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23 Mar 2004 : Column 768W—continued

Local Authority Statistics

Mr. Truswell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list all local authorities, broken down by (a) type and (b) party political control. [156995]

Phil Hope: The information is as follows:

Local Authorities
County Councils	(18)34
London Boroughs	(19)33
Metropolitan District	36
District Councils	238
Shire Unitary authorities	(20)46
Isles of Scilly	1
Total (England)	388
Wales(21)	22
Scotland(21)	29
Island councils	3
Northern Ireland	26

⁽¹⁸⁾ Not including Isle of Wight unitary county

⁽¹⁹⁾ Includes City of London

⁽²⁰⁾ Including Isle of Wight

⁽²¹⁾ Unitary districts

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not systematically collect and maintain comprehensive and up-to-date information on changes in the party political control in individual local authorities.

New Deal for Communities

Mr. Edward Davey: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will place in the Library each New Deal for Communities delivery plan. [160343]

23 Mar 2004 : Column 769W

Yvette Cooper: All 39 New Deal for Communities Partnership's delivery plans have been made available in the Library of the House.

Ordnance Survey

Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what factors underlay the decision to use uncompleted Ordnance Survey data in the Pan Government Agreement for Central Government. [148480]

Yvette Cooper: The Pan Government Agreement (PGA) is a non-binding internal arrangement between two Crown bodies, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Ordnance Survey (OS). Accordingly, the PGA is not a contract necessitating competition through prior advertisement in accordance with the European Commission public procurement Directives.

The PGA has been a tremendous success, increasing the number of central government organisations utilising geographic information from 40 to in excess of 120. Without this, it would be impossible to deliver on 2005 Modernising Government targets or to offer many citizen-based services. The success of the pilot of the PGA was noted by the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee's tenth report on the OS, which contained the following statement:

"The Committee recommends that the Government provides funding for a long-term Pan Government Service Level Agreement to ensure widespread use of Ordnance Survey data across Government, so as to ensure the Government gets the best value for money. This should be done by the start of the 2003–04 financial year."

In comparison to the cost of previous agreements and the much more limited use of geographic information they provided, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister believes that the PGA offers very good value for money for government.

Public Toilets

Tom Levitt: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what guidelines his Department issues to local authorities in respect of minimum standards for the (a) provision, (b) distribution and (c) maintenance of public toilets; and what guidelines are issued regarding public consultation on public toilets. [163427]

Mr. Raynsford: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not provide any guidance to local authorities on the provision, distribution or maintenance of public toilets, or on the need to consult on this service. These functions are at the discretion of local authorities who have a power, but no duty, to provide public conveniences under section 87 of the Public Health Act 1936.

Recruitment Advertising

Pete Wishart: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what his Department's expenditure on recruitment advertising was in each of the last three years, broken down by publication; and what proportion of such expenditure was (a) to advertise vacant posts and (b) in the form of other general recruitment advertising. [155516]

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Yvette Cooper: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) on 17 February 2004, Official Report, column 23W.

Regeneration Partnerships

Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many community and resident representatives have resigned from positions in regeneration partnerships over the past three years; and what assessment he has made of their reasons. [162573]

Yvette Cooper: This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. There are a very large number of regeneration partnerships in existence across the country and there is no central record of how many there are, or of their membership. Many are locally established and have no central Government involvement.

Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the adequacy of current arrangements for payments made to residents and community representatives involved in regeneration programmes. [162574]

Yvette Cooper: The Government welcomes and values the contributions that residents and community representatives make to regeneration partnerships. The arrangements for making any payments to those community representatives who are involved in regeneration programmes vary, depending on the programme and the nature of their involvement. If there are issues relating to the arrangements for a regeneration programme for which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible that my hon. Friend wishes to bring to my attention, then I would be happy to look into them.

Small Business Support

Brian Cotter: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the support programmes for small businesses that (a) his Department and (b) its agencies have financed in each of the last five years; how much money was allocated for each scheme in each year; how much money has gone unclaimed under each scheme; and how many small businesses have benefited from each scheme. [161253]

Yvette Cooper: The Cross-cutting review of government services for small business, published by the Small Business Service in December 2002 contained information on the services available to small businesses. This reported that the Government spends about £2.5 billion on a wide range of services for small firms. Further details can be found at the Small Business Service website at: http://www.sbs.gov.uk/crosscutting/default.php.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Annual Report 2003 published in May 2003 (Cm 5906) contains details of the Office's programmes, a number of which would be available to support the work of small businesses.

The specific information asked for on individual schemes is not held centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

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Social Housing (Greater London)

Simon Hughes: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much has been spent on (a) maintenance and (b) repair of social rented housing in Greater London in each year since 1997. [162347]

Keith Hill: Local authorities provide data on council housing to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister but no consistent figures on expenditure on maintenance and repair are available. Local authorities can use both

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capital and revenue expenditure on maintenance and repair of their own stock but the returns from London boroughs on capital expenditure include work on improvements, renewal, conversions and adaptations.

The Housing Corporation keep records of maintenance and repair costs for social rented properties in the housing association sector, but on an individual Registered Social Landlord basis only. No figures are therefore available for individual boroughs or London as a whole and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

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HOME DEPARTMENT

Freight (Theft)

Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has held with the British International Freight Association regarding measures to reduce the incidence of theft of personal items during transit. [162591]

Ms Blears: I have not held any discussions with the British International Freight Association regarding measures to reduce the incidence of theft of personal items during transit.

Primates

Adam Price: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many licensed scientific experiments have been undertaken on primates in the United Kingdom in each of the last 10 years. [160270]

Caroline Flint: The information requested is shown in table 20 of Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain, 2002, and table 1 of Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Northern Ireland, 1993–2002, copies of which are in the Library.

For ease of reference the numbers of procedures performed for the first time on primates each year are shown in the table.

Numbers of procedures

	Great Britain	Northern Ireland
1993	4,994	—
1994	5,163	—
1995	4,721	—
1996	4,374	—
1997	3,908	—
1998	3,655	—
1999	4,003	—
2000	3,690	—
2001	3,986	—
2002	3,977	—

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