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Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress in the re-tendering exercise to put in place electronic document and record management systems throughout the Northern Ireland Civil Service. [195539]
Mr. Pearson:
On 27 April 2004 the NICS (through its Central Procurement Directorate) established a Framework Agreement for the provision of EDRM products under the Negotiated Procedure of the Public Contracts (Services) Regulations 1993 (as amended). The Framework Agreement is available for use to the NICS and the wider NI public sector. A secondary competition was applied under the Framework Agreement to select an EDRM product for piloting in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure and the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (contract awarded on 17 September 2004). Depending
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upon the evaluation of the pilots, this product may be used across the NICS; however no commitment to do so has been made.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the cost has been to date of the tendering and re-tendering exercises by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment to put in place electronic document and record management systems throughout the Northern Ireland Civil Service. [195540]
Mr. Pearson: The total apportioned project costs (including staff time, travel and subsistence and consultancy) to establish the EDRMS category of the Framework Agreement and conduct secondary competition for selection of the EDRMS product is £207,000.
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many Civil Service jobs have been relocated from the Greater Belfast area to East Londonderry constituency in the last five years. [194792]
Mr. Pearson: There have been no Civil Service jobs relocated from the Greater Belfast area to East Londonderry in the last five years (1 April 1999 to 31 March 2004).
Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to his oral answer of 1 April 2004, Official Report, columns 176061, on the Cory Collusion Inquiry, what the terms of reference will be for the public inquiry into the Finucane case. [194951]
Mr. Paul Murphy: The inquiry into the death of Patrick Finucane is to be held on the basis of new legislation, which is to be introduced shortly. I cannot pre-empt the decision of Parliament on the terms of this legislation or on any matter flowing from it.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what proportion of three to five year olds in Northern Ireland are registered with a general dental practitioner. [195415]
Angela Smith: 60 per cent. of three to five year olds in Northern Ireland are registered with an NHS general dental practitioner. Figures are not available for persons who may be solely registered for private treatment.
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what proportion of two year olds in Northern Ireland are registered with a general dental practitioner. [195416]
Angela Smith:
41 per cent. of two year olds in Northern Ireland are currently registered with an NHS general dental practitioner. Figures are not available for persons who may be solely registered for private treatment.
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Mr. Donaldson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much of the budget for the Department of Education has remained unspent in each year from 2000 to date. [196528]
Mr. Gardiner: The proportion of the Department of Education budget unspent in each of the financial years 200001 to 200304 is as follows:
Unspent (percentage) | |
---|---|
200001 | 1.4 |
200102 | 3.4 |
200203 | 2.4 |
200304(38) | 3.3 |
Under approved end-year flexibility arrangements, sums unspent on capital investment, executive programme funds and, from 200102, Education and Library Board resources are carried forward for use in a subsequent year and are thus not "lost" to Education. Carry over relates mainly to (a) Education and Library Board resources, principally to facilitate the operation, under Local Management of Schools (LMS) arrangements, of schools' delegated budgets and (b) capital investment, in particular to take account of the rephasing of expenditure on existing projects.
Brian White: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what percentage of the Department's (a) implemented and (b) planned computer systems use open source software; and what plans are in place to raise this level. [195652]
Mr. Paul Murphy: There is minimal use of Open Source Software (OSS) among the Northern Ireland Departments.
To date, only the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) and the Department of Finance and Personnel Business Development Service operate a very limited open source system which comprises products such as Linux, Apache and MYSQL.
There are no immediate plans to increase usage of OSS throughout the Northern Ireland Departments at present. However, the possible future use of Open Source will be considered as part of the forthcoming ICT Strategy for the Northern Ireland Civil Service which is to be commissioned early in 2005.
Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what percentage of the staff in his Department in (a) 2002 and (b) 2003 were people with disabilities. [196125]
Mr. Pearson:
Of those staff in the eleven departments of the Northern Ireland Administration and the Northern Ireland Office who provided information on
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their disability status, the percentage who declared they had a disability, was as follows:
Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the provision of education for (a) adults and (b) children with Down's Syndrome in Northern Ireland. [197036]
Mr. Gardiner: Children with Down's Syndrome have a range of educational ability. Under the existing legislation, children's special educational needs, including the needs of those with Down's Syndrome, are assessed by the Education and Library Boards and met on an individual basis. Provision may be made in special schools, special units attached to mainstream schools or in mainstream classes themselves. It may also consist of home tuition, hospital tuition or pre-school support. Boards also operate specialist outreach services including support for children with literacy problems and if appropriate, children with Down's Syndrome avail of these services.
The Department for Employment and Learning has put in place a range of initiatives and funding streams designed to promote access to post 16 provision by students with disabilities including those with Down's Syndrome. These include the publication of a good practice guide; support for staff development activities for senior management, and financial assistance towards the costs of technical or carer support for learners.
Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many children with Down's Syndrome in each education and library board area in Northern Ireland were educated in (a) mainstream and (b) special schools in each of the past five years. [197019]
Mr. Gardiner: The North Eastern and Southern Education and Library Boards cannot provide this information as it is gathered according to the special educational needs, e.g. Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD) or Severe Learning Difficulty (SLD), and not by the name of the specific condition.
The Belfast, South Eastern and Western Education and Library Boards can only provide current figures for children with Down's Syndrome and this information is not available within the time scale. I will write to the hon. Lady again as soon as it is available.
The Education and Library Boards are currently working on a five Board Special Educational Needs Management Information System which in future years will gather statistical information on a wider range of special educational needs than is currently available. It is hoped to introduce this system in 2005.
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