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 4 February 2015 to Question 222429, whether any of the RAF personnel in Afghanistan support RPAS operations.
Mr Mark Francois
No RAF personnel in Afghanistan are supporting Remotely Piloted Air Systems operations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 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.
Dan Rogerson
Core Defra has controls in place to prevent duplicate payments being made to suppliers. These include careful checking of each invoice against evidence of delivery and against any previous payments in respect of the relevant purchase order. External and internal audit reviews of key financial controls have found no evidence of weakness that would lead to duplicate payments. There are also regular reviews of expenditure against budgets which would quickly bring to light unexpected payments and would lead to immediate action for recovery.
Core Defra is carrying out a Spend Recovery Audit, as part of a Cabinet Office initiative on fraud and error which we expect to conclude by Autumn 2014.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2015-02-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, which post or team in his Department is responsible for the application of remotely piloted aircraft systems.
Mr Mark Francois
There is no one person or team responsible for the application or deployment of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS). The decision to deploy RPAS is taken by Ministers following advice provided by senior personnel, both military and civilian, across the Department.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 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 David Lidington
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not hold all of the required data centrally and could not answer this question in full without incurring disproportionate costs. However, we recently investigated duplicate supplier payments for the eight month period from April to November 2013 and identified just one duplicate invoice, with a value of £2,501. Our financial control system prevented any payment being made. The FCO has several controls in place to prevent duplicate payments.
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 (a) rank, (b) function and (c) location is of the five personnel from the UK Reaper Force on loan service to US Forces.
Mr Mark Francois
There are four Flight Lieutenant Instructors at 49th Operations Group, Holloman Air Force Base. There is also one Flight Lieutenant at 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, Creech Air Force Base in a test and evaluation role. None of the five personnel on loan are conducting operational mission flying.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, 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.
Dr Daniel Poulter
The Department checks for duplicate supplier payments as part of the business as usual processes within the finance team. As part of the internal process checks the Department has identified the value of duplicate supplier payments since 2010 as £1,287,260.31.
The proportion of such payments the Department has recovered following these internal checks in each of the last two financial years is as follows:
(i) Payments for 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013 – £325,456.94 – of which 100% has been recovered based on the internal processes.
(ii) Payments for 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 – £282,198.56 – of which 100% has been recovered based on the internal processes.
For completeness, in the financial year 2010-11 the value of such payments was £510,599.10 of which 99.7% was recovered, and in financial year 2011-12 the value of such payments was £169,005.71 of which 98.6% was recovered.
Further investigations are taking place into duplicate payments made as part of a Spend Recovery Audit that the Department has commissioned externally and we will seek to recover any further duplicates identified as part of this exercise.
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%.