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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Coastal Action Zone

Mr. Simmonds: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment has been made of the impact of the Coastal Action Zone initiative in East Lincolnshire; and if he will make a statement. [224489]

Keith Hill: My right hon. Friend the Lord Rooker was involved in the formal launch of the Coastal Action Zone (CAZ) at Whitehall in December 2004.

I understand that since then the CAZ members have been considering priorities and potential activities. Officials from the Government Office for the East Midlands (GOEM) are involved in these discussions. It is very much early days. No impact assessment has been made by the Government but GOEM continue to follow developments with interest.

Departmental Budget

Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the planned (a) capital and (b) resource budget for his Department is for 2011–12. [223430]

Yvette Cooper: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms) on 4 April 2005, Official Report, column1170W.

Deregulation

Mr. Redwood: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many regulations have been repealed by his Department since 1st October 2004. [224617]

Yvette Cooper: 33 Regulations or Orders classified as general have been wholly revoked and five have been partially revoked.

Firefighters' Pensions

Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many divorced spouses given a share of a retired firefighter's pension in each of the last three years did not receive it because they were under the qualifying pension age; and how much this saved the pension fund in immediate payments in each year. [224239]

Mr. Raynsford: The firefighters' pensions scheme is administered by individual Fire and Rescue Authorities, so this information is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
 
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Firelink Radio System

John Robertson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he expects to announce a decision on the selection of a contractor for the Firelink radio system. [224237]

Mr. Raynsford: The announcement is expected in June 2005.

John Robertson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how long after receipt of the best and final offer submission from the bidding contractors he would expect to wait before making a decision on the selection of a contractor for the Firelink radio system. [224238]

Mr. Raynsford: Upon receipt the best and final offer submissions will be evaluated with a final decision expected in June 2005.

Housing

Mr. Steen: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many acres of vacant, dormant, unused and under-utilised land are owned by his Department; and if he will estimate the number of homes that could be built on the land if it was made available. [219681]

Yvette Cooper: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has six unused sites which total 1.8 acres. Of these:

One site (0.07 acre) is subject to a Planning Obligation under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and is therefore not available for development.

One site (0.038 acre) is considered too small to have development potential.

Two sites (total 0.42 acre) which are close to each other are surrounded on three sides by roads and motorways. The local authority position is that the land forms a special landscaped area and that development would not be appropriate.

Two sites (total 1.25 acres) are on either side of a motorway. These have development potential and this is being explored.

There has been no estimate made of the number of homes that could be built on these sites.

This answer does not include information pertaining to Government Offices, who carry out functions on behalf of 10 Government Departments.

Local Authority Pension Schemes

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the latest estimate is of the deficit or surplus in each local authority pension scheme. [224674]

Phil Hope: As at 31 March 2001, the most recent date for which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has full actuarial valuation data for the Local Government Pension Scheme, pension funds in England and Wales held assets some £6.3 billion less than their liabilities. The results of the actuarial valuation carried out for each local authority pension fund as at 31 March 2004 are not yet available.

Travellers

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the implications for (a) Traveller migration to the UK, (b) demand for
 
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Traveller sites and (c) unauthorised encampments of the introduction of changes in the law of trespass in the Irish Republic. [223936]

Yvette Cooper: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's bi-annual Count of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in England, and the annual count of Traveller families in the Republic of Ireland carried out by the Irish Government, do not indicate that there has been a significant population shift since the introduction of the legislative changes in the Republic, which took effect in 2002.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

Accidents

Jon Trickett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether she will publish the data for the number of accidents at work involving employees of her Department; and if she will make a statement. [222585]

Derek Twigg: The Department for Education and Skills does not currently publish accident data.

Autism

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what provisions her Department makes to assist children with autism in schools. [224088]

Margaret Hodge: It is for individual schools to decide how best to make provision for children with autism. The Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice advises schools and local education authorities (LEAs) that children's needs should be assessed individually and that provision should address the particular needs of the individual child. It gives advice to schools on making provision for children with SEN, including those with autism.

The Department for Education and Skills, together with the Department of Health, has issued good practice guidance on making provision for children with autistic spectrum disorders which aims to raise awareness of autism. Nine of the 11 SEN regional partnerships have working groups focusing on improving provision for children with autism in their areas, using the good practice guidance. The regional partnerships have also been producing other autism guidance, including guidance on delivering the curriculum for children with autism in secondary schools, a transition toolkit for children with autism moving from primary to secondary school, and guidance for learning support assistants.

Over recent years many LEAs have used available funding to support in-service training on autism. As part of the Government's SEN strategy, published last year, the Department is working with the Teacher Training Agency to develop proposals for improving training in relation to SEN, including autism. An inclusion development programme is also being developed to strengthen the evidence base about what works in educating children with autism and build a consensus about how to implement good practice most effectively.
 
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Mr. Bacon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children with autism there were in schools in Norfolk in each month since January 2002, broken down by (a) primary and (b) secondary schools. [224096]

Margaret Hodge: Information on pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and their primary need was collected in the Annual Schools' Census for the first time in January 2004 for pupils at School Action Plus and those with a statement of SEN. In Norfolk local education authority maintained primary schools reported having approximately 310 pupils and maintained secondary schools reported 130 pupils whose primary need was autistic spectrum disorder.

The purpose of the data collection is to inform policy and planning, to study trends and to monitor the outcomes of initiatives and interventions on pupils with different types of SEN, not to classify individuals, or assigning children by type of need. We are aware that some schools had difficulty in identifying a child's primary need and where appropriate their secondary need. Also professionals from education and health fields may classify some children differently; and the levels of identification of SEN are varied between local authorities.

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