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23 Nov 2005 : Column 1987W—continued
Departmental Refurbishment
Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the companies to which his Department contracted out their construction and refurbishment work in each of the last three years; and what process his Department used to select each contractor. [18231]
Angela E. Smith: The award of contracts for all construction and refurbishment work by Northern Ireland Departments and their agencies is compliant with public procurement policy and EU Procurement Directives.
The names of the companies and the procedure used in each contract, with a de minimis value of £25,000, are set out as follows.
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Diet
Dr. McCrea: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people there are in Northern Ireland who have been identified as suffering from malnourishment. [31054]
Mr. Woodward: Information is not available on the number of people in Northern Ireland who have been identified as suffering from malnourishment. However, information is available on the number of admissions to hospital where malnourishment has been diagnosed.
The following table provides figures on the number of admissions to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnourishment for each of the last five years for which figures are available. It should be noted that any individual could have been admitted to hospital more than once over the course of a year or over a number of years and would therefore be counted more than once in the table.
| Number of admissions(9) to hospital with malnourishment | |
|---|---|
| 2004–05 | 427 |
| 2003–04 | 411 |
| 2002–03 | 446 |
| 2001–02 | 473 |
| 2000–01 | 403 |
(9) Discharges and deaths are used as an approximation for admissions.
Disability Living Allowance
Dr. McCrea: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people have been claiming disability living allowance in Northern Ireland in each of the past five years. [30126]
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Mr. Hanson: The following table shows the number of people in Northern Ireland who have been claiming disability living allowance in each of the past five years.
| Number of people | |
|---|---|
| 2001 | 140,479 |
| 2002 | 146,548 |
| 2003 | 151,870 |
| 2004 | 161,839 |
| 2005 | 167,156 |
Down Lisburn Health Trust
Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the community care funding allocated to Down Lisburn Health Trust. [29525]
Mr. Woodward: The Department allocates resources to Health and Social Services Boards. It is then the responsibility of each board to determine how it will allocate these resources to local areas and to specific programmes. The Department has not assessed the situation for community care separately, but based on the latest information on planned expenditure for the population of the Down Lisburn locality as a proportion of Northern Ireland expenditure, the level of funding, having adjusted for differences in need, is around the NI average.
Economic Development Strategy
Mr. McGrady: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he has taken to introduce an economic development strategy for Northern Ireland; and what assessment he has made of regional disparities in (a) investment, (b) job creation and (c) wealth in Northern Ireland. [29497]
Angela E. Smith:
Delivering the Economic Vision will require concerted action from both the public and private sectors on our stated economic priorities—the four productivity drivers of innovation, skills, enterprise and infrastructure. For its part Government will produce a Regional Economic Strategy that will set out the policy framework for delivering the Economic Vision. The strategy will also form our response to Government policy to progress against targets on regionally balanced economic growth across the UK.
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The Northern Ireland strategy is currently being drafted by DFP in collaboration with the other Government departments. The first draft will shortly be circulated to Ministers for consideration and will then issue for wider discussion.
Regional economic disparities within the UK, and Northern Ireland, are being analysed and illustrated within the evolving strategy. Particular attention is being paid to those disparities that impact on the four productivity drivers and the employment rate. With this in mind the current activities of government are also being analysed to gauge the extent to which they effectively contribute to promoting the four productivity drivers.
Economic Inactivity
Dr. McCrea: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people in Northern Ireland have been economically inactive in each year since 2000. [30128]
Angela E. Smith: The following table shows the number of people in NI classified as economically inactive in each July-September period since 2000. The table gives the number of economically inactive for both the population aged 16 and over and the population of working age.
(10) Working age is taken as ages 16 to 59 for females and 16 to 64 for males.
Source:
NI Labour Force Survey.
Education and Library Boards
Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people were employed in each of the Education and Library Boards in each of the last three years. [29037]
Angela E. Smith: The information provided in the table below is in respect of staff employed in each of the five Education and Library Boards for the last three years. The figures are taken from the Education and Library Boards Annual Statistical Returns to the Department and relate to non-teaching school based and non-school based staff in each board. Figures are in respect of permanent and temporary staff in post at 30 September for each year.
(11) BELB moved to a new HR/payroll system on a phased basis from April 2004 and the board is unable to provide a corresponding staff in post figure for 2004–05. The figure the board has provided is an overall full-time-equivalent (FTE) figure, taken over the period April 2004 to March 2005.
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