Tag: David Mackintosh

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Advertising Standards Agency.

Mr Edward Vaizey

This Government supports the system of co-regulation and self-regulation, overseen by the independent Advertising Standards Authority and underpinned by consumer protection legislation. This regulatory system is independent of the Government and is ultimately responsible for setting the standards in advertising, ensuring that all adverts, wherever they appear, are legal, decent, honest and truthful.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what powers the National Cyber Security Centre will have to ensure that key infrastructure providers act on the advice it gives.

Matthew Hancock

The National Cyber Security Centre will be a unified source of advice for business, including owners and providers of critical national infrastructure. The Centre will work with lead government departments and regulators who are responsible for ensuring that the risks against our critical national infrastructure are appropriately managed by those running it.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage research into a cure for complex regional pain syndrome.

George Freeman

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality.

The researcher-led workstream of the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programme (funded by the Medical Research Council and managed by the NIHR) is currently funding a £0.7 million trial of low-dose intravenous immunoglobulin treatment for CRPS.

The NIHR Clinical Research Network is recruiting patients to studies of mycophenolate treatment for longstanding CRPS and electrical sensory discrimination therapy for relief of chronic pain in CRPS.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to improve the diversity of (a) public appointments and (b) staffing in his Department.

Matthew Hancock

All public appointments are made on merit following a fair and open competition in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s Code of Practice. The Government is committed to increasing the diversity of public appointments. The Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office supports departments on all issues relating to the diversity of public appointments. Steps we are taking to increase diversity include streamlining the application process, placing an emphasis on ability over previous experience​ and increasing awareness of opportunities by using a central website, social media and engaging with a variety of diversity networks and groups.

The Cabinet Office recruits staff in line with the Civil Service Commissioners Principles which ensures that candidates are selected based on fair and open competition and on merit. To reduce bias in selection, the Cabinet Office will be implementing name-blind recruitment methods from 1st April. In addition, recruitment and selection training, which has a core focus on raising awareness of unconscious bias, is also offered to all Chairs of recruitment panels.

On 24 March, we published our 2016 Talent Action Plan for the Civil Service. It provides a progress update on initiatives to increase diversity in the Civil Service, including cross-Government talent programmes aimed at under-represented groups. It also sets out how we will increase social mobility in the Civil Service. The 2016 Talent Action Plan is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/talent-action-plan-2016-removing-the-barriers-to-success

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure that Ofsted is able to assess the effectiveness of schools under proposals for all schools to become academies.

Nick Gibb

Academies are already subject to inspection by Ofsted under the same framework that applies to maintained schools. The White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, sets out the intention that the Department will also publish new performance tables to show how well multi-academy trusts are leading their schools. This will be in addition to school-level inspection results and performance data. The White Paper is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the New Enterprise Allowance in achieving its aims.

Priti Patel

Latest statistics show that 80,830 new businesses have been set up with the support of the New Enterprise Allowance (NEA).

A survey of NEA recipients was published in January 2016 and found that of businesses that had started trading following receipt of NEA support, four in five were still trading giving a sustainability rate of 80%. Of these, over nine in ten had been trading for over 12 months.

This report was published on 28 January and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-enterprise-allowance-survey.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that Ofcom implements the recommendations from its Strategic Review of Digital Communications, published in February 2016, on automatic compensation for mobile and broadband customers for loss of internet connection.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The Government fully supports Ofcom’s plans to implement a system of automatic compensation for telecommunications customers who suffer a loss or reduction of their broadband services. This is in line with Ofcom’s remit to, amongst other things, protect the interests of end users. The Department anticipates that Ofcom will, in due course, define the specific parameters of the automatic compensation requirements that it will impose, and DCMS will liaise with it during this process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure (a) that all Government services are available through the gov.uk website and (b) that that website remains operational at all times.

Matthew Hancock

Since its launch in October 2012, GOV.UK has handled over 2.6 billion visits. The site needs to continue operating during major events such as the annual Self Assessment peak and a national emergency. The GOV.UK website has been designed to handle issues and failures in a way which would not impact the public. We have robust incident management processes in place and regularly run disaster recovery simulations to test our response to any outages.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-01-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase awareness of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

Jane Ellison

One of the main symptoms of pulmonary aterial hypertension (PAH) is shortness of breath. An awareness campaign focusing on the symptoms of breathlessness to support earlier diagnosis of related conditions was piloted by Public Health England in early 2015. The results of the regional phase of the campaign are currently being evaluated.

Furthermore, the NHS England PAH centres provide a continuing education programme at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels to educate doctors about this rare condition and the national Clinical Reference Group works closely with the PAH Patients Association to increase public awareness.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of rough sleepers has mental health issues; and what plans he has to address that issue.

Mr Marcus Jones

No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why we have increased our central investment for homelessness to £139 million over the next four years, and protected homelessness prevention funding to local authorities, totalling £315 million.

We know sleeping rough is rarely the result of a personal housing crisis alone and that the most entrenched rough sleepers often have complex needs, including mental health difficulties or addiction. That is why we are investing £10 million in an innovative new national Social impact Bonds Fund to help address these complex needs in order to help entrenched rough sleepers move off the streets. Through my Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness, I am working with ministerial colleagues across government including the Department of Health, to develop actions to address these underlying causes of homelessness.