Tag: Tristram Hunt

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and which local authorities have notified her Department about plans to dispose of grant-funded assets through the (a) sale, (b) transfer and (c) change of use of children’s centres under the requirements of the Sure Start Early Years and Childcare Grant.

Mr Sam Gyimah

Where local authorities dispose of or change the use of buildings or other assets funded wholly or partly through Sure Start capital grants, they must repay the money through the claw-back process.

The Department for Education has a thorough set of monitoring arrangements in place regarding claw-back rules. Local authorities are required to notify the department of each and every proposed change of services and provide details about the level of early years services that are to continue. The department then considers if the local authority has continued to offer a sufficient level of early years services for children and their families from the building in question to meet the original aims of the grant.

If the department is satisfied that the funding for the asset will continue to be used for purposes consistent with the grant, the department may defer claw-back. Deferring claw-back means that we accept the change of usage at that time, however, the department retains its interest in the asset and if in the future the asset has its usage changed, is transferred or otherwise disposed of, and does not continue to meet the purposes of the grant the local authority must inform the department and we will claw-back the funding. The department’s interest in an asset funded by Sure Start capital grants is 25 years from designation of the building. If the grant was used to purchase capital items or re-furbish an existing asset, the length of time and value of any claw-back depends on the depreciation value of the items, according to local authority depreciation rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of community land trusts to increasing the supply of affordable housing in the UK.

Brandon Lewis

The Department does not assess the potential contribution that individual classes of organisation, including Community Land Trusts, can make to the delivery of affordable housing. However, we recognise the role they can play in delivering locally led and innovative housing development and we are confident they will make a valuable contribution to the 400,000 affordable housing starts we have committed to deliver by 2021.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many jobs in (a) her Department and (b) each of her Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

Andrea Leadsom

It is confirmed that no jobs in (a) the Department for Energy and Climate Change or (b) any of the Department’s accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 or (ii) will be abolished or relocated from the Authority by 2020.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of its non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The Department has had no offices in the area in the timeframe.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria her Department uses to assess whether a local authority should be subject to a Sure Start claw-back.

Mr Sam Gyimah

Where local authorities dispose of or change the use of buildings or other assets funded wholly or partly through Sure Start capital grants, they must repay the money through the claw-back process.

The Department for Education has a thorough set of monitoring arrangements in place regarding claw-back rules. Local authorities are required to notify the department of each and every proposed change of services and provide details about the level of early years services that are to continue. The department then considers if the local authority has continued to offer a sufficient level of early years services for children and their families from the building in question to meet the original aims of the grant.

If the department is satisfied that the funding for the asset will continue to be used for purposes consistent with the grant, the department may defer claw-back. Deferring claw-back means that we accept the change of usage at that time, however, the department retains its interest in the asset and if in the future the asset has its usage changed, is transferred or otherwise disposed of, and does not continue to meet the purposes of the grant the local authority must inform the department and we will claw-back the funding. The department’s interest in an asset funded by Sure Start capital grants is 25 years from designation of the building. If the grant was used to purchase capital items or re-furbish an existing asset, the length of time and value of any claw-back depends on the depreciation value of the items, according to local authority depreciation rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to restart work related to his Department’s pre-consultation on moving the May Bank Holiday, published in 2011.

David Evennett

The Government looked at the current pattern of all bank and public holidays as part of the Tourism strategy published in 2011, which concluded there is no overall consensus for change. There are no plans to make another consultation on this subject.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of his Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

No posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or any of the Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies have been abolished in, or relocated from, East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and none will be abolished in, or relocated from, East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of its non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

Mark Lancaster

This information is not held in the format requested.

In April 2010 there were 20 Ministry of Defence (MOD) civilian personnel employed at locations within the Unitary Authority of Stoke-on-Trent; in October 2015 there were 10. All numbers are rounded.

Full details of how the planned reductions in MOD civilian staff numbers announced in the Strategic Defence and Security Review will be profiled over the next five years are not yet available and will be developed as programmes mature.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department has made on developing a national measure of child development at age two to two-and-a-half as part of the public health framework; and when he expects that measure to be introduced.

Jane Ellison

The Department is leading work to develop an indicator of child development at age 2-2½ to be included in the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) from 2017. The population measure will give a national picture of child development at age 2 and will also help local areas to assess the impact of services for 0-2 year olds and inform local commissioning.

Since April 2015, the Department has asked all health visiting teams in England to use the evidence based Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-3) as part of children’s health and development reviews at age 2-2½ to generate data for the indicator. The Department has worked with Health Education England to develop e-learning materials to support health professionals using ASQ-3 as part of the two year review.

From October 2015, health visiting providers were asked to report ASQ-3 scores to the Children and Young People’s Health Services dataset, which is being developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The dataset is expected to publish its first report in April 2016.

Public Health England will draw on ASQ-3 data from the children’s dataset to report the PHOF outcome measure of child development at age 2-2½, reporting on a yearly basis the percentage of children with a positive outcome across all five domains of development in ASQ-3 at age 2-2½. The first reporting of the outcome measure is planned for inclusion in the PHOF in spring 2017.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on (a) new IT equipment, (b) new furniture, (c) new artwork, (d) catering and events, (e) renovating its buildings and facilities, (f) new plants and shrubs and (g) special advisers’ travel expenses since May 2015.

Nick Gibb

The Department for Education has spent the amounts shown in the table below on the following list of categories from 1 May 2015 to 31 January 2016.

a) New IT equipment	£868,312
b) New furniture	£11,861
c) New artwork	No Expenditure
d) Catering and events	£326,575
e) Renovating buildings and facilities [1]	£9,862,679
f) New plants and shrubs	No Expenditure
g) Special Advisers’ travel expenses (including rail journeys)	£1,555

[1] The figure for renovating buildings and facilities is for DfE and its Agencies and does not include expenditure on school buildings.

The figures are for the Department, its Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Government Equalities Office, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Office of the Children’s Commissioner.