Tag: Paul Blomfield

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of investing in video-conferencing facilities to facilitate split-site working by staff in his Department.

Joseph Johnson

Video conferencing is used across the Department as a tool for keeping in touch with colleagues split across numerous sites, with around 1,500 meetings held by video-conferencing every month.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 2 March 2016 to Question 28163, and with reference to the Answer of 10 June 2013 to Question 158962, whether his Department has stopped collecting data on National Minimum Wage complaints in the care sector broken down by domiciliary and residential care; and if he will make a statement.

Nick Boles

Information on the number of NMW enquiries made to the Pay and Work Rights Helpline (PWRH) and Acas Helpline for the ‘domiciliary care’ and ‘residential care’ sectors has not been collected at that level of disaggregation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much his Department spent on upgrading IT systems at 2 St Paul’s Place, Sheffield in 2014-15.

Joseph Johnson

The Department spent £38m on upgrading IT systems in 2014-15, including both software and equipment development. This includes around £31m for internally developed software, predominantly within delivery bodies of the department such as the Student Loans Company. It also includes the Core Department roll out of a new ICT system, Evolve, for use by all staff. This replaced the previous IT service. The total cost of the Evolve rollout was £3.5 million.

The IT systems at 2 St Paul’s Place Sheffield are part of the Core Department’s IT infrastructure, so the upgrades are included in the total cost of the Evolve rollout of £3.5m. Costs were not recorded separately by location for this general upgrade to our systems.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the annual cost per employee is of rent, rates and maintenance for his Department’s office at (a) St Paul’s Place, Sheffield and (b) 1 Victoria Street, London.

Joseph Johnson

The annual cost per employee at St Paul’s Place, Sheffield is £3,190 and at 1 Victoria Street, London is £9,750.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Written Statement of 18 April 2016, on immigration detention, HCWS679, whether there will be independent oversight of decisions to detain pregnant women.

James Brokenshire

At present, detention is authorised by an officer of at least the rank of Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) or Higher Executive Officer (HEO). As stated in the Government’s Written Ministerial Statement of 14 January, the Government is developing a new approach to the case management of those detained. This is intended to replace the existing detention review process with a clear removal plan for all those in detention.

It will ensure that all detainees, including pregnant women, spend the minimum possible time in detention. Under the new policy in order for detention to be extended beyond 72 hours ministerial authorisation will be required and the maximum detention period will be one week.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons and Independent Monitoring Boards already provide independent oversight of detention facilities and conditions of detention. Individuals, including pregnant women, are given prior notification of their liability to removal from the UK by the Home Office and they would be detained only for the purposes of identification or removal.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what additional resources have been or will be made available to the Student Loans Company to enable that Company to administer amendments to the fees and student support system in England covering the (a) replacement of maintenance grants by maintenance loans, (b) introduction of the postgraduate loan scheme, (c) extension of maintenance loans to part-time students, (d) extension of advanced learner loans to those aged 19 years and above and (e) Teaching Excellence Framework.

Joseph Johnson

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) fully funds the cost to the Student Loans Company (SLC) of administering Higher and Further Education student finance policy in England. Funding is allocated on a demand-led basis whereby BIS requests services, SLC estimates the cost of delivery and then BIS pays the costs in full.

As set out in SLC’s public Annual Performance and Resource Agreement (APRA) for financial year 2015-16, BIS made approximately £8.8m available to SLC to meet the costs of implementing all new policies related to student support for Higher and Further Education in England, including (but not exclusively) the implementation of policies a, b and d above. The amount of funding to be made available to SLC for the financial year 2016-17, including for delivery of policies a-e above, will be confirmed in this year’s APRA and published on SLC’s website shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress the Government has made on implementing its policy to move graduate recruitment outside London and establish a regional assessment centre.

Matthew Hancock

The Bridge Group Report into Socio-Economic Diversity in the Fast Stream recommended that the Fast Stream should introduce at least one regional assessment centre from Autumn 2016 and move to a greater number of regional assessment centres in future years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to announce the budget for the new Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority; and whether that budget will be expanded in comparison to that of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to reflect the wider remit and powers of the new body.

Karen Bradley

The 2016-17 budget for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been published on page 80 of the Main Supply Estimates 2016-17, which is available to the public. The GLA will receive increased funding to reflect its changing and broader functions and we remain committed to resourcing the GLA to ensure it can deliver on its purpose of protecting vulnerable and exploited workers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2016 to Question 39360, on his Department’s reorganisation, whether graduates taking part in the cross-government graduate scheme can take up policy roles in his Department based outside of London.

Joseph Johnson

The Executive Board announced on 26 May that from January 2018 all policy roles will be based in our single HQ and policy centre in London.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department’s press release of 11 August 2016, entitled Largest ever list of National Minimum Wage offenders published, how much additional money declared by each social care employer which was identified in that press release was owed to its workforce after the use of HM Revenue and Customs’ self-correction process.

Margot James

Employers who self-correct arrears owed to workers are not named for any additional arrears identified. Due to the small number of cases involved, publishing aggregate self-correction data could allow individual employers to be identified, and would amount to naming them for a second time.