Tag: Barry Sheerman

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what funding his Department provides for Local Safeguarding Children Boards.

Mr Edward Timpson

Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) are funded by contributions from the local authority, Primary Care Trust, police and other agencies, with the largest contribution coming from the local authority. It is important that agencies work together to agree budgets locally and prioritise spending in response to local needs and issues.

The Department for Education provided the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs with funding of £240,000 between September 2012 and March 2014 to support the leadership of LSCBs in ensuring the effectiveness of local safeguarding arrangements. We will provide them with a further £130,000 in this financial year as they move towards self-sustainability.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce human rights abuses in Tibet and to offer support for victims of such abuses.

Mr Hugo Swire

We remain concerned about the situation in Tibet.

We regularly discuss our concerns on Tibet with the Chinese authorities, most recently through the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue on 19-20 May 2014 where we covered concerns about ethnic minority rights, as well as the criminalisation of self immolation. Our concerns are also highlighted in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy, the latest edition of which was published on 10 April.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what financial contributions police services across England and Wales make to Local Safeguarding Children Boards.

Damian Green

Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) play a crucial role in multi agency
child protection arrangements. Decisions by individual police forces to financially
contribute to LSCBs are an operational matter and the Department does not hold
this information.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his Nigerian counterpart on the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria.

Mark Simmonds

My right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (William Hague) discussed the abduction of the school girls with FM Wali on 18 April, and attended a Summit in Paris on 17 May with the Nigerian President, which was specially convened to discuss this issue. I discussed the abduction with President Jonathan and Defence Minister Gusau during my visit to Nigeria on 14 May. During that visit we agreed the package of support the British Government would offer to help find the girls, as well as to help tackle Boko Haram’s wider activities. Foreign Minister Wali and I have been in contact since then on the subject of Boko Haram. I look forward to further detailed conversations with him and representatives from Nigeria’s neighbours, the US, Canada, France, EU, UN and AU at this week’s ministerial meeting on security in northern Nigeria.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with senior management of NHS England about redundancies.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Secretary of State meets regularly with NHS England to discuss a wide variety of issues. The Department is clear on the need to ensure that redundancy payments are made only in circumstances where it is appropriate to do so and has been working with NHS England to ensure that payments are tightly controlled, whilst meeting contractual obligations.

Redundancies are subject to rigorous scrutiny and challenge before being approved. Additionally, any individual redundancy compensation payment in excess of £100,000 also requires Departmental approval. Where redundancies do occur, NHS England ensures that these are formally subject to national NHS provisions to claw back any redundancy payment received where an individual then goes on to be re-employed within the National Health Service, further ensuring better value for the tax payer.

NHS England takes seriously its responsibilities to ensure that redundancy is a last resort and has implemented a system to seek to re-deploy any staff affected by such change to retain knowledge, skills and capability within the organisation, where at all possible.

NHS England has a responsibility for ensuring that maximum value for money for taxpayers is delivered, whilst seeking to improve health outcomes for patients through effective commissioning arrangements. As a direct employer of 6,000 people, NHS England has a responsibility to continually improve the way it delivers both commissioning and the provision of the services for which it is directly accountable, which includes the regular review of its workforce arrangements.

NHS England has advised that its redundancy costs for 2012-13 were £54,000, which represented 0.1% of total expenditure. For 2013-14 the costs were £1,017,000, which represented 0.003% of total expenditure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what his policy is on Tibetan independence.

Mr Hugo Swire

Our position on Tibet is clear and unchanged. As the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney
(Mr Cameron) outlined in Parliament on 8 May 2013, we regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China. We believe that long-term stability in Tibet will best be achieved through respect for universal human rights and genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the Chinese constitution.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Highways Agency in maintaining roads in (a) Huddersfield, (b) Kirklees and (c) Yorkshire; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Highways Agency Business Plan sets out the strategic objectives and the in-year targets to be achieved. It includes a target covering road surface condition. Each Highways Agency region contributes to those targets, including Yorkshire and the North East. The Agency’s performance against the targets for the financial year 2013/14 is due to be published in its Annual Report by summer 2014.

The Agency is unable to identify separately the contribution to Business Plan targets by individual constituency or local authority area.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent meetings he has had with NHS England on the contracting of provision of television services in hospitals.

Dr Daniel Poulter

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not had any recent meetings with NHS England on the contracting of the provision of television services in hospitals.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-04-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of local authorities in England and Wales have plans in place for tackling potential child sexual exploitation.

Mr Edward Timpson

The independent report of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC)’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) in gangs and groups, published on 26 November 2013, found that 98% of Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs) in England considered CSE to be a strategic priority and that 57% of LSCBs had agreed a joint CSE strategy with their partner agencies.[1] These figures were taken from evidence gathered by the OCC in early 2013. The OCC are planning to review the position later this year. Current statutory guidance on CSE says that LSCBs should ensure that specific local procedures are in place covering the sexual exploitation of children and young people and that the needs of the children affected are considered when local services are planned and commissioned.[2] LSCBs should set up a sub-group, reporting to the Board, to drive progress on CSE. The guidance does not place a requirement on LSCBs to develop a CSE strategy, but this has come to be regarded as best practice. It does, however, say:

‘Sexual exploitation should be covered in local needs assessments and, where it is a significant issue, the LSCB should help ensure it is regarded as a priority’.

More recently, the Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan, published by the Department for Education in November 2011, set out actions to help LSCBs to prioritise CSE, including to ‘develop an effective local strategy ensuring there is a co-ordinated multi-agency response to child sexual exploitation, based on a robust, thorough risk assessment of the extent and nature of CSE locally’.[3]

The Department for Education is not responsible for child protection in Wales.

[1] If only someone had listened – final report of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/content/publications/content_743

[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/278849/Safeguarding_Children_and_Young_People_from_Sexual_Exploitation.pdf

[3]https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-child-sexual-exploitation-action-plan

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