Tag: 2016

Lilian Greenwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lilian Greenwood on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has issued (a) an enforcement order, (b) a provisional enforcement order or a remedial plan notice against Govia Thameslink Railway.

Claire Perry

No enforcement order has been issued against Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR). A remedial plan notice was issued in July 2015 and the Remedial Plan was agreed between the Department for Transport and GTR in February this year.

January 1, 2023
Karl McCartney – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl McCartney on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 12 September 2016 to Question 44840, on honours: males, if he will take steps to ensure that all future press releases on honours nominations include men when appealing for nominations of people who deserve an honour.

Ben Gummer

Anyone can nominate anyone for an honour. The Cabinet Office outreach includes this message in all public communications, including press releases.

January 1, 2023
Chris Law – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Law on 2016-01-18.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what comparative estimate he has made of the property-related costs of the proposed HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) regional centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow and with HMRC’s existing property in Dundee.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Location Programme is the result of an extended period of consultation and deliberation. The Department has taken account of a number of criteria in reaching its decisions, including the quality of local transport links, the local labour market and future workforce supply, the cost of buildings and asset value, and the need to retain the staff and skills it needs to continue its transformation. These changes will reduce HMRC’s estates costs by around £100 million a year by 2025.

HMRC’s modelling estimates that the majority of staff in Scotland live within Reasonable Daily Travel of Glasgow or Edinburgh. Reasonable Daily Travel is calculated in line with established HR policies and procedures. Every worker at HMRC will have a one-to-one meeting with their manager to discuss their individual circumstances.

HMRC conducted high level People Impact and Equality Assessments to inform its planning. The Department plans to update these once discussions have been held with its staff.

Activities of trade union representatives are governed by long-standing agreements with departments.

January 1, 2023

Gavin Newlands – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2016-02-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment of the ethical standards of debt collection agencies his Department undertakes before entering into a contract with such agencies.

Justin Tomlinson

The Department’s policy is to recover outstanding debt whenever possible. Where a person is not in receipt of benefit and all the Department’s attempts at recovery have been unsuccessful, the overpayment will be referred to a debt collection agency. The debtor is always given an opportunity to make an agreement to pay the Department before the debt is sent to a debt collection agency to recover.

With the exception of one service provider currently being used by the Child Maintenance Group, the Department does not hold extant, direct contracts with any debt collection agencies although the nature of some of the expired contracts means that a number of collections are still being made. DWP now makes use of one main contract with Indesser. The Framework Contract is managed by Cabinet Office. Indesser manage relationships with a number of Debt Collection Agencies on behalf of all Government Customers.

Under the terms of the Framework Agreement, Indesser and its sub-contractors must comply with relevant industry and public sector standards for service delivery including those of the Credit Services Association, the Code of Practice and the Financial Conduct Authority guidelines. The standards are listed in the DMI Framework Agreement. Indesser reviews subcontractor compliance with these standards through audit and assurance activity, including responsibility for ensuring that they comply with relevant industry standards, managing their performance, and monitoring any complaints. Customer departments (i.e. DWP) in turn receive Letters of Assurance which they review to ensure standards are being achieved and the audits are effective.

The breakdown of figures you have requested is derived from operational processes and systems designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As it was not originally intended for publication, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

The debt collection agency costs of the Child Maintenance Group and DWP are given separately. Please note that the figures are rounded to the nearest £10,000.

The cost to the DWP of the debt collection agencies, and the related recovery made by them, is as follows:

Financial Year	Spend	Recoveries
2009/2010	£1.59m	£8.50m
2010/2011	£1.33m	£9.77m
2011/2012	£2.11m	£13.94m
2012/2013	£1.95m	£14.15m
2013/2014	£2.12m	£15.00m
2014/2015	£2.52m	£17.30m
2015/2016*	£1.64m	£11.05m
*to date

The cost to Child Maintenance Group of the debt collection agencies, and the related recovery made by them, is as follows:

Financial Year	Spend	Recoveries
2009/2010	£1.25m	£10.20m
2010/2011	£0.56m	£4.68m
2011/2012	£0.35m	£1.35m
2012/2013	£0.21m	£1.71m
2013/2014	£0.05m	£1.21m
2014/2015	£0.10m	£0.86m
2015/2016 to date	£0.07m	£0.53m

January 1, 2023

Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-03-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many (a) residential care homes and (b) nursing homes have closed in the current year and in each of the previous five years.

Alistair Burt

The Department does not centrally hold information on the number of residential care homes or nursing homes that have closed in the current year, or in each of the last five years.

January 1, 2023

Tim Farron – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many armed forces personnel handed in a formal notice of resignation in each month since January 2014.

Mark Lancaster

Details of the number of Armed Forces personnel who have handed in a formal notice of resignation since January 2014 are given in the tables below. The information provided is an estimate of the number of applications made by Service personnel to leave before the end of their agreed engagement or commission period. It relates to those who have an application to leave recorded on their personnel record on the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system.

Voluntary Outflow (VO) is defined as all exits from trained personnel which are voluntarily generated by the individual before the end of their agreed engagement or commission period.

It should be noted that the figures do not include people who request to leave but have their application refused, or their application is not completed appropriately.

ROYAL NAVY

Month	Number of Voluntary Outflow applications
January 2014	30
February 2014	370
March 2014	190
April 2014	150
May 2014	240
June 2014	130
July 2014	190
August 2014	110
September 2014	220
October 2014	170
November 2014	170
December 2014	70
January 2015	150
February 2015	140
March 2015	140
April 2015	140
May 2015	140
June 2015	150
July 2015	120
August 2015	100
September 2015	180
October 2015	140
November 2015	140
December 2015	110
January 2016	130

In accordance with the Defence Statistics rounding policy, all figures are rounded to the nearest 10, and numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to avoid systematic bias.

ARMY

Month	Number of Voluntary Outflow Applications
January 2014	510
February 2014	570
March 2014	510
April 2014	480
May 2014	460
June 2014	510
July 2014	420
August 2014	320
September 2014	680
October 2014	520
November 2014	460
December 2014	230
January 2015	680
February 2015	470
March 2015	400
April 2015	460
May 2015	450
June 2015	470
July 2015	410
August 2015	340
September 2015	580
October 2015	450
November 2015	400
December 2015	210
January 2016	210

In accordance with the Defence Statistics rounding policy, all figures are rounded to the nearest 10, and numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to avoid systematic bias.

ROYAL AIR FORCE

Month	Number of Voluntary Outflow Applications
January 2014	260
February 2014	210
March 2014	240
April 2014	180
May 2014	200
June 2014	190
July 2014	220
August 2014	180
September 2014	250
October 2014	220
November 2014	210
December 2014	150
January 2015	240
February 2015	170
March 2015	220
April 2015	200
May 2015	160
June 2015	190
July 2015	170
August 2015	160
September 2015	210
October 2015	190
November 2015	270
December 2015	130
January 2016	250

In accordance with the Defence Statistics rounding policy, all figures are rounded to the nearest 10, and numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to avoid systematic bias.

January 1, 2023

Nigel Mills – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Mills on 2016-05-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff at HM Revenue and Customs work on insolvency procedures.

Mr David Gauke

Within HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) debt management teams in Worthing and Edinburgh are responsible for initiating insolvency actions where other attempts to recover sums due have been unsuccessful. A third team at Newcastle lodges HMRC’s claims in insolvencies. The total number of staff engaged on insolvency work in HMRC’s debt management offices is 258.

January 1, 2023
Tania Mathias – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tania Mathias on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has to maintain a military presence on the site of Kneller Hall in Whitton.

Mark Lancaster

The decision to release Kneller Hall was confirmed as part of the Ministry of Defence’s land release announcement on 18 January 2016. Whilst the site will not be released before 2018, there are no plans to maintain a military presence (people permanently living and working) at the site once it has been released.

I am keen to reinforce the Military relationship with the Kneller hall site, utilising our historic links with Twickenham Borough Council who have signed up to the Armed Forces Covenant, pledging specific support for the Armed Forces Community.

We have also previously committed to continue to hold concerts at Kneller Hall in order to continue the association of the area with the Armed Forces.

January 1, 2023
Tom Blenkinsop – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether it remains Government policy to (a) offer specific financial support to the UK steel industry and (b) take a 25 per cent equity stake in Tata Steel.

Mr Nick Hurd

The Government continues to make compensation payments to all Electricity Intensive Industries, including steel, for the policy costs in their electricity bills. To date we have paid the steel sector over £100 million. We continue to make significant progress in addressing the wider challenges faced by the steel sector, and are working through the Steel Council to ensure the efforts of the sector itself, the Trade Unions, and the Government are all targeted in the right areas.

We are also continuing to work with Tata, the Welsh Government and Trade Unions to support commercial discussions on the future of the company’s remaining UK assets.

January 1, 2023
Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what support his Department provides to outdoor recreational activities across the UK; and if he will make a statement.

Tracey Crouch

We recognise the importance of outdoor recreation and this is reflected in our new sport and physical activity strategy, published in December 2015. Sport England is currently working with the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) on the ‘Getting Active Outdoors’ insight report – the largest ever of its kind – to get the nation active – particularly children, pensioners and women. In the meantime, Sport England is investing over £68 million in outdoor recreation sports, including £3 million invested in the Britain on Foot campaign, to get more people hillwalking, trail running and mountaineering.

January 1, 2023