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7 May 2003 : Column 689W—continued

School Buildings

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent representations he has had with regard to the imposition of VAT on new school buildings used partly by the general public; and if he will make a statement. [111369]

Mr. Miliband: My Department has received no representations recently with regard to the imposition of VAT on new school buildings used partly by the general public. Any specific correspondence on this issue would normally have been forwarded to Customs and Excise for their response, as they have policy responsibility for VAT.

School Inspections

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what proportion of lessons inspected by Ofsted use pupil setting for (a) year 10 and (b) year 11; [111673]

(2) how many independent schools were inspected by Ofsted in 2002; [111674]

(3) what percentage of secondary state school lessons inspected by Ofsted in 2001–02 were judged satisfactory or better; and what percentage were judged poor; [111675]

(4) what percentage of state secondary schools inspected by Ofsted in 2001–02 have an obligatory school uniform policy; and what percentage have a school prefect system. [111676]

Mr. Miliband: These are matters for Ofsted and I have asked HM Chief Inspector, David Bell, to write to the hon. member and to place a copy of his letter in the Library.

Skills Shortages

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on skills shortages in the Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire Local Learning and Skills area. [108486]

Margaret Hodge: Revised figures from the Employers Skill Survey 2001, funded by the Department, showed that 6 per cent. of employers reported skill shortage vacancies in the Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and

7 May 2003 : Column 690W

Buckinghamshire Local Learning and Skills area. This compared with an average of 4 per cent. and a high of 12 per cent. for England., There were eight skill shortage vacancies per thousand employees in this area, which was the average for England.

Teachernet Website

Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what has been the cost of developing the new Teachernet emergency planning website; [109416]

(2) when his Department will set a date for the launch of the Teachernet emergency planning website; [109417]

(3) how many (a) teachers and (b) local education authorities have been consulted regarding the content of the Teachernet emergency planning website. [109418]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: Development of the Teachenet emergency planning website has cost approximately £60,000. My Department invited all local education authorities (LEAs) in England to identify staff and teachers who would like to test the site. 17 LEAs responded that they would like to take part. We have not yet received responses from all of them so we do not yet know how many individuals have been involved.

I will set a date for launch of the website when I am satisfied that all responses have been received and properly considered, and consequent improvements to the site have been made.

CABINET OFFICE

Civil Service (People with Disabilities)

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress has been made in meeting targets for the proportion of people with disabilities in senior posts in the Department. [110524]

Mr. Alexander: As at 29 April 2003 0.5 per cent. of staff at senior civil service level in the Cabinet Office are disabled. The Cabinet Office has a target to increase this proportion to 3 per cent. by 2005 and has put in place a number of initiatives to help achieve this. The Department is a member of the cross-departmental

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Disability Working Group, which is currently working to identify best practice in surveying staff on disability—a re-survey of Cabinet Office staff is planned once this work is complete.

The Cabinet Office also supports its own departmental network for disabled staff (DISCO) and will be working with them to support a number of events throughout the coming year to promote the European Year of Disabled People. This includes hosting information meetings on various disabilities such as diabetes, epilepsy and ME.

Contingency Planning

Simon Hughes: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what preparations he has made for the distribution of information to the general public in the event of a civil emergency. [111122]

Mr. Alexander: Long-standing protocols exist for distributing information to the public in the event of a civil emergency. These arrangements are maintained by the Government Information and Communication Service within the Cabinet Office.

The Emergency Services warn and advise those in the immediate vicinity of an incident, working closely with other bodies as appropriate.

Away from the emergency the public will be advised, as appropriate, in line with the Government's 'Go In Stay In Tune In' doctrine. We have made arrangements

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with the media for them to transmit detailed warning advice and guidance to the public by TV, Radio, Teletext, Ceefax and through websites as appropriate.

These arrangements are appropriate to existing and anticipated threat levels.

Document Classification

Harry Cohen: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many documents are held by his Office that are subject to security classification, broken down by category of classification. [107354]

Mr. Alexander: The information could be provided only at disproportionate cost. My Department follows the Cabinet Office guidance on document marking and control.

E-Envoy

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office (1) if he will make a statement on the Government's plans to change (a) the level of staffing and (b) the role of the Office of the e-Envoy; [105629]

(2) how many staff have worked in the Office of the e-Envoy in each month since its establishment; [105628]

(3) if he will make a statement on the work of the Office of the e-Envoy since its establishment. [105630]

Mr. Alexander: The following table should have been used, pursuant to his answer of 3 April 2003, Official Report, columns 799W–80W:

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
1999									36	39	48	50
2000	51	51	53	54	56	56	54	52	56	57	60	60
2001	62	71	92	111	123	125	129	128	138	146	147	145
2002	148	145	143	142	138	141	140	134	139	140	144	145
2003	141	141	138

Entertainment

Mr. Gray: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office when he has entertained Labour honourable Members at public expense in the last 12 months; and at what cost. [106257]

Mr. Alexander: No such events have taken place.

Property Portfolio

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the estimated value is of the property portfolio held by the Cabinet Office. [108367]

Mr. Alexander: The estimated value of the total property portfolio held by the Cabinet Office on 31 March 2002 was £157.1 million.

The above figure includes Downing Street and buildings that are owned by the Cabinet Office but are jointly occupied with other departments.

Sickness Absence

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many staff in the Office were on long term sick leave in each of the last five years. [109255]

Mr. Alexander: There is no central definition of long term absence. Cabinet Office uses absence of at least 20 calendar days as a general guide. Numbers of staff with recorded absence above this level have been as follows:

Year	Numbers of staff with more than 20 calendar days absence	Number of staff in post
1999	73	1,560
2000	80	1,750
2001	126	1,840
2002	139	1,950

Records are not available for 1998.

The Cabinet Office is committed to managing attendance effectively. We already have in place procedures recommended by the 1998 report "Working Well Together—Managing Attendance in the Public Sector"; and new procedures for proactive monitoring of attendance, where absence levels reach 10 calendar days in 12 months, will be introduced by the summer.

Our target for overall levels of absence is no more than 6.1 days per staff year by the end of 2003.

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Records of absence published in the latest annual report "Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service" show that for the Cabinet Office in 2001:

the average absence per staff member was 5.7 days


54.3 per cent. of staff had no recorded absence

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