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27 Jan 2003 : Column 537W—continued
Empty Homes
Mr Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many empty homes his Department (a) had five years ago and (b) has now, by region; if he will establish an empty homes strategy within his Department; and if he will set a target for reduction in empty homes. [92923]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills has not had any homes, empty or otherwise, in the last five years nor does it intend to do so.
Entertainment
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his estimate is of the total spending of his Department on entertainment in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [92380]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: All expenditure on official entertainment is made in accordance with departmental guidance on financial procedures and propriety, based
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on the principles set out in Government Accounting. The following table sets out spending in £000s for DfES and its predecessors in the relevant years.
| Year | Department of Employment (including Employment Service) | Department for Education | Department for Education and Employment | DfES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994–95 | 32 | 86 | ||
| 1995–96 | 28 | 77 | ||
| 1996–97 | 24 | |||
| 1997–98 | 21 | |||
| 1998–99 | 31 | |||
| 1999–2000 | 21 | |||
| 2000–01 | 20 | |||
| 2001–02 | 11 | |||
| 2002–03(2) | 13 |
(2) Estimated outturn
Free School Meals
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether his Department has released free school meals figures for individual secondary schools to organisations for research purposes within the last 12 months. [92833]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department has released free school meals figures for individual secondary schools to a number of organisations for research purposes within the last 12 months. Before doing so, the organisations signed confidentiality declarations which committed them to maintaining the confidentiality of the data and limited their use of this information to the stated research purpose.
Heritage Assets
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what sales of heritage assets and antique assets have been made by his Department since May 1997; if he will list such assets; and if he will estimate the total sales proceeds. [92381]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills have not held any heritage or antique assets during the period and therefore no sales have been made.
Higher Education (Armed Forces)
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many people who recently left the armed forces took up higher education courses last year; [84763]
- (2) when he will reply to the question from the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, Ref 84763. [92578]
Margaret Hodge: The information is not held centrally.
Ministerial Travel
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his estimate is of the total expenditure by his Department on ministerial travel (a) in the UK and (b) abroad, in each year from 1995–96 to 2002–03 (estimated); and if he will make a statement. [92446]
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Mr. Stephen Twigg : I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, on 22 January 2003, Official Report, column 334W.
Public Service Agreements
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment his Department has made of the public service agreements targets it was set in the 1998 comprehensive spending review. [89295]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: There is ongoing assessment of progress against PSA targets, including those agreed as part of the 1998 CSR. We recently reviewed our targets in the context of the 2002 Spending Review. The Department publishes progress against all its PSA targets in its spring departmental report and also its autumn performance report, together with commentary where appropriate . The first autumn report was published in November 2002 and a copy is available from the House of Commons Library.
Publicity and Advertising
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much (a) his Department and (b) each agency and non-departmental public body sponsored by his Department spent on (i) publicity and (ii) advertising in each year from 1995–96 to 2002–03 (estimated); and if he will make a statement; [92239]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: Expenditure from the Department's central advertising and publicity budget is as follows:
| £000 | |
|---|---|
| 1995–96 | (3)n/a |
| 1996–97 | (3)n/a |
| 1997–98 | 10,879 |
| 1998–99 | 13,426 |
| 1999–2000 | 9,902 |
| 2000–01 | 14,595 |
| 2001–02 | 11,688 |
| 2002–03(4) | 14,172 |
(3) Not available
(4) Estimated
In addition to expenditure from this central budget, expenditure from budgets allocated to individual programmes will also include spend on publicity related activity. It is not possible, except at disproportionate cost, to separately identify all such publicity related expenditure. It is possible to identify separately expenditure on advertising, and this is as follows:
| £000 | |
|---|---|
| 1995–96(5) | 8,296 |
| 1996–97 | 7,538 |
| 1997–98 | 9,992 |
| 1998–99 | 15,673 |
| 1999–2000 | 11,900 |
| 2000–01 | 29,066 |
| 2001–02 | 20,489 |
| 2002–03(6) | 12,215 |
(5) Employment Department and Department for Education
(6) Estimated
Information on expenditure by agencies and non-departmental public bodies is not held centrally.
27 Jan 2003 : Column 540W
Pupil Ethnicity
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for what percentage of pupils their ethnicity has been (a) declared by parents or pupils and (b) determined by the pupil's school. [88888]
Mr. Stephen Twigg: The figures requested are not yet available.
New guidance was issued last year regarding the procedures schools should follow for the collection and recording of pupils' ethnic group. Schools should in the first instance seek information via parents, and any response (including a refusal to provide information) must be respected. However if there is no response at all to the school's inquiries it has the option of ascribing an ethnic group to the pupil based on its own best judgment. In this event various steps have to be taken in order to comply with data protection rules, and the fact that ascription has taken place must be shown alongside the ethnic group itself—both in the school's own records, and in any information passed on to the LEA or to the Department in the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC). This year's PLASC returns from schools will reflect the ethnic group information which they have collected under the new guidance, including details of whether that was provided by parents or pupils or ascribed by the school. However these returns will not be received and processed until about April.
Research Projects
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the research projects (with duration and name of contractor) commissioned by his Department in each of the last five years; if he will indicate (a) the duration of each project and (b) the name of the organisation contracted to undertake the research; and what the aggregate cost was of research projects in each year. [92641]
Mr. Miliband: Details of the Department's research programme contracts and their value since the financial year commencing April 1998 are published in the Department's annual reports on research and research conference reports, copies of which may be found in the House of Commons Libraries.
Sector Skills Councils
Barbara Follett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) if he will define the term employer-led when applied to sector skills councils; [93246]
- (2) what plans he has to make sector skills councils financially independent; [93247]
(3) if he will make a statement on the terms of ownership of the sector skills councils; and what the terms of ownership are of the retail skills council, Skill Smart. [93248]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: To meet the standard to become a Sector Skills Council, an organisation should be employer-led. This means it should be launched and led by employers but should also involve other important organisations in the sector, such as trade unions. We recognise that a component of many SSCs will be support from their trade association but the SSC, as an organisation licensed by Government and in receipt of
27 Jan 2003 : Column 541W
public funds, must be wholly independent of it or any holding company. In the case of Skillsmart, we have made it clear that to become a fully licensed SSC it will need to be independent of the British Retail Consortium.
On the question of funding, my Department will meet part of the costs of an SSC (up to £1 million core contribution) to give capacity to allow SSCs to take a more strategic approach underpinned by proper research and avoid being compromised by commercial interests. But we have always expected our £1 million would lever significant additional private investment into skills and productivity development in the sector.
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will give an update of progress on the foundation of Sector Skills Councils. [93293]
Mr. Ivan Lewis: Five trailblazer Sector Skills Councils were announced in December 2001 covering audio visual industries: land based industries; apparel, footwear and textiles; oil and gas extraction, chemicals manufacturing and petroleum industries and the retail sector. There are nine further sectors in the final phase of developing Sector Skills Council proposals for consideration by the Sector Skills Development Agency. The trailblazer SSCs together with those in development cover over 50 per cent. of the workforce. We expect the first SSCs to be licensed early in 2003.
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