Tag: Lord Warner

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to increase the percentage of GDP being spent on NHS and social care services.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Spending Review settlement, delivered by the Chancellor on 25 November 2015, set the Department’s overall budget for the remaining years of the Parliament and the level of funding that will be available to the National Health Service. It set absolute spending totals, not spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, providing certainty for financial planning over the period.

As a result of the Spending Review, NHS funding will be £10 billion higher in real terms by 2020-21 than 2014-15. And the NHS will not have to wait until the end of the Parliament for much of this investment. We will be giving the NHS £3.8 billion more next year, over and above inflation, and almost £6 billion of the £10 billion in the first two years of the six year period. This shows that the Government has listened and responded to what the NHS has said about the profile of investment it needs to deliver the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View.

In regards to social care, the Spending Review has shown our continued commitment to joining up health and care by confirming ongoing commitment to the Better Care Fund – making available further social care funds for local government from 2017, rising to £1.5 billion by 2019-20, which will be included in the Better Care Fund. As well as this, we are giving local government further access to the funding it needs by introducing a social care precept which could raise up to £2 billion by the end of the Parliament.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-06-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 9 June (HL351), what consideration they are giving to (1) the issuing of guidance on the establishment of children’s social care trusts so that lessons can be learned from earlier experiences of doing so; and (2) the regulatory implications for such bodies if more local authorities establish them given the regulatory arrangements in place for the outsourcing of adult social care.

Lord Nash

The evaluations of Doncaster and Slough Children’s Services Trusts are underway and will provide learning from the experiences of establishing those organisations. There are no new regulatory implications for trusts. Where a trust is created to carry out children’s social care services on behalf of an authority, the statutory responsibility for those services remains with that authority. Ofsted will continue to inspect children’s social care services whether they are delivered by a local authority or by a trust.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2015-12-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the allocations for the Department for Communities and Local Government DEL in Table 2.17 on page 100 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 relates to adult social care in each year 2016–17 to 2019–20 inclusive; how those proportions compare with that for the baseline year of 2015–16; and what increases for adult social care are included in the locally financed expenditure for each year in that Table on the assumption of two per cent precept increase for adult social care in cash terms, at the 2015–16 baseline prices, and as a proportion of total local authority expenditure.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The Government is clear that decisions on how money should be spent in the local area are best made by local authorities. Local Government spending power is therefore not ringfenced. This allows local authorities the freedom to prioritise and make their own decisions on spending. Table 2.17 on page 100 of the Spending Review shows a cash terms increase in local authority spending. This includes a £1.5 billion grant especially for social care within Local Government DEL and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the increase likely to be raised through the social care precept within Locally Financed Expenditure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they support objections to a school’s admissions arrangements if those objections have been upheld.

Lord Nash

The School Admissions Code exists to ensure that places in all state funded schools are allocated in a fair and transparent manner. It is particularly important that parents feel confident that their concerns are listened to and acted upon.

The Government has recently announced its intention to change its policy, to ensure that the adjudication process is focused on dealing with the concerns of those who have a direct interest in the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school. The adjudication process should not be delayed by the need to also consider large numbers of objections referred by interest groups from outside the area.

These changes will be subject to a full public consultation and parliamentary approval.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-29.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much money has been passed to the Scottish Government under the Barnett formula for NHS Services in each year since that Government was established; and what proportion of that money was actually spent on NHS services by the Scottish Parliament in each of those years.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The mechanical application of the Barnett Formula ensures that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly receive a population share of changes in UK government funding on the services for which they have devolved responsibility. In accordance with the principles of devolution and the devolution Acts themselves, it is for the devolved administrations to decide how to allocate their funding (from the block grant or taxes/borrowing) to public services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and it is for the devolved legislatures to hold them to account. The Scottish Government’s new fiscal framework does not alter this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-06-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 9 June (HL353), whether Birmingham City Council could continue with an updated Improvement Plan after 2017 if a new Ofsted inspection reveals satisfactory improvements since the last inspection in March 2014.

Lord Nash

If Ofsted find that Birmingham City Council have improved to the point where their children’s social care services are no longer inadequate, they will be removed from Department for Education intervention. At this point, the Department will continue to provide supervision and support to ensure that improvements remain on track.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2015-12-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what additional income for spending on adult care will be available to each authority with adult social care functions if each of those authorities increases their precept by two per cent in each year from 2016–17 to 2019–20 inclusive, with no change to their baseline forecast spend for 2015–16.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The Government announced on 17 December 2015, Official Report, Column 2238-2241, that Local Authorities with social care responsibilities will be able to increase their council tax by up to 2% above the core referendum principles of 2% (4% in total) which is expected to raise an extra £2billion by 2019/20. A breakdown of the £2billion, by how much individual local authorities could raise, has been made and can be viewed at the following link or in the attached document.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486708/Core_spending_power_supporting_information.xlsx

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to comments by Professor Ted Cantle of the iCoCo Foundation regarding their proposals to prevent organisations from objecting to the admissions arrangements of schools.

Lord Nash

The Department’s proposed changes are designed to make sure that the Schools Adjudicator can concentrate on parental complaints. The Department wants to ensure that the Adjudicator is able to prioritise the concerns parents may have about the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school.

The changes are still subject to a full public consultation and the Department will give careful consideration to all the views expressed in that consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-29.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of paragraph 16 of the agreement between the Scottish and UK governments on the Scottish fiscal framework, whether there is any obligation on the Scottish Government (1) to spend all or a certain proportion of the money passed to them for NHS services under the Barnett formula on those services; or (2) to account to the Scottish Parliament for not doing so.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The mechanical application of the Barnett Formula ensures that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly receive a population share of changes in UK government funding on the services for which they have devolved responsibility. In accordance with the principles of devolution and the devolution Acts themselves, it is for the devolved administrations to decide how to allocate their funding (from the block grant or taxes/borrowing) to public services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and it is for the devolved legislatures to hold them to account. The Scottish Government’s new fiscal framework does not alter this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-06-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 9 June (HL354), how long it took to set up the Trusts in Kingston-upon-Thames and Slough; what were the costs of setting up those Trusts; and who bore those costs.

Lord Nash

Slough Borough Council was issued with a Statutory Direction in October 2014, which required the Council to cooperate in setting up a Trust. The Trust became operational in October 2015. The Department for Education met the costs of setting up the trust, which came to £3.3m.

Achieving for Children is a community interest company owned and established by the councils of Kingston-Upon-Thames and Richmond. The Department does not hold information about the total costs of setting up this company but Achieving for Children received grant funding of £500,000 from the Department of Communities and Local Government and £105,605 of professional advice and support from the Cabinet Office Mutuals Support Programme.