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26 May 2004 : Column 1711W—continued

Head Teachers

Mr. Swayne: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his Budget Statement of 17 March 2004, if he will make a statement regarding the 2005–06 payment to headteachers of secondary schools and its relationship to planned increases in Schools Standard Grant and Devolved Formula. [174628]

Ruth Kelly: In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said that in 2005–06, heads would receive direct payments that sum to £55,000 for a typical primary and £180,000 for a typical secondary school. These totals are the combination of the School Standards Grant and Devolved Formula Capital. The Chancellor also announced that, in the UK, we will be spending on education an additional £8.5 billion in 2007–08 compared to 2005–06.

Income Tax (Pensioners)

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of pensioners aged over 80 years pay income tax. [175230]

Dawn Primarolo: Around 32 per cent. of pensioners aged over 80 years pay income tax. This estimate is based upon the 2001–02 Survey of Personal Incomes and ONS 2001 and 2002 mid year population estimates.

Museums

Jim Knight: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will extend the VAT Refund Scheme to include private museums that hold national designated collections, for the purpose of recovering VAT on expenditure incurred in National Lottery-funded projects. [174972]

John Healey: Like any other business, private museums can recover VAT incurred on buying goods and services providing those purchases relate to their taxable business activities. This would be the case where a museum is providing museum entry where admission charges are taxable at the standard rate of VAT.

Under the normal VAT rules provided for in the European Sixth VAT Directive, VAT incurred on goods and services relating to non-business activities, such as providing free entry to museums, cannot be recovered. This is also the case where VAT is incurred on exempt business activities, such as providing museum entry where no VAT is applied to admission charges under the VAT exemption for cultural bodies. The source of such an organisation's funding cannot be used to determine its VAT position.
 
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However, since September 2001, the Government have provided a refund scheme that allows the main national museums and galleries which do not charge for admission to recover VAT they incur on related purchases. This scheme removes the obstacle VAT was creating to the delivery of our 1997 manifesto commitment that there should be free access to the main national museums and galleries.

That commitment has been an outstanding success. In this year's Budget, the Chancellor announced that, building on that success and on the recommendation of the Goodison Review, we are considering in the context of the forthcoming Spending Review extending the free access commitment for the main national museums and galleries, and the VAT refund scheme that has helped to deliver it, to university museums.

For bodies in receipt of National Lottery funding, irrecoverable VAT can be included as eligible project expenditure for lottery support. By funding this cost, the Heritage Lottery Fund's grant assessment process ensures that lottery-funded projects are not disadvantaged if they incur VAT on their expenditure. Any VAT recovered under a refund scheme should, therefore, be excluded from any grant awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Payroll Adjustments

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the (a) upward and (b) downward payroll adjustments an employer may have to make as a result of the policies of his Department. [175178]

Dawn Primarolo: All employers have to run a payroll to ensure their employees receive the right amount of wages or salary. It might require upwards or downwards adjustment to reflect changes to an employee's Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax codes, National Insurance Contributions or working tax credit.

Portable Appliance Testing

Mr. Flight: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how often his Department and its associated public bodies undergo portable appliance testing; and what the cost of testing is. [175979]

Ruth Kelly: Portable appliance testing is carried out in my Departments and agencies on the basis of regular programmes in accordance with guidelines issued by the Health and Safety Executive. For HM Treasury, Customs and Excise, Inland Revenue, the Valuation Office and the Office for National Statistics, the costs of testing fall within the building management charges and are not separately available. For the other Departments, the total combined approximate annual cost is £20,000.

Science and Innovation Committee

Dr. Gibson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the membership of the cross-departmental committee on the 10-year investment framework on science and innovation is; on what dates it has met; if he will publish the minutes of the meetings; and if he will make a statement. [173554]

John Healey: The development of a 10-year investment framework for science and innovation is overseen by a Ministerial Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary to the
 
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Treasury and attended by Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science and Innovation, and Alan Johnson, Minister for Higher Education. The Director General of the Research Councils, the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser and senior officials also attend. This group met on 10 March, and is meeting again on 20 May. An official-level group supports the ministerial group and has met on three occasions so far. Representatives at both official and ministerial level on both groups are also members of other committees with overlapping policy interests.

Minutes of the ministerial meeting constitute internal discussion and advice and are therefore not published: Exemption 2 of the Open Government Code applies. However, the conclusions of these meetings will be reflected
 
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in the Government's science and innovation investment framework document, which will be published alongside the Spending Review this summer.

Secondments

Bob Spink: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many staff in his Department and its agencies were seconded from the (a) private and (b) academic sector in each of the last three years. [174818]

Ruth Kelly: The following table provides the number of people identified through central records that have been seconded into the Chancellor's Department and agencies from the private and academic sectors during each of the last three financial years.

	2001–02		2002–03		2003–04
	Private	Academic	Private	Academic	Private	Academic
HM Treasury	1	1	5	0	8	0
Inland Revenue	11	0	8	0	3	1
Customs and Excise	1	0	1	0	0	0
Royal Mint	0	0	1	0	1	0
Valuation Office	0	0	0	0	0	0
Debt Management Office	0	0	0	0	0	0
National Savings and Investments	3	0	3	0	0	0
Office of National Statistics	(13)—	(13)—	(13)—	(13)—	(13)—	(13)—
Government Actuaries Department	0	0	0	0	0	0
Office of Government Commerce	0	0	2	0	3	0
Office of Government Commerce Buying Solutions	0	0	0	0	1	0

⁽¹³⁾   The ONS do not distinguish its inward secondees by private and academic sectors and cannot provide this information.

Sickness Absence

Mr. McNamara: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many days' sick leave were taken by employees of (a) Customs and Excise and (b) the Inland Revenue in each year since 2000; and what the estimated cost was in each year. [165423]

Ruth Kelly [holding answer 20 April 2004]: The information is as follows:

(a) The number of sickness absence days taken by employees of Customs and Excise since 2000 are:

Calendar year	Average working days sickness absence per staff year
2000	9.0
2001	8.7
2002	9.0

(b) The number of sickness absence days taken by employees of the Inland Revenue since 2000 are:

Calendar year	Average working days sickness absence per staff
2000	10.9
2001	9.5
2002	10.5

Reliable information on the cost of sickness absence is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Statistical information for 2003 has not yet been published. Sickness absence targets for Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue are reported in the relevant Departmental and Annual Reports. Both Departments are currently reviewing their sickness absence management policies.

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