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26 Jun 2003 : Column 907W—continued

CABINET OFFICE

Creche Facilities

Mr. Paul Marsden: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on the creche facilities made available by the Office to the children of its staff. [121109]

Mr. Alexander: The Cabinet Office has a nursery at Sunningdale that is run in partnership with the Edith Rose Day Nursery. This can be used by staff in the Centre for Management and Policy Studies. They have priority over private customers on the waiting list. The charge per week is £140. This is subsidised for parents who earn less than £24,001 per annum. The nursery can also be used by parents on residential courses at Sunningdale.

26 Jun 2003 : Column 908W

Staff in London have access during the school holidays to the Westminster Holiday Playscheme. Each place at the playscheme costs £30 a day. The Department subsidises each place by £13 a day.

Eligible staff in all locations are able to apply for child care vouchers. These support parents to make their own choices about where and what type of child care they want for their child. Vouchers are payable over 48 weeks per annum and are for £21.42 a week for staff who work full time and either have a partner who works full time or are single parents; or pro-rata for staff who work, or who have partners who work, part-time. Staff using a subsidised nursery place at Sunningdale are not eligible for child care vouchers.

A table showing the type of child care provision in my Department; the number of parents who used it; the cost to the Department; and the cost per head is as follows:

Type of childcare provision	Number of parents using childcare	Cost to the Department	Cost per head
Cabinet Office
Nursery	6	£10,939	£140 per week. Subsidy of £41.50 per week for people earning less than £19,000 and £26 per week for people earning less than £24,001
Westminster Holiday Playscheme	33	£3,840	£26 a day up until 25 October 2002. £30 a day from 18 December 2002. Subsidy of 50 per cent. up to 25 October 2002, subsidy of 43 per cent. from 18 December 2002
Child Care Vouchers	92	£87,668.92	£21.42 week for full-time, pro-rata for part-time
Central Office of Information
Westminster Holiday Playscheme	4	£392	£26 a day up unti1 25 October 2002. £30 a day from 18 December 2002. Subsidy of 50 per cent.

Government Services

Gregory Barker: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what representations he has received regarding the accessibility of government services via the internet. [120867]

Mr. Alexander: I have received a wide range of representations on the subject.

The Government are committed to internet access for all who want it by 2005. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (published in April) show that levels of internet access in the UK continue to grow. 50 per cent. of the adult population are now regular users of the internet. In May, to further drive up levels of internet use, we launched the "Get Started" campaign to promote the benefits of the internet to key groups such as the elderly, those with disabilities and the unemployed.

To promote the accessibility of websites themselves it has been Government policy since February 2001 that all new or redesigned websites meet the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative's guidelines. These are detailed in the "Guidelines for UK Government Websites" available on the Office of the e-Envoy's website or in printed copy from the Stationery Office.

Performance Targets

Gregory Barker: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will list the performance targets that (a) his Office, (b) its agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies are required to meet; and for each target (i) who sets it and (ii) who monitors achievement against it. [120868]

Mr. Alexander: Key performance targets for the Cabinet Office are agreed as part of the Spending Review and the latest set were published in Spending Review 2002: Public Service Agreements 2003–06 (Cm 5571). The Department monitors progress towards the target along with HM Treasury and progress is reported regularly.

The Cabinet Office has one executive agency, The Government Car and Despatch Agency (GCDA) . In addition, the Central Office of Information (COI) is a department and executive agency reporting to the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Key performance targets for GCDA and COI are set annually by me when I approve their Corporate and Business Plans. The targets are announced to Parliament. Key targets for 2003–04 for both GCDA and COI are expected to be announced shortly.

The Chief Executives of GCDA and COI are directly responsible to me for ensuring that the agencies achieve their performance targets. Performance reports, including performance against targets, are submitted to me on a quarterly basis.

Performance against targets is published annually in the agencies' annual reports and accounts. Copies of these are held in the House of Commons Library, or can be accessed via their websites: www.gcda.gov.uk and

26 Jun 2003 : Column 909W

www.coi.gov.uk. COI' s performance against targets is audited by the National Audit Office (NAO). GCDA's performance against its financial target is audited by the NAO, and performance against other targets is independently reviewed within the Cabinet Office.

The Cabinet Office has no executive non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), and its advisory NDPBs are included within the main departmental targets.

Quasi-autonomous NGOs

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations there are in England; and how many there were in 1997. [121866]

Mr. Alexander: As at 31 March 2002, the number of public bodies sponsored by UK Government Departments that were based in England totalled 802.

Addresses for public bodies were not collected centrally in 1997. On 1 September 1997, the number of public bodies sponsored by UK Government Departments, excluding those sponsored by the Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh Offices, the Scottish Courts Administration and the Royal Mint, totalled 846.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

Commission for Architecture andthe Built Environment

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what projects the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has been involved with in West Wiltshire. [121340]

Estelle Morris: Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has been involved with the following projects in West Wiltshire.

Enabling a social housing scheme in Westbury with the Guinness Trust


Design Review of a redevelopment of Kingston Mills, Bradford-on-Avon


Design Review of Thoulstone Park Golf Club, Chapmanslade


Design Review of Cutteridge Farm, Trowbridge


Design Review of a Former Gas Works, Bradford-on-Avon

Institute of Sport

Mr. Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what progress has been made on the establishment of the English Institute of Sport. [121408]

26 Jun 2003 : Column 910W

Mr. Caborn: The English Institute of Sport (EIS) is a nationwide network of world class training facilities and support services.

The majority of the facilities for the EIS are now complete and are providing a top class training environment for our elite athletes. Most of the remaining sites will be ready for opening by the end of the year. The range of services supplied by the EIS, which spans sports science and sports medicine, is already being delivered directly to athletes and is being co-ordinated by the EIS regional managers.

These arrangements should ensure that the EIS network provides our top athletes with the support required to enhance their medal success at the Athens Olympics.

Lottery Funding

Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what the average length of time was from the submission of a Lottery funding bid to (a) receipt of that application and (b) receipt of funding by distribution body in each of the last 10 years. [121629]

Estelle Morris: Information on the time taken by Lottery distributors to acknowledge applications is not available centrally. Each distributor is required to have a performance indicator on the average time taken to process applications, but the indicator can be formulated differently by individual distributors. The timing of the release of funding by distributors to successful applicants can depend on many factors including the nature of the project concerned, the terms and conditions of grant agreed between the applicant and the distributor, and the rate at which the project progresses. For many projects, a grant may be released in instalments over a period of months or years.

The information on application processing times is not available for the lifetime of each distributor but the details provided by the distributors sponsored by the Department are shown in the following tables:

	2000–01	2001–02
Arts Council of England	63 days	71 days
Community Fund	11 weeks	12.5 weeks
Heritage Lottery Fund	5.6 months	7.4 months
Film Council	(1)—	55 days
Millennium Commission	(2)—	(2)—
UK Sport	(1)—	12 weeks

⁽¹⁾ Not available.

⁽²⁾ See the following.

Sport England

Performance indicator	Description	Programme	Year	Qt R1	Qt R2	Qt R3	Qt R4
Average time taken to process each application	Sum of working days taken for all cases completed in the period/Number of cases completed in the period	Community capital	2001–02	71	70	66	82
Average time taken to process each application	Sum of working days taken for all cases completed in the period/Number of cases completed in the period	Community revenue	2001–02	21	49	39	64
Average time taken to process each application	Sum of working days taken for all cases completed in the period/Number of cases completed in the period	World class	2001–02	43	36	27	60

26 Jun 2003 : Column 911W

The Millennium Commission's work is increasingly focussed on the delivery and monitoring of existing projects rather than new applications.

The New Opportunities Fund sets performance indicators that measure their performance in achieving their policy directions across the lifetime of each programme and are not by each financial year.

Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many bids were made to and how much funding was (a) requested and

26 Jun 2003 : Column 912W

(b) allocated by each distribution body in each of the last 10 years. [121631]

Estelle Morris: Information regarding awards is shown in the table, which is derived from the Department's Awards Database, which contains information supplied by the distributing bodies.

The figure for the year 2003 is up to 1 June.

This Department has never held comprehensive information on either the number or value of applications for Lottery grants.

£

Distributing Body	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Arts council of England	236,448,607	438,569,060	348,730,571	156,693,442	171,034,631
Arts council of Northern Ireland	4,307,651	7,062,937	4,740,377	10,402,112	8,622,996
Arts council of Wales	9,110,844	13,770,498	27,130,278	12,925,265	16,528,332
Awards for all (England) Joint Scheme	0	0	0	0	0
Community fund	159,573,748	300,936,127	222,316,992	286,452,996	511,166,766
Film council	0	0	0	0	2,000,000
Heritage Lottery fund	107,857,356	331,742,595	482,869,443	287,154,304	217,126,985
Millennium Commission	333,468,200	437,053,600	1,078,936,503	51,674,629	42,596,296
New opportunities fund	0	0	0	0	93,099,315
Scottish arts council	13,624,157	37,404,662	28,195,108	36,892,837	14,331,128
Scottish screen	0	0	0	0	0
Sport England	94,934,628	108,423,663	169,574,273	214,901,672	276,758,494
Sport Scotland	14,608,885	20,287,827	14,636,987	26,653,011	17,444,590
Sports council for Northern Ireland	4,574,880	6,529,998	7,618,882	10,515,805	6,267,805
Sports council for Wales	4,922,738	13,494,761	18,223,262	6,971,813	4,754,354
UK Sport	0	0	200,000	12,160	11,011,950

£

Distributing Body	2000	2001	2002	2003
Arts council of England	102,495,067	169,348,066	105,417,740	1,375,292
Arts council of Northern Ireland	1,522,456	3,580,320	1,662,631	170,806
Arts council of Wales	11,491,739	9,593,214	7,909,221	931,738
Awards for all (England) Joint Scheme	0	0	33,346,684	13,099,734
Community fund	364,125,191	324,035,982	275,819,367	123,106,661
Film council	14,188,552	27,552,072	28,759,193	19,431,635
Heritage Lottery fund	183,800,172	252,556,164	310,038,016	118,549,168
Millennium Commission	38,323,058	4,543,272	0	0
New opportunities fund	87,029,281	283,286,909	398,905,082	272,354,494
Scottish Arts council	14,804,013	9,735,060	3,544,944	284,786
Scottish screen	3,392,911	3,361,188	0	0
Sport England	295,945,174	264,803,648	142,817,084	27,701,222
Sport Scotland	6,355,986	19,184,986	11,716,056	1,062,534
Sports council for Northern Ireland	3,662,642	2,883,638	236,899	125,210
Sports council for Wales	3,240,967	16,853,584	20,515,883	6,722,023
UK Sport	23,941,847	63,927,347	10,776,350	3,608,121

Note:

The Millennium Commission and Scottish Screen have not provided figures for 2002 or 2003.

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