The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many pathologists qualified to conduct post-mortems there were in (a) 2010 and (b) 2015.
Caroline Dinenage
The Department does not hold this information.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for its policies of the conclusions and recommendations in the Hutton review of forensic pathology in England and Wales, submitted to the Minister of State for Crime and Prevention in March 2015.
Brandon Lewis
Since the completion of Professor Hutton’s review the Home Office Forensic Pathology Unit has been consulting with stakeholders on a range of options for implementing the Review’s recommendations. This includes an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of various options to take forward the main recommendation of establishing a ‘National Death Investigation Service’.
Recommendations on the preferred option will be presented to Home Office Ministers in October 2016. In parallel, the Pathology Delivery Board, chaired by the Home Office, assessed all the recommendations and established a programme of work to address them individually. This programme has progressed to completion and is set to be formally signed-off at the next meeting of the Pathology Delivery Board, chaired by the Home Office, in November 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many new jobs have been created in each region and constituent part of the UK since 2010.
Mr Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government has taken to improve forensic pathology services in England and Wales other than those based on the Hutton review of forensic pathology since the General Election in 2015.
Brandon Lewis
The Home Office Forensic Pathology Unit has worked alongside the forensic pathology profession, National Police Chief’s Council, Chief Coroner, the Royal College of Pathologists and other senior stakeholders towards continuous improvement of the service. Improvements include the delivery of a robust system of annual appraisal and revalidation, an annual audit of pathology reports and ongoing oversight of standards through monitoring individual pathologist’s workload and quality.
Together this package of improvements ensures that forensic pathologists’ work is now quality assured in order to protect the Criminal Justice System. The Home Office continues to support and fund trainee forensic pathologists to maintain long-term capability.
Furthermore, the Home Office Pathology Unit identified a shortage of sub-speciality pathologists who support forensic pathologists in complex cases. To resolve the capability gap a recruitment and training programme has been established that has resulted in greater resilience in paediatric, bone, eye and neuro-pathology support to the service.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-04-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many new cases have opened after the establishment of the Complex Casework Directorate; and how many such cases were resolved by way of granting a leave.
James Brokenshire
Complex Casework Directorate was set up to be responsible for the remaining un-concluded asylum cases where the initial asylum application was lodged before March 2007. The work to review and communicate decisions to the cohort of older asylum cases was completed by the end of December 2014, other than for a small number of cases that were on hold, although work continues to progress the removal of applicants who received a negative decision from the Home Office and who otherwise have no lawful basis to remain in the United Kingdom.
As of 31 December 2015 there were 524 older asylum records requiring review, and a further 742 were on hold. These cases were on hold for legitimate process reasons. There are no dormant records.
The older asylum records relate to asylum applications made prior to 5 March 2007, and there are therefore no new cases, although cases that are reopened following contact with an individual whose record was previously closed are added to the cohort of older live asylum records. It is not possible to say how many reopened cases were subsequently granted leave without incurring disproportionate cost.
Information relating to older asylum records is published as part of the Asylum Transparency Data. This data includes the work in progress, on take of people who enter the cohort and the number of individuals granted leave.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government has taken as a result of the conclusions and recommendations in the Hutton review of forensic pathology in England and Wales, submitted to the Minister of State for Crime and Prevention in March 2015.
Brandon Lewis
The Pathology Delivery Board, chaired by the Director of Home Office Science, assessed all the recommendations in the Hutton review and established a programme of work to address them individually. This programme has progressed to completion and is set to be formally signed-off at the next meeting in November 2016.
In particular the Hutton review identified a lack of training for first attendees at the scenes of sudden and unexpected death therefore a new policy for police investigation of such cases has been developed. Also autopsy data is now included within the homicide index enabling consistency between police forces in England & Wales regarding the use of forensic pathology services. This helps to address Hutton’s concern over inconsistent approaches between forces. Furthermore, a national register of sub-speciality pathologists has been established to meet the shortfall in such capability identified by Hutton. It was also recommended by Hutton that there should be a review of the code of practice for forensic pathologists to address a number of concerns. This is being progressed by the Forensic Science Regulator.
Options for implementing the main recommendation in Professor Hutton’s review, namely for the establishment of a ‘National Death Investigation Service’; has been the subject of consultation with stakeholders since the review’s completion. Recommendations on the preferred option will be presented to Home Office Ministers in October 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-04-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases are (a) awaiting a decision and (b) dormant at the Complex Casework Directorate in Liverpool.
James Brokenshire
Complex Casework Directorate was set up to be responsible for the remaining un-concluded asylum cases where the initial asylum application was lodged before March 2007. The work to review and communicate decisions to the cohort of older asylum cases was completed by the end of December 2014, other than for a small number of cases that were on hold, although work continues to progress the removal of applicants who received a negative decision from the Home Office and who otherwise have no lawful basis to remain in the United Kingdom.
As of 31 December 2015 there were 524 older asylum records requiring review, and a further 742 were on hold. These cases were on hold for legitimate process reasons. There are no dormant records.
The older asylum records relate to asylum applications made prior to 5 March 2007, and there are therefore no new cases, although cases that are reopened following contact with an individual whose record was previously closed are added to the cohort of older live asylum records. It is not possible to say how many reopened cases were subsequently granted leave without incurring disproportionate cost.
Information relating to older asylum records is published as part of the Asylum Transparency Data. This data includes the work in progress, on take of people who enter the cohort and the number of individuals granted leave.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much time has been allocated for the public consultation on the sustainability and transformation plans for Birmingham and Solihull and the Black Country and West Birmingham; and if he will ensure that the feedback from this public consultation will be published.
David Mowat
NHS England, with other national health and care bodies, released guidance to the local areas developing Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) entitled ‘Engaging local people’ in September 2016 which can be found on their website. Local proposals for health and care transformation are not expected to have gone through formal local National Health Service or other organisations’ board approval and/or formal public engagement or consultation at this early stage. We expect that areas will publish a version of their STPs between late October and the end of the year. We would also expect that most areas will undertake public engagement during this period, building on the engagement they have already done to shape thinking. Every area will be working to a different timeframe, based on its own circumstances and how well-progressed its plan is.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-04-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for discretionary leave to remain have been (a) received, (b) rejected and (c) treated as invalid in the latest period for which figures are available; and how many such applications were rejected owing to (i) failure to pay the fee and (ii) refusal of fee waiver.
James Brokenshire
Our records indicate that 12,656 (a) applications for further discretionary leave to remain were received from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015.
164 (b) were rejected for failure to pay the fee or Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and
175 (c) rejected as invalid.
Of the 164 rejections 55 (i) were rejected owing to failure to pay the application fee and 89 (ii) owing to refusal of a fee waiver. 20 were also rejected solely due to failure to pay the IHS.
Notes:
• The data relates to applications for Further Discretionary Leave to Remain.
• The 12,656 (a) applications were made by 12,430 people (due to repeat applications).
• The data provided is provisional management information that is subject to change. It has not been assured to the standard of Official Statistics.
• All of the statistics referred to in the answer come with necessary caveats about the accuracy of the data. The data provided to answer (b), (c), (i) and (ii) above has been drawn from manual records on the Home Office Case Information Database, which, as with any large scale recording system, is subject to possible human errors with data entry and processing.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which contractors have been sanctioned for breaching contractual obligations in relation to accommodation for asylum seekers in (a) Birmingham, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in the last two years; when each such contractor was sanctioned; and what each sanction so applied was.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The COMPASS contracts include Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for monitoring and measuring performance against required standards.
If a breach of the contractual obligations in relation to accommodation is identified then the Provider has a set timescale in which to rectify the breach. Should this not be rectified within that timescale then a KPI failure is recorded and may result in the application of a Service Credit. A ‘Service Credit’ is a rebate / money deducted from the Providers monthly invoice.
There were no service credits recovered from providers of the COMPASS accommodation in a) Birmingham, b) the West Midlands and c) England in the last two years, in relation to accommodation standards.