Tag: Tom Watson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2015 to Question 222435, what the name and date was of the agreement pursuant to which five personnel from Squadron 329 are on loan service to US Forces.

Mr Mark Francois

UK loan service (LS) personnel assisting the United States Air Force are covered by the terms of the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (1949), the US-UK Chapeau agreement (1993), the US-UK Provision of medical support agreement (2014), and US-UK discussions to determine working-level arrangements. LS personnel are subject to UK Service regulations; they are administered and receive pay and allowances from the UK.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Karen Bradley

The information requested is shown in the following table:

The volume and value of duplicate supplier payments identified since the 2010-11 Financial year up to June 2014 is 54 payments for a total value of £2,495,793.63. We have recovered 53 payments totalling £2,494,661.63; the remaining payment was partially recovered and the company went into liquidation with the balance outstanding.

In the last two financial years the proportion of duplicate payments recovered by value was:
2013-14: 100%
2012-13: 99.53% (amount outstanding is for a company that went into liquidation after partial payment).

The volume and value of duplicate payments since 2010 have decreased significantly compared to the financial years prior to 2010-11.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2015 to Question 222434, what consideration his Department has given to deployment of the UK Reapers in storage for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance in Iraq.

Mr Mark Francois

As with all platforms and capabilities not deployed on operations, the deployment of additional Reaper aircraft currently in storage in the UK is kept under constant review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Lynne Featherstone

Duplicate payments to suppliers are shown in the table below.

Value	Financial Year
£ 3,721,960.01	2010/11
£ 720,052.49	2011/12
£ 1,105,217.80	2012/13
£ 5,352,323.62	2013/14

The proportion of duplicate payments recovered over the last 4 years is 98.74%.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on how many occasions ministerial authorisation has been granted for expenditure which exceeded his Department’s internal efficiency control thresholds for (a) advertising, marketing and communications, (b) consultancy and (c) external recruitment; and what the (i) purpose and (ii) value of any such agreed expenditure has been in the last 12 months.

Elizabeth Truss

The Department for Education has its own internal efficiency controls thresholds and complies with the Cabinet Office controls.

1. Advertising, Marketing and Communications expenditure above the Departmental threshold of £100,000 is submitted to Efficiency and Reform Group at Cabinet Office for final clearance.

2. Consultancy expenditure above £20,000 (and is a new contract expected to exceed 9 months, an existing contract to be extended beyond 9 months or is expenditure for procurement related consultancy) is submitted to Cabinet Office for final clearance.

3. Cabinet Office is not directly involved in recruitment approvals.

The approved expenditure requests which have exceeded Departmental thresholds are published on a quarterly basis on the Department’s website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/approved-exemptions-to-the-efficiency-controls

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether a research analyst is advising his Department on the deployment of remotely piloted aircraft systems.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

No.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by his Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Mr Shailesh Vara

In the financial years 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 no duplicate supplier payments were made; all duplicate invoices were stopped before payment and therefore no recovery action was necessary. In 2010/11 duplicate payments totalling £8,964.35 were made. This represents a small proportion, 0.039%, of the total number of duplicate payments invoiced over the four year period. It is possible that this entire amount was recovered, however, disproportionate cost would be incurred in determining this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many transactions were made by each (a) Minister and (b) official in his Department on government procurement cards held by his Department in the last financial year; and what the cost, date and reasons for each such transaction was.

Elizabeth Truss

Government Procurement Card transactions over £500 are published on: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/gpc-spend-dfe

Information on transactions below that level is not held centrally and could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what guidance he has issued to local authorities about the use of (a) Twitter and (b) other social media to communicate with the public.

Kris Hopkins

Digital and social media are an effective and low-cost way of communicating with the public.

This Government has amended the law to strengthen the rights of the press and public to report and film council meetings using digital and social media. In August 2014, we published a plain English guide to help councils, the press and the public with these new rights.

We made clear that there is no prohibition on councillors from tweeting and blogging at meetings, and they should be able to do so provided it is not disruptive and does not detract from the proper conduct of the meeting.

Local authorities should have regard to the local government Publicity Code, which seeks to prevent the misuse of taxpayer-funded resources, including social media.

Notwithstanding, last June, Ministers challenged and criticised guidance to parish councils issued by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) that sought to prevent elected councillors from issuing media comments without prior written permission of the council. NALC has now produced a new Media Policy Example that takes into account the new national rules on filming and recording at parish and town council meetings.

In December, we invited bids for local pilots to bring statutory notices into the 21^st Century. This could include supporting the increased use of digital and social media by councils and commercial partners, as one of the ways that such notices could be improved and reformed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Dr Andrew Murrison

My Department does not hold records of duplicate supplier payments. The system currently operating in the Northern Ireland Office registers invoice numbers and will not allow two invoices with the same reference number to be paid. To manually search through the invoices received and paid from 2010 to date would incur disproportionate cost.