Tag: Andrew Gwynne

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what equality impact assessment has been carried out on the decision to reduce by £200 million the local government public health grant; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

The Department has conducted a public consultation exercise on the options for delivering this saving and specifically invited views in relation to the potential impact on people with protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010. We will publish our conclusions shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average response time was of Veterans UK to queries raised with them by veterans in the latest period for which figures are available.

Mr Philip Dunne

The information requested is not held. However, between 1 April and 30 September 2015, the Veterans UK Helpline received a total of 79,636 calls, answered within an average of two minutes 17 seconds. A total of 18,638 emails and approximately 84,500 letters (all correspondence received via the Norcross Post Room – it is not possible to filter out Veteran UK queries, from claim forms and post for other areas of Defence Business Services), were received and acknowledged within five working days with a full response expected to be issued within 10 working days.

Over the same period the Veterans Welfare Service addressed 10,448 queries. A total of 27 per cent were resolved at first point of contact, with the remainder being immediately referred to Welfare Managers for follow up visits; arranged within 10 working days.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the local government public health grant will be in (a) 2016-17, (b) 2017-18, (c) 2018-19 and (d) 2019-20; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

No decisions have yet been made on the public health grant for future years. This is being considered as part of the Spending Review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the total additional cost was of the net 52-month deferment of the final stage of the Core Production Capability Project.

Mr Philip Dunne

As stated in the National Audit Office (NAO) Major Projects Report (MPR) 2015, the Core Production Capability project was deferred for 52 months due to the decision to refuel HMS Vanguard and keep the option open to refuel HMS Victorious. As a result of this new requirement that was unforeseen, an additional £196 million was approved for this project of which £17.6 million represents the cost of deferment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many applications have been made to the forces help to buy scheme in (a) each region in England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland in each month since that scheme’s inception; and how many such applications have been successful in each of those areas.

Mark Lancaster

The Forces Help to Buy scheme was introduced in April 2014 and has been popular and successful amongst Service personnel and their families. To date, the scheme has helped over 5,000 military personnel purchase their own property, and a further 1,900 approved applications are awaiting the completion of the property purchase.

The information requested is not readily available, but the following table shows the number of recipients, by English regions, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where applications have been successful.

Region	Forces Help To Buy Recipients (Numbers)
England –	4,300
South West	1,100
East Midlands	650
South East	600
Yorkshire and The Humber	450
North West	450
East of England	350
West Midlands	350
North East	300
London	50
Wales	250
Scotland	400
Northern Ireland	50

Note: Figures have been rounded

The Forces Help to Buy demonstrates the Department’s commitment to strengthen the Armed Forces covenant, ensuring that personnel and their families are not disadvantaged by their service. By giving our Service personnel this extra help, those who aspire to be homeowners will be able to set down roots and get onto the property ladder, giving their families the domestic stability that many of us take for granted.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of Army (a) officers and (b) regular soldiers are recruited from (i) Scotland, (ii) England and Wales and (iii) Northern Ireland.

Mark Lancaster

The proportion of regular Army officers and soldiers recruited from each country of the United Kingdom for 2014-15 is shown below:

Regular	Officer	Soldier
England	88.4%	80.6%
Scotland	4.7%	8.9%
Wales	4.7%	6.3%
N Ireland	1.4%	2.5%
Other	0.8%	1.7%

The locations shown reflect the contact addresses recorded and may not be the home address. ‘Other’ refers to non-UK contact addresses, or those not identifiable, but does not include Gurkhas.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how much was paid in (a) year-end and (b) in-year bonuses to officials of her Department in each of the last three years.

Mr Ben Wallace

In the last three financial years my Department paid officials the following amounts for year-end and in-year bonuses:

Financial Year	In-Year Bonuses (£)	Year-End Bonuses (£)
2012/13	22,100	35,800
2013/14	32,150	31,800
2014/15	22,710	25,600

Non-consolidated performance related pay is only paid to reward excellence, for example to recognise and incentivise those responsible for delivering high quality public services and savings to the taxpayer. These one-off payments are not pensionable. Since 2010-11, the Government has restricted awards for senior civil servants to the top 25% of performers (from 65% in previous years), saving around £15 million overall.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will undertake a feasibility study on establishing a credit union open to British military personnel; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne

On 8 December 2014, the then Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans (Anna Soubry) fully endorsed the expansion of existing, strong Credit Unions to the Armed Forces community and stated that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) was working to bring this about. The Minister also advised that the MOD’s payroll provider was working with officials to scope and cost payroll deductions for a Credit Union.

The work on scoping payroll deductions has now been concluded successfully and we have now established a facility where Credit Union services are available to Armed Forces personnel via payroll deductions; the formal launch of this service took place on 15 October 2015.

The three chosen Credit Unions are PlaneSaver Credit Union, London Mutual Credit Union and Police Credit Union trading as Serve and Protect. This facility will provide UK Armed Forces personnel with access to dependable savings facilities and safe affordable loans.

An internal communication has been issued across the Department to alert Service personnel of this new facility.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how much was paid in (a) year-end and (b) in-year bonuses to officials of his Department in each of the last three years.

David Mundell

All staff in the Scotland Office are on assignment, secondment or loan from other Government bodies, in the majority of cases, the Scottish Government and the Ministry of Justice. Staff may be eligible for bonuses, in addition to basic salary, through their parent bodies’ pay arrangements.

The Scotland Office does not keep records of year-end performance payments or allowances to staff below Senior Civil Service level. These records are kept under staffs’ parent bodies’ pay arrangements. Scotland Office Senior Civil Service performance awards are agreed within a common framework set by the Cabinet Office and are published in the Scotland Office Annual Report and Accounts.

The Scotland Office is able to authorise directly non-consolidated and non-pensionable bonus payments in recognition of special effort, achievement and commitment, where the payment of such bonuses forms part of the individual member of staff’s terms and conditions. The current bonus arrangements do not apply to staff on assignment from the Scottish Government.

The following information shows the cost of such payments in the last three financial years:

Financial Year	Total Cost of Payments in-year bonuses	Number of Awards	Total Cost of Payments year-end (SCS only)	Number of Awards
2012-13	£3,050	7	£0	0
2013-14	£4,700	16	£0	0
2014-15	£0	0	£5-10	1

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was paid in (a) year end and (b) in-year bonuses to officials of her Department in each of the last three years.

Nick Gibb

The department uses a non-consolidated and non-pensionable part of the pay bill to reward exceptional performance. The amounts paid in end-year awards are set out in Table 1.

Table 1: Total amounts paid in end year non-consolidated performance awards. The amounts paid relate to performance in the previous year.

Financial Year	2012/13	2013/14	2014/15
	£1.5m	£1.65m	£1.76m

The department made no in year performance awards in the years in question.