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Audit Commission

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many mobile phones or pagers owned by the Audit Commission have been lost by its staff since 1997. [115501]

Mr. Leslie: Information on the numbers of Audit Commission-owned mobile phones and pagers which have been lost or stolen is not available prior to 2001–02; since then the Commission has maintained a register to record all lost items, and no mobile phones or pagers have yet been recorded as lost.

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many times Audit Commission staff have travelled abroad at public expense since 1997; what countries they visited; and what the total cost of each visit was. [115503]

Mr. Leslie: Information on the number of visits abroad by Audit Commission staff and the cost of each visit is not collected separately. Foreign travel is seldom undertaken by Commission staff. When it is, it is only for specific Audit Commission business purposes. Most

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overseas travel is undertaken at the request and at the expense of host organisations who are keen for the Commission to share its knowledge and experience, mainly through conferences and symposiums.

Award Schemes

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the award schemes in (a) 2001 and (b) 2002 promoted by the Department; what their scope was; when the relevant participating organisations are scheduled to be sent results; and whether other parties will be given notification of the results at the same time. [102050]

Mr. Leslie [pursuant to his answer, 17 March 2003, Official Report, c. 607W]: The Neighbourhood Warden Achievement Awards has been running since 2001. The awards cover 10 categories and are open to all Neighbourhood Wardens. The awards are launched in May/June and applicants have until the beginning of September to send in their nominations. The judging panel is comprised of representatives from the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit and the Government Offices. All applicants are notified in writing in October. The winners are presented with a trophy and £500 to spend on their neighbourhood warden schemes at the annual Neighbourhood Wardens Conference in November.

Bed and Breakfast Accommodation

Dr. Ashok Kumar To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what percentage of (a) households and (b) households with children are living in bed and breakfast and similar temporary accommodation in (i) England and (ii) each region. [114297]

Mrs. Roche: Latest information reported on the number of homeless households being accommodated by local authorities in bed and breakfast hotels, including annexes where main facilities are shared is shown in the following table. These are expressed as a rate per thousand of all households as identified in the 2001 Census.

Homeless households housed by local authorities in Bed and Breakfast accommodation (including shared facility annexes)as at 31 December 2002

	All households				Households with dependent children
	Total (in April 2001)	Homeless in bed and breakfast	Rate per thousand	Total (in April 2001)	Homeless in bed and breakfast(30)	Rate per thousand
North East	1,066,000	90	0.08	318,000	20	0.06
North West	2,813,000	70	0.02	856,000	20	0.02
Yorkshire and the Humber	2,065,000	410	0.20	618,000	100	0.16
East Midlands	1,732,000	190	0.11	514,000	100	0.19
West Midlands	2,154,000	80	0.04	662,000	40	0.06
East	2,232,000	750	0.34	654,000	320	0.49
London(31)	3,016,000	8,140	2.70	873,000	3,950	4.52
South East(31)	3,287,000	1,340	0.41	960,000	560	0.58
South West(31)	2,086,000	1,550	0.74	570,000	640	1.12
England	20,451,000	12,620	0.62	6,023,000	5,740	0.95

⁽³⁰⁾ The count of homeless households also includes those with an expectant mother, but no dependent children.

⁽³¹⁾ As figures for homeless households in B&B have been updated to reflect late returns and revisions, they differ very slightly from those published in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 's Statistical Release (Supplementary Tables) of 13 March 2003.

Source:

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister PIE housing activity return (quarterly); 2001 Census

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Departmental Invoices

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what percentage of undisputed invoices were paid in 30 days by (a) the Audit Commission and (b) the average local authority in England in the last year for which figures are available. [115492]

Mr. Leslie: 83 per cent of the undisputed bills received by the Audit Commission in 2001–02 were paid within 30 days. For 2001–02 the average percentage of invoices for commercial goods and services that were paid by English local authorities within mutually agreed

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terms or, if such terms did not exist, within 30 days of such invoices being received by the authority, was 88 per cent.

E-government

Brian Cotter: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list by project the consultancies (a) his Department and (b) its non-departmental public bodies have used on e-government projects since 1st January 2001. [115231]

Mr. Leslie: Since 1 January 2001 the following consultancies have been used to provide advice on e-government to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister:

Business Area	Project	Consultancy	Service
Neighbourhood Renewal	Renewal net	PA Consulting	Project development
Housing and Employment Mobility Service	HEMSHEMS	Capita Business ServicesBird and Bird	Feasibility study and business caseLegal advice
Local Authority Housing	GASP3	HEDRA	Project management
	GASP3	Methods Applications	Quality assessment
Local e-Government
	e-voting pilots	Actica	Quality assessment 2002 and 2003
		OGC	Procurement support
		Bird and Bird	Legal advice
		QinetiQ	Quality assessment 2003
		Echelon	Quality assessment 2003
		CESG	Security standards development
		Scope	Accessibility standards development
	Pathfinder projects	Vantagepoint	Project dissemination
	Implementing e-Government (IEG) statement process	Public sector strategies	Process development and assessment
Planning
	Planning Portal	HEDRA	Strategic direction
		Opta	Marketing and business development
		Cap Gemini Ernst and Young	XML schema development
		QI Consultants	Technical design advice
		Vega	Project management
		Airtight	Technical assurance
		Usability Company	Usability testing programme development
		Buffalo	Design and marketing advice
		Media Lounge	Data management advice
		Proactive Plus	Market research advice and services
		Design @ Large	Design and printing advice
		Brian Fowler Consulting	Team building and development
	Planning casework	HEDRA	Strategic direction
		Ringwood software	Records and document management
		Mott MacDonald	Business continuity planning
		Charlton Communications	Design and marketing advice
		National Computer Centre	IT systems security
		Paston Consultancy	Programme and project quality assurance
Supporting People
		SPINTLs	System development
		TDAPM	Support system development

For the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Executive Agencies, the details are as follows:

Business Area/Project	Consultancy	Service
Fire Service College	MDC	e-training and development pilot modules
The Rent Service
"Fair Rent" applications	Parity	Functional specification development
Market Rental evidence	Parity	Functional specification development

Staff Profiles

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what percentage of (a) the Audit Commission staff, (b) local authority staff in England and (c) the economically active population in England (i) are from ethnic minorities and (ii) people with disabilities. [115488]

Mr. Leslie: The information requested is in the following table.

	Percentage from ethnic minority backgrounds	Percentage with disabilities
Audit Commission staff (2001/02)	7.7	3.0
Local authority staff (average figures from best value performance indicators 2001/02)	3.2	2.4
Economically active population in England (figures from February 2003 Quarterly Labour Force Survey)	7.8	13.2

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