Tag: Helen Hayes

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether the apprenticeship levy will apply to charities who employ more than 250 people.

Nick Boles

The apprenticeships levy will apply to all UK employers but will only be paid by those with a pay bill of more than £3 million. We will continue to engage with employers, including the charity sector, in the development and implementation of the apprenticeship levy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the oldest uncompleted enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check was submitted.

Karen Bradley

The oldest uncompleted application for an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate was received on 30 May 2014.

It would not be appropriate to comment further on this specific case. But there are a number of factors which can affect the timely completion of checks. These include the length of time it can take for an employer to deal with the initial application, the accurate completion of the application form, the clarity of the information provided, the existence of conviction or non-conviction information and the operational effectiveness of the disclosure units of the police forces involved in the enhanced process. In some cases, forces will ask DBS to clarify some details provided by the applicant which requires further investigation and this can cause further delays.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-07-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he will publish the results of the review of the local housing allowance rate for supported housing.

Gavin Barwell

The Government is committed to protecting the most vulnerable.

That is why we are continuing to work with the sector and other partners to develop a sustainable and workable future for supported housing and will announce next steps in due course.

In the meantime we have put in place a one year exemption for supported housing from the Local Housing Allowance cap.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what past roles her Department has had in (a) appointing superintendents of children’s homes and (b) the inspection of such homes in the London Borough of Lambeth.

Sarah Newton

Prior to 1971, when policy and operational responsibility for children was transferred under machinery of Government changes to the then Department for Health and Social Security (DHSS), the Home Office included a Children’s Department. The Children’s Department had responsibilities for reformatory and industrial schools, remand homes and approved schools. It also had responsibility for supervising local authority and voluntary provision for children.

Indexes of material held at The National Archives suggest that the Children’s Department did not appoint superintendents or heads of individual children’s homes as a part of its core business. It did however have an Inspectorate, which operated nationally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of applications for Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks (a) nationally, (b) in London and (c) in Dulwich and West Norwood constituency met each of the service’s published service standards for waiting times in each year since 2010.

Karen Bradley

The following tables show (a) the proportion of applications for enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks that met the Published Service Standards for waiting times nationally and (b) for applications received from people residing in London postcodes in each Financial Year from April 2010 to November 2015.

Table A

Period	Total Apps Despatched	21 Calendar Day Target	21 Day Achievement	56 Calendar Day Target	56 Day Achievement
Apr-10 to Mar-11	4,124,609	85%	65.8%	95%	86.6%
Apr-11 to Mar-12	3,813,114	85%	88.4%	95%	96.7%
Apr-12 to Mar-13	3,801,064	85%	86.5%	95%	98.6%
Apr-13 to Mar-14	3,715,222	85%	84.3%	95%	97.3%
Apr-14 to Mar-15	3,833,149	85%	84.3%	95%	94.8%
Apr-15 to Nov-15	2,704,993	85%	85.5%	95%	94.6%

Table B

Period	Total Apps Despatched	21 Calendar Day Target	21 Day Achievement	56 Calendar Day Target	56 Day Achievement
Apr-10 to Mar-11	395,164	85%	28.5%	95%	55.0%
Apr-11 to Mar-12	363,887	85%	76.6%	95%	88.8%
Apr-12 to Mar-13	358,900	85%	78.7%	95%	97.9%
Apr-13 to Mar-14	356,883	85%	78.0%	95%	95.4%
Apr-14 to Mar-15	371,608	85%	79.5%	95%	87.6%
Apr-15 to Nov-15	257,410	85%	81.9%	95%	85.0%

The DBS is working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to improve its performance. An MPS Gold Group is overseeing the recovery plan and exploring all opportunities to process cases quickly, including the recruitment of additional staff. It is not possible to provide the figure for applications from Dulwich and West Norwood as this information is not collected.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to increase the number of BME young people in university education.

Joseph Johnson

The Prime Minister has a goal of increasing by 20% the number of BME students in higher education. In our new guidance to the Director of Fair Access, which we published on 11 February, we ask him to maximise the contribution of Access Agreements towards this ambition. Entry rates for 18 year olds in each ethnic group increased in 2015, reaching the highest recorded values for each group. Between 2009 and 2015, the entry rate for young people in the Black ethnic group increased by over 40 percent proportionally.

Investment by the higher education sector through Access Agreements is expected to reach £746 million in 2016/17 up from £404 million in 2009/10.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-07-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the implications of the outcome of the EU referendum are for changes to the potential number of solar jobs supported on a headcount basis set out in his Department’s Impact Assessment on the Periodic Review of Feed-in Tariffs, published on 17 December 2015.

Jesse Norman

The Government’s guiding principle throughout the process of leaving the EU will be to ensure the best possible outcome for the British people.

At this stage, it is not possible to assess the implications of the outcome of the EU referendum on the potential solar jobs figures set out in the Impact Assessment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many (a) residents, (b) children and (c) adolescents from Lambeth and Southwark were admitted to a mental health facility outside the London boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon served by South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in the last year.

Nicola Blackwood

The information requested is not held centrally.

Inpatient mental health services for children and young people are commissioned by NHS England. The NHS England (London) Specialised Commissioning team has advised that, in 2015-16, 90 children and young people from Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon were treated in the South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust, while 69 received inpatient care elsewhere. Of these, 24 received care from other London-based providers.

The current national service review aims to rebalance the provision of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) capacity to address deficits in services, it is expected that as a result more patients will be able to received inpatient care closer to home. There are a number of more specialised services with the CAMHS portfolio that will continue to be commissioned to serve multi-regional populations – for example medium secure services and deaf inpatient care. London Region specialised commissioning team is working with local commissioners in Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon and other clinical commissioning groups to ensure that we can provide sufficient capacity to meet population needs.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make support available to trainee nurses unable to complete their courses because of delays in the processing of their applications for Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) aims to process all applications within the shortest time possible. The vast majority of applicants do receive their certificates in a timely manner and in December the average processing time for DBS applications was 15.3 days.

It is important that checks undertaken are thorough and sometimes the DBS needs to refer an application to one or more local police forces as part of the enhanced certificate checking process. Unfortunately, a small number of forces have been experiencing difficulties in completing their checks within expected timescales.

Where delays occur in the processing of DBS certificates, prospective employers of trainee nurses and other healthcare employees who will be working with adults only are able to use a service known as Adult First. Adult First is an online facility provided for healthcare workers by the DBS that can be used in cases where, exceptionally, and in accordance with the terms of Department of Health guidance, a person is permitted to start work with adults before a DBS Certificate has been obtained.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the performance of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services with regard to the health, wellbeing and performance of young people in schools and colleges.

Mr Sam Gyimah

We want all children to fulfil their full potential. Academic attainment is supported if students have good health and mental wellbeing and when they have access to specialist mental health services where they need it.

The government is investing £1.4bn in children’s mental health this Parliament. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the country have worked with partners, including schools and colleges, to produce local transformation plans for children and young people’s mental health services. These should set out what will be done locally to make the best use of the resources available – changing how CAMHS is delivered in response to the challenges set out in the Future in Mind report and increasing the focus on preventative activity. NHS England has put the plans through an assurance process before releasing funds and is carrying out an analysis of plans to identify practice that can be shared to inform future planning.

In addition we are contributing to a £3m joint pilot with NHS England which is testing how single points of contact in CAMHS and schools can secure effective mental health support to pupils. The pilots are involving over 250 schools in 27 CCG areas through joint training, which supports schools and CAMHS leads to identify specific activity to improve support in their area.