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New Cities
Bob Spink: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what criteria she uses to determine city status for local authorities; [70815]
- (2) how many new cities she expects to create in the next three years. [70816]
Ms Rosie Winterton: City status is not a right that can be claimed by the meeting of specific criteria, but an honour granted by Her Majesty the Queen under the Royal Prerogative, on the advice of Ministers. Important Royal anniversaries (such as The Queen's Golden Jubilee) are the usual occasions for awards of city status to be made. Awards were made, exceptionally, to mark the Millennium. Her Majesty has not yet expressed a wish to create any more new cities and no awards are foreseen in the near future.
Departmental Press Office
Dr. Cable: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many (a) full-time equivalents were employed by The Lord Chancellor's
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press office and (b) secondees were placed in his press office in the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [70539]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The number of people who were employed in press or publicity work (excluding internal communications, website developers and administrative support) was as follows:
| Number | |
|---|---|
| 1997 | 5 |
| 1998 | 5 |
| 1999 | 5 |
| 2000 | 9 |
| 2001 | 9 |
| 2002(17) | 12 |
(17) July
The increase in press and publicity staff in 2000 reflects new work connected with the Community Legal Service and the Court Service. The increase in 2002 reflects new responsibilities transferred to LCDHQ from the Home Office, Cabinet Office and DTLR.
There have been two secondees working in The Lord Chancellor's Press Office during this period. The first was seconded to work on the launch of the Community Legal Service in April 2000 and is not included in the figure for that year. The second secondee is included in the figure for 2002.
Information Campaigns
Dr. Cable: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how much his Department spent on information literature, advertising and campaign material in financial year 2001–02; if he will list the campaigns that spent over £250,000; and if he will make a statement. [70211]
Ms Rosie Winterton: I have listed the required information for the financial year 2001–02. My Departments did not conduct any campaigns costing over £250,000 during that period.
LCDHQ:
£34,002—Information Literature
Court Service:
£212,720—Information Literature
HM Land Registry:
£140,000—Information Literature
Public Record Office:
£33,400—Information Literature; £5,250 Advertising; £28,500 Campaign Material.
Public Guardianship Office:
£68,761—Information Literature
Northern Ireland Court Service:
£27,885—Information Literature.
Public Record Office
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on the nature and status of the Public Record Office projects which were to have been funded by revenue from the 1901 census on-line. [70852]
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Ms Rosie Winterton: The PRO did not take account of net income from the 1901 Census online service when assessing funding requirements for its other online projects. However, if there were to be any net income from the service, this would be used to fund the future digitisation of earlier census records.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what proportion of the testing programme for the 1901 census website has been completed; [70854]
- (2) whether a million users per hour test has been run on the 1901 census website; and if she will make a statement; [70857]
(3) when she expects the testing programme on the 1901 census website to be completed. [70858]
Ms Rosie Winterton: QinetiQ Ltd, which is the contractor responsible for setting up the 1901 census online website and providing the online service, has been making technical improvements to it.
QinetiQ is currently testing the site and the Public Record Office is also carrying out its own independent test programme. By the very nature of testing, solutions to particular issues often require a more general retesting, to verify that there are no adverse effects on the system as a whole. It is therefore not feasible to quantify what proportion of the testing programme has been completed at any particular time. The Public Record Office's own independent test company has undertaken a test to simulate the experience of one million user per hour accessing the system. These results will be analysed along with the other test results as soon as they are available. The final testing is now under way and it is anticipated that this will be completed by the end of July.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what changes QinetiQ has made to the 1901 census website; [70856]
- (2) when QinetiQ started to make changes to the capacity of the 1901 census website; [70859]
(3) if she will make a statement on the ability of QinetiQ to put right the problems preventing public access to the 1901 census website. [71267]
Ms Rosie Winterton: QinetiQ Ltd, who are responsible for the technical aspects of the service, have made the following technical improvements to the site:
- increased ISP bandwidth;
dedicated firewalls within the ISP, both to protect the 1901 census online site and also to avoid impact to other sites;
improved load balancer configuration to divert overload;
additional database server engine and the necessary configuration to enable operation with multiple database servers.
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Mr. Lidington: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) if she will make the agendas and the minutes of the Public Record Office Online Services Advisory Panel available (a) in the Library and (b) on her Department's website; [70853]
- (2) what date has been set for the next meeting of the Public Record Office Online Services Advisory Panel; what the present membership of the panel is; and if she will make a statement. [70855]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The minutes of the Public Record Office (PRO) Online Services Advisory Panel are available from the PRO website: http://www.pro.gov.uk/ census/advisory.htm
These are usually published within one month of the last meeting.
The terms of reference of the advisory panel, listing the organisations from which the panel membership is drawn, can be found at this site. The agendas and current membership of the advisory panel are apparent from the published minutes. The next meeting of the panel will take place on 5 September 2002.
Arrangements are being made to place copies of the advisory panel's minutes and other papers in the Library.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) if she will make a statement on progress with the Public Record Office's plans to digitise the 1881 and 1891 censuses; [70947]
- (2) if she will make it her policy to exclude QinetiQ from handling the project to digitise the 1881 and 1891 censuses. [70860]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Making the 1881 and 1891 censuses available in electronic form is a high priority for the Public Record Office because census records are very heavily used by family historians, who constitute its largest single user group. Any organisation can seek a non-exclusive licence to use digital images of material contained in public records on a commercial basis. Such licensing contracts do not constitute any form of partnership between that organisation and the Public Record Office. MyFamily.com has already applied for, and received, a licence to digitise the census returns from 1841 to 1891 and make this material available on the internet. Other organisations have sought non-exclusive licences to make CDs of the images of these censuses and some for the 1891 census are already on the market. It is open to QinetiQ Ltd to apply for, and to be granted, a licence in a similar manner.
PRIME MINISTER
Recycling
Sue Doughty: To ask the Prime Minister what proportion of (a) paper and (b) other goods purchased by his Office was recycled paper in each year since 1997; what the annual total cost of these purchases was; what plans there are to increase these proportions; and if he will make a statement. [65762]
The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 19 July 2002.
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