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Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what estimate he has made of the cost of introducing regional government in each English region; and if he will make a statement. [65860]
Mr. Raynsford: I refer the hon. Member to my answer of 24 May 2002 to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), Official Report, column 624W.
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Ms Christine Russell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what steps he is taking to guarantee the conditions of local government workers where they have been transferred to the private sector. [64340]
Mr. Raynsford: The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions announced on 26 March measures to ensure fairness for all staff working on local authority contracts, including those transferred out of local government as a result of an outsourcing of a service.
In broad terms, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 (as amended) (TUPE) protects employees' terms and conditions (except in relation to future occupational pensions) when the business in which they work is transferred from one employer to another, and the business retains its identity.
The measures we have announced include a commitment to legislate to make statutory within local government the provisions in the Cabinet Office 'Statement of Practice on Staff Transfers in the Public Sector' and the annex to it, 'A Fair Deal for Staff Pensions'. This will ensure that local authority contracting exercises are conducted on the basis that TUPE will apply, unless there are genuinely exceptional circumstances, and that transferees' pension benefits will be protected. New statutory guidance to local authorities will also set out a package of measures which will ensure that new joiners taken on to work beside transferees on local government contracts will be treated fairly.
Mr. Webb: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list for each English local authority, the level of spending on (a) education and (b) social services expressed as a percentage of the SSA for that service in that authority in 200102. [65091]
Mr. Raynsford: The information has been placed in the Library of the House.
Mr. Nigel Jones: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much each local authority in England and Wales with social services responsibilities (a) spent on personal social services and (b) was allocated for personal social services by standard spending assessment in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [65202]
Mr. Raynsford: Figures for England have been placed in the Library of the House. Figures for Wales are the responsibility of the National Assembly for Wales.
Chris Grayling: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on plans to distribute capital receipts from local authority housing sales via a central pool. [65671]
Mr. McNulty: Last December's local government White Paper"Strong Local LeadershipQuality Public Services"set out our intention to introduce arrangements to pool a proportion of future housing capital receipts
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arising in debt-free authorities for use to finance new housing investment where the need is greatest. The change, which will be introduced alongside other changes to the local government capital finance system, will bring the treatment of debt-free authorities in line with the arrangements that apply to other authorities. We will be consulting on the detailed operation of the pooling shortly.
Ms Shipley: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the nominal Single Regeneration Budget's lifetime expenditure on physical regeneration will be. [66240]
Mr. McNulty: 1,027 schemes under the six rounds of the Single Regeneration Budget stand to receive over £5.7 billion of SRB grant over their lifetime of up to seven years, many of which include physical regeneration activities. However, due to the holistic, multiple-objective nature of the majority of these schemes, it is not possible to say how much of SRB funding is available by specific activity including physical regeneration.
Mr. Hopkins: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the rank is of each local authority that has undertaken a full or partial transfer since 1997 under (a) the 1998 Index of Local Deprivation and (b) the Indices of Deprivation 2000, in each year. [64393]
Mr. McNulty: The table sets out those authorities who have undertaken full or partial transfer since 1998 by their rank on the extent measure of the Index of Local Deprivation 1998 and the Indices of Deprivation 2000. The extent measure shows the proportion of the local authority's population living in one of the 10 per cent. most deprived wards in England. It should be noted that the extent measure is one of the four measures of deprivation in the ILD and one of the six district measures in the ID 2000.
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Mr. Burstow: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he will publish the choice and quality in housing for older people guidance strategy that has been conducted with the Department of Health; and if he will make a statement. [65058]
Mr. McNulty: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) on 27 June 2002, Official Report, column 1034W.
Margaret Moran: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what further measures he is taking to increase supply of temporary accommodation to replace the use of bed-and-breakfast for the homeless. [65184]
Mr. McNulty: In March 2002 we announced a £35 million programme to help local authorities ensure that by March 2004 no homeless family with children is in bed-and-breakfast hotels (B&B) for more than six weeks.
On 17 June 2002 almost £25 million was allocated to 44 high B&B using local authorities to assist them reduce numbers in B&B. The funding is being used on a range of initiatives to procure alternative temporary accommodation to B&B and on measures to prevent
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homelessness occurring. We are now working with the next 40 or so highest using B&B authorities to see how we can assist them in reducing numbers.
In addition, all local authorities will benefit from the changes the Department for Work and Pensions has recently made to housing benefit subsidy levels which make local authority leasing of self-contained temporary accommodation much more financially viable than B&B hotels.
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