Michael Fabricant – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Fabricant on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make it her policy to provide aid to Barbados; and if she will make a statement.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    Barbados does not qualify for Official Development Assistance (ODA) by the Department for International Development under internationally agreed ODA criteria.

  • Chris Stephens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Chris Stephens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Stephens on 2016-01-29.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when his Department’s discussions with Capgemini and Fujitsu began on the replacement of the HM Revenue and Customs IT Aspire contract.

    Mr David Gauke

    HM Revenue and Customs’ discussions with its IT partners have taken place on a regular basis since the Aspire contract began in 2004. The Department created the Aspire Replacement Programme in 2013 to manage discussions with its partners, following the Memorandum of Understanding in 2012 which led to the adaption of the Aspire contract.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with severe and long-term mental health issues and whose care is coordinated through the Care Programme Approach in each year since 2010 had had a formal meeting to review their care in the previous 12 months.

    Alistair Burt

    Information on the number of people using National Health Service funded adult secondary mental health services, including those who spent time on the Care Programme Approach (CPA), is shown in the following table.

    England

    2010/11

    2011/12

    2012/13

    2013/14

    2014/15

    Total People

    1,287,730

    1,607,153

    1,590,332

    1,746,698

    1,835,996

    People on CPA

    263,935

    407,370

    359,368

    357,732

    335,727

    These figures includes people who have been on CPA for a number of months or years as well as people who had only recently been assigned to CPA. These figures count each individual once, regardless of the number of times they accessed services in the year.

    Because of major changes to the Mental Health Minimum Dataset and submission process, figures for these years are not directly comparable. The scope was expanded to include independent sector providers in 2011/12 and learning disability services in 2014/15. Major changes to the submission process between 2010/11 and 2011/12 also contributed to an overall increase in numbers.

    A snapshot count of people on CPA at the end of 2014/15 who had been on CPA for at least 12 months and the number and proportion of these who had received a CPA review within the last 12 months is shown in the following table. It has not been possible to provide data for earlier years.

    England

    March 2015

    People on CPA at the end of the month who had been on CPA for 12 months

    126,679

    People on CPA for 12 months with a review in the previous 12 months

    101,592

    Percentage of people on CPA for 12 months with a review

    80.2%

    The process of the CPA recognises that reviews should be held at least every year. However, where an individual’s needs are sufficiently complicated to require more complex care co-ordination, the frequency of review meetings will be increased.

  • Ruth Smeeth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Ruth Smeeth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Smeeth on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which companies have been issued with more than 50 Tier 2 (ICT) visas in a calendar year for each of the last five years; and how many visas for each such company were issued.

    James Brokenshire

    A list of the sponsors that have assigned more than 50 Tier 2 (ICT) Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) in a calendar year for each of the last five years, which also provides the figures of how many of those CoS were used in support of an individual Tier 2 (ICT) application, are to be placed in the House Library.

    To break these figures down further into in and out of country applications, and whether the application was successful would require manual intervention and would exceed cost limits.