Tag: Chris Ruane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-13.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what measures are in place to monitor the effectiveness of the funding to improve electoral registration engagement; and when he plans to report to Parliament on the effectiveness of this initiative.

Greg Clark

Funding has been provided to all 363 local authorities and valuation joint boards in Great Britain and five national organisations to support the costs of activities to maximise registration.

They have been provided with guidance to support them in evaluating the success of activity delivered through this funding. Cabinet Office officials will continue to work closely with funding recipients to monitor and measure the outcomes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-10.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what assessment the Electoral Commission has made on the viability of permitting people to vote in any polling station in their constituency or local authority area.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that permitting people to vote electronically at any polling station within a specific ward or local authority area was piloted by a number of English local authorities between 2002 and 2007 as part of the previous UK Government’s electoral pilot scheme programme.

The Commission’s statutory evaluation of the pilot schemes concluded that while some people welcomed the convenience of “vote anywhere” polling stations, the impact on turnout was minimal and there were significant technical problems associated with the facility in some areas.

The Commission has recommended that there should be no further piloting of electronic voting – including “vote anywhere” polling stations – without the development of a wider electoral modernisation strategy, which should take account of the specific risks related to electronic voting, as well as its cost-effectiveness and likely impact on public trust.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2014, Official Report, columns 622-3W, on the Electoral Register: fraud, what comparative assessment he has made of the level of concern about electoral fraud in the UK and other EU countries.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that it regularly monitors comparative international research on electoral matters. Comparing the UK with other countries around the world, Gallup polls place the UK in the top third of countries in terms of confidence in the honesty of the electoral process.

The most recently available Gallup data from 2007-08, showed that 40% of UK respondents said they did not have confidence in the honesty of elections in the UK. This was slightly lower than the findings from Germany (44%) and Italy (43%), but significantly higher than those from Denmark (5%), Finland (8%) and Sweden (8%).

Full findings are at the following link:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111691/Worldwide-Views-Diverge-About-Honesty-Elections.aspx

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his Department’s policy is on allowing officials to appear before all-party parliamentary groups.

Elizabeth Truss

I refer the Rt. hon member to the response of 26 March 2014, Hansard column 300W, provided by the Cabinet Office.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department has issued on the amount of time to be taken for an individual to be assessed for a personal independence payment.

Mike Penning

The Department does not have a target for completion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims whilst processes are bedding in. Clearly, we want to minimise the length of time claimants have to wait for assessments but the key requirement is to produce high quality assessments, to enable DWP decision makers to make the right decisions about benefit entitlement.

We are committed to driving up PIP performance and are in regular contact with our assessment providers to do this. We already monitor performance closely and liaise with assessment providers on a daily basis, supplemented by formal monthly performance review meetings. We will continue to work closely with assessment providers on an ongoing basis to monitor quality.

Our original Departmental operational delivery plans assumed a larger volume of assessment provider referrals than we are currently receiving and we have retained this surplus capacity using it to consolidate learning or carry out other duties. This will be available for deployment as cases are returned to the Department for decision maker action. The Department has contingency plans in place to secure additional capacity from other areas of the Department should assessment provider volumes exceed plans.

From 10 March we have included with the PIP2 ‘How your disability affects you’ questionnaire, issued to PIP claimants, communications explaining how long they might be expected to wait for a PIP assessment. This information is also available on Gov.uk.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment assessments were face to face in each month for which information is available.

Mike Penning

The Department has not set Personal Independence Payment assessment providers targets for the proportion of assessments to be conducted face to face and the average length of time for each assessment.

Personal Independence Payment started from April 2013 and although limited data has started to feed through we need to wait until the Department has quality assured meaningful figures for publication. The Department is working to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we are able to publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity. We intend to publish official statistics on PIP from spring 2014 in line with our publication strategy.