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Truancy

Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures have been taken since 1997 to reduce cases of truancy from schools; and what plans he has to improve schools' links with local police to catch truanting children. [121514]

Mr. Ivan Lewis: Since 1997 we have been supporting schools and Local Education Authorities through funding a range of local and national initiatives to tackle truancy and improve school attendance, including the dissemination of school attendance guidance, a series of practitioner conferences and funding for the introduction of electronic registration systems into over 500 schools to track and manage absence.

As part of the three year £470 million Behaviour and Attendance strategy, targeted support is now being provided for schools with some of the greatest challenges to meet in improving behaviour and attendance. 700 schools are currently covered and this will extend to a further 1,900 schools by 2005. In addition the strategy will support all secondary schools with behaviour and attendance training and audits which will be available from September. Local Education Authorities with higher than expected levels of truancy are being provided with additional expert support to impact on school attendance rates.

We have also co-ordinated national truancy sweeps in consultation with schools, Local Education Authorities and the police, and we have issued guidance on the operation of truancy sweeps. The last nationally co-ordinated truancy sweeps took place over three weeks last month involving all police forces in England and a further round is planned for the autumn. At local level truancy sweeps are now a regular feature in most Local Education Authorities and they are planned and conducted in partnership with schools, the police and other bodies such as Connexions and Youth Offending Teams.

All schools are encouraged to develop good links between themselves and their local police. This includes the development of joint school and police liaison protocols.

University Research Funding

Helen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how much of Higher Education Funding Council for England's university research funding has been distributed to universities in the north-west of England in each year since 1997; [121805]

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(2) what percentage of quality related research funds have been allocated to north-west universities in each of the past five years; and which universities have received such funding. [121806]

Alan Johnson: The information requested is in the following tables. Table 1 shows the total amount of research funding allocated to higher education institutions (HEIs) in the north west region by the

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Higher Education Funding Council for England in each year since 1997. Table 2 shows the proportion of quality-related research funding allocated to HEIs in the North West region for the same period. HEFCE research funding for the north west region has risen from £77 million in 1997/98 to £108 million in 2003/04. The proportion of quality-related funding allocated to this region has fluctuated marginally over the same period, and stands at 10.3 per cent. in 2003/04 compared to 10.6 per cent. in 1997/98.

Table 1: Time series of research funding for academic years 1997/98 to 2003/04£ millions

	1997/98	1998/99	1999/2000	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04
North-West Region	77	88	89	91	93	98	108
England Total	720	841	872	884	906	940	1,038
North-West region as a percentage of England	10.7	10.5	10.2	10.3	10.3	10.4	10.4

Notes:

Figures include quality-related research (QR) funds, generic research (GR) and collaborative research (CollR) funds for 1997/98 to 2001/02.

For 2002/03, figures relate entirely to quality-related (QR).

For 2003/04, figures relate to quality-related (QR) and capability funding.

Source:

HEFCE

Table 2: Time series of quality-related (QR) research funding for academic years 1997/98 to 2003/04(£ millions)

	1997/98	1998/99	1999/2000	2000/01	2001/02	2002/03	2003/04
North-West Region	73	84	85	86	89	98	105
England Total	684	805	835	847	868	940	1.020
North-West region as a percentage of England	10.6	10.4	10.2	10.2	10.2	10.4	10.3

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Adjudication Panel (Bognor Regis)

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the cost was of the Adjudication Panel hearing held at the Inglenook Hotel, Pagham, Bognor Regis, on 10 and 11 June; and how much of the total figure was for the cost of legal counsel. [121947]

Phil Hope: The total cost of the Adjudication Panel hearing for all nine cases, over two days, was £3,500. This includes hire of the venue and the cost of legal counsel, which was £300.

Audit Commission Corporate Governance Report

Mr. McNamara: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister on how many occasions the Audit Commission has held a press conference on the publication of a local government corporate governance report; and if he will list the (a) dates and (b) reports. [121661]

Mr. Raynsford: The Audit Commission has held press conferences in relation to corporate governance inspections on three occasions: twice with regard to Walsall, on 15 January 2002 on the publication of a corporate governance report, and on 11 June 2002 on the publication of an update to that report and a referral to the Secretary of State under section 15 of the Local Government Act 1999; and once with regard to Kingston upon Hull on 29 July 2002, on a referral to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister under the same section.

Criminal Records Bureau

Mr. Paul Marsden: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what additional funding he has made available to (a) Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and (b) Shropshire County Council in respect of increased costs of record checks by the Criminal Records Bureau. [121726]

Mr. Raynsford: Funding to meet a range of cost pressures was included in the general increase in formula grant announced as part of the 2002 Spending Review; the amount of funding relating to the increased costs of record checks by the Criminal Records Bureau was not separately identified.

Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council received a 7.1 per cent. formula grant increase in 2003–04 on a like-for-like basis with 2002–03; Shropshire County Council received a 5.4 per cent. formula grant increase.

Empty Property

Mr. Edward Davey: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what definition of the term empty property his Department uses. [121211]

Keith Hill: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not use a standard definition of the term 'empty property'. It is commonly used to refer to property that is not occupied, even on an infrequent basis. Generally, properties that are used infrequently, such as second homes or holiday homes, are excluded from any definition but properties that are under-occupied, particularly in the case of commercial property, may not be.

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The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister recently published guidance, "Empty Property: Unlocking the potential—an implementation handbook" which sets out further information on identifying whether a property is empty. Copies of the guidance have been placed in the House Library.

Social Services

Mr. Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on per capita funding for North

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East Lincolnshire social services departments in the last five years; and what the per capita funding for unitary authorities in the south-east was in each of the last five years. [121718]

Mr. Raynsford: The table shows the Personal Social Services Standard Spending Assessments/Formula Spending Share per head for each of the last five years for North East Lincolnshire and each of the unitary authorities in the south east, together with the average for unitary authorities in the south east.

Authority	1999–2000	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	2003–04
North East Lincolnshire	162.17	171.91	178.53	185.52	221.11
Isle of Wight	171.48	181.65	188.13	194.18	221.74
Milton Keynes	132.00	167.60	142.32	146.03	196.45
Brighton and Hove	196.70	203.57	207.60	209.90	241.83
Portsmouth	180.33	187.73	192.98	194.91	237.43
Southampton	180.74	189.58	194.37	198.59	238.75
Bracknell Forest	122.36	127.64	130.62	133.99	176.71
West Berkshire	103.86	108.03	112.95	116.26	161.94
Reading	150.20	156.31	160.39	164.15	222.76
Slough	187.14	194.09	201.41	203.10	248.25
Windsor and Maidenhead	118.71	125.50	131.32	134.57	184.30
Wokingham	81.81	83.78	86.77	89.67	132.70
Medway	133.41	137.83	143.17	146.54	179.97
Average for South East Unitary Authorities	149.75	156.01	160.83	164.08	205.72

Formula Spending Shares are not grant, nor are they the Government's assessment of how much an authority should spend on a particular service, they are simply the formula used to calculate an authority's Revenue Support Grant. Funding for social services (as for all other services) is largely funded through redistributed business rates, Revenue Support Grant and council tax. The amount of funding each social service department receives is determined by the local authority taking into account local priorities. Revenue Support Grant is an unhypothecated block grant that may be spent on any service.

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