---

16 Jun 2003 : Column 85W—continued

Road Obstructions

Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons received summonses for obstructing free passage along a road without lawful authority or reasonable excuse arising from (a) the protest against the visit of the President of the United States to Hillsborough in April 2003 and (b) the celebration by supporters of the Armagh GAA team flowing their All-Ireland victory. [118245]

Jane Kennedy: In relation to (a), no persons received summonses for protesting against the visit of President Bush to Hillsborough in April 2003. Regarding (b), there were no summonses for obstruction. The return 'procession' to Armagh City was legally notified to the Parades Commission and was not subject to any conditions.

Speed Cameras

Mr. Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what his policy is on the use of covert fixed cameras to detect speeding motorists; and whether the presence of such cameras must be notified to motorists. [115997]

Jane Kennedy: Northern Ireland has a significant road traffic collision problem of which speed is a significant contributory factor. Research indicates that speed cameras have made a positive contribution towards saving lives on the roads. Following the launch of the Northern Ireland Road Safety Strategy 2002–03, fixed speed cameras will be introduced into Northern Ireland on the basis of a pilot scheme on 1 July 2003.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland, who participated in fixed speed camera trials, will comply with Home Office guidelines which stipulate that the face of the fixed camera will be painted yellow and all such cameras must be accompanied by suitable signage.

16 Jun 2003 : Column 86W

It is intended to keep the community fully informed as to the location of all fixed camera sites.

Northern Ireland has a significant road traffic collision problem, horribly illustrated by the high number of deaths from 1 January 2003. Speed is a significant contributory factor and international research has shown that for every 1mph reduction in average speed, there was a 5 per cent. reduction in the number of collisions.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Councillors' Allowances

Bob Russell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much was paid in attendance allowances to local authority councillors in England in each of the last 10 financial years; and how much he estimates will be allocated in the current financial year. [118742]

Mr. Raynsford: Local authorities have not been able to pay attendance allowance since July 2001. When attendance allowance was payable, information on the amounts paid by local authorities to councillors was not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Councillors may receive basic and special responsibility allowances in respect of their duties. These are discretionary allowances, with their levels set by individual local authorities, having regard to the recommendations of their independent remuneration panels. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not gather information on the total amount of allowances paid to councillors.

Arson

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what target the Government have set to reduce the number of malicious fires relating to school premises; when the target was set; and if he will make a statement. [119200]

Mr. Raynsford: The Government have a target of a 30 per cent. reduction in the number of deliberate fires, including school premises, by March 2009. The target was set following the Spending Review 2000, and the results reported in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Annual Report 2003.

Following the Spending Review 2002, fire targets are being reviewed and a revised deliberate fires target will be announced in the Government's forthcoming Fire White Paper, due shortly.

Arson is one of the major fire threats facing us today. In 2001, we established the Arson Control Forum to provide the strategic direction to the national fight against arson. The Forum is taking forward a programme of measures that will address arson in its many forms, including deliberate school fires.

To date, the Forum has invested some £2.25 million in local initiatives. These include programmes aimed at educating children about the dangers of playing with fire. We have allocated a further £13.3 million over the next three years to build on this programme of work.

16 Jun 2003 : Column 87W

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many malicious fires relating to school premises there were in each year since 1997, in each fire brigade area across England and Wales. [119201]

Mr. Raynsford: The following table contains information on the number of malicious fires in schools attended by local authority fire brigades in England and Wales in each year between 1997 and 2001 (the latest calendar year for which data are available). Malicious fires are those where malicious or deliberate ignition was proved or suspected (this includes fires which were recorded by the brigade as "doubtful").

Malicious fires^(7),(8) in schools by brigade, England and Wales, 1997–2001⁽⁹⁾

Brigade area	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001(9)
England and Wales	927	726	874	799	892
England	865	694	821	752	855
England—non-Met counties	369	382	396	423	415
Avon	15	23	15	13	16
Bedfordshire	0	13	8	20	10
Berkshire	5	6	10	5	2
Buckinghamshire	12	3	17	12	9
Cambridgeshire	9	7	8	0	0
Cheshire	21	11	14	24	10
Cleveland	36	24	12	31	5
Cornwall	0	1	5	0	0
Cumbria	5	2	15	3	7
Derbyshire	9	25	12	4	14
Devon	20	0	13	13	21
Dorset	5	1	13	5	13
Durham	17	25	10	12	10
East Sussex	8	1	8	19	17
Essex	11	21	5	16	15
Gloucestershire	14	0	0	8	5
Hampshire	6	8	15	20	24
Hereford & Worcester	0	8	0	4	5
Hertfordshire	4	19	30	19	8
Humberside	8	37	26	9	32
Isle of Wight	0	0	0	0	0
Kent	20	6	14	6	17
Lancashire	34	34	28	45	41
Leicestershire	17	10	11	17	21
Lincolnshire	8	0	5	0	0
Norfolk	0	0	1	10	4
North Yorkshire	11	1	5	26	5
Northamptonshire	4	15	11	0	10
Northumberland	5	4	4	4	5
Nottinghamshire	18	43	9	29	15
Oxfordshire	1	2	9	5	11
Shropshire	10	10	5	4	0
Somerset	6	6	0	4	15
Staffordshire	3	13	26	11	19
Suffolk	6	0	0	0	8
Surrey	5	0	0	5	8
Warwickshire	10	0	0	4	5
West Sussex	2	0	26	8	0
Wiltshire	4	1	9	7	10
Isles of Scilly	0	0	0	0	0
England—Met Counties	496	312	424	329	440
Greater Manchester	146	103	110	55	101
Merseyside	123	48	58	56	49
South Yorkshire	21	20	13	20	43
Tyne and Wear	28	33	23	33	32
West Midlands	59	42	55	64	50
West Yorkshire	58	31	54	42	75
Greater London	60	36	112	59	90
Wales	62	32	54	47	37
North Wales	17	15	8	6	0
Mid and West Wales	12	14	14	25	0
South Wales	33	3	31	16	37

⁽⁷⁾ Including late call and heat and smoke damage incidents.

⁽⁸⁾ Figures are based on sampled data weighted to true brigade totals.

⁽⁹⁾ Provisional.

16 Jun 2003 : Column 88W

Fire Safety Legislation

Brian Cotter: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the work being carried out by his Department to rationalise fire safety legislation; and if he will make a statement. [119446]

Mr. Raynsford: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is working with stakeholder organisations, through the Fire Safety Advisory Board, to refine our proposals to reform fire safety legislation, on which we consulted last year. Although the consultation exercise formally ended on 22 November 2002, we took the decision to take account of any further comments received while consideration of responses was being conducted. That work is now largely complete and we expect to be in a position to bring legislation, in the form a Regulatory Reform Order, before Parliament in the autumn.

Local Government Finance

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what evidence he has collated of cost differences between Worcestershire and Warwickshire when credit approvals are given for capital allocations. [118946]

Mr. Raynsford: Although basic credit approvals are mainly issued by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, the total is determined as part of departmental spending plans. For 2003–04, each individual local authority's share of the total depended on

1. the total of service based allocations for those services for which it is responsible (in this instance, Warwickshire and Worcestershire will comprise Education, Personal Social Services, Transport, and Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services (EPCS)); plus


2. adjustments to reflect updated receipts information for previous year and to provide for the EPCS Annual Capital Guideline; and


3. the amount distributed according to ministerial discretion.

The basis for distributing basic credit approvals for each of the individual service elements identified at 1. above differs:

The Department for Education and Skills uses a needs based formula for credit approvals which is split 40 per cent. based on pupil numbers and 60 per cent. on the building condition need. This formula does have a regional weighting factor, which is based on a relative assessment of building costs in the area. Worcestershire's weighting factor is 0.96 and Warwickshire's is one.

The Department for Transport bases its allocations on the length of networks and numbers of bridges etc. It also factors in the relative size of backlogs compared to the national picture. Some adjustments may be made to allocations based on information supplied by the Government Office, local authority and Department for Transport, which can take account of cost differentials.

The Department of Health allocation of BCAs is based on two factors: tender price indexing for social housing (TPISH) and an authority's population figures. As both

16 Jun 2003 : Column 89W

Worcestershire and Warwickshire are in the West Midlands region, the same TPISH figure will apply. Population figures are split into three age groupings (based on Census 2001 data) which are weighted. Allocation differences will arise from the individual local authority population differences.

In addition to basic credit approvals, local authorities also receive supplementary credit approvals from Departments and these are mostly allocated following a bidding process. In these instances, local authorities supply the cost data supporting their bids, which are then assessed and processed by the relevant Government Departments.

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what size of shire county he estimates is sufficient to produce reliable statistics for the calculation of the labour cost adjustment made by his Department. [118947]

Mr. Raynsford: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minster considers that each pre-reorganisation county area outside London and its fringe area is of sufficient size to produce reliable labour cost factors for use in the funding formula, with the exception of the Isle of Wight.

During the consultation on the 2003–04 local government finance settlement, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister accepted that the Isle of Wight has a New Earnings Survey sample size, which is not large enough to ensure stable labour cost factors over time. Accordingly, the Isle of Wight has been grouped together with Hampshire for the calculation of the area cost adjustment.

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what representations he received from Berkshire county council about area cost adjustment. [118949]

Mr. Raynsford: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minster has received no correspondence regarding the area cost adjustment in recent years from Berkshire county council, which ceased to exist in 1998.

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what assessment he has made of (a) the impact of allocating additional resources to (i) Warwickshire, (ii) Gloucestershire, (iii) Birmingham and (iv) Dudley in the form of area cost adjustment, and (b) the impact on Worcestershire of not receiving such resources; [118950]

(2) what impact he estimates area cost adjustment has had on Dudley metropolitan borough council's ability to recruit and retain staff. [118948]

Mr. Raynsford: The area cost adjustment (ACA) is a top up in the grant formula, which provides extra grant to areas with higher labour and business rate costs. It is directed at those areas which, because of labour market pressures, have higher recruitment and retention costs. The following table shows the size of the ACA formula top up for four key services for the authorities named above. These figures correspond to those given in the 'simpler presentation of formula outcomes tables', produced for the 2003–04 local government finance settlement, detailed in the table.

16 Jun 2003 : Column 90W

£000

Area	Education	Social Services	EPCS	Highways
Warwickshire	6,646.29	2,791.56	1,046.52	552.81
Gloucestershire	5,663.51	2,383.59	929.15	545.40
Birmingham	16,674.65	8,053.96	7,147.23	1,038.61
Dudley	4,195.87	1,863.48	1,808.79	310.88

Although Worcestershire does not receive an ACA top up, it does benefit from the ACA's lower limit floor mechanism. This raises Worcestershire's ACA factor to the ACA's minimum value of one.

Further information on the effect of the ACA on grant allocations by formula and area can be found in the "Simpler Presentation Guide to the Local Government Finance Settlement 2003–04", which can be found on the Office of the Deputy Prime Ministers website at: http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/finance/0304/simppress/index. htm

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what plans he has to treat Worcestershire and Herefordshire as separate counties for the purpose of calculating area cost adjustment; [118951]

(2) what plans he has to smooth the impact of area list adjustment on neighbouring authorities not in receipt of this. [118945]

Mr. Raynsford: In the 2001 local government White Paper, "Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services", the Government announced that the local government funding formula would be frozen for 2004–05 and 2005–06, following the completion of the recent formula review. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has not plans to alter the basis on which the area cost adjustment is calculated, other than to update the data on which the adjustment is based, or to take account of any changes to local authority functions.

---