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28 Nov 2005 : Column 136W—continued
Consultants
Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how much his Department has spent on information technology consultants in each year since 1998; [25625]
(2) how much his Department has spent on transport consultancy services in each year since 1998. [25626]
Ms Buck: The Department was formed in May 2002. A breakdown of spend by the Department and its executive agencies is shown in the following table:
(57)Committed spend. The 2002–03 figure for IT consultancy may be understated due to changes in the accounting system when the Department was created. The effect of this is that many IT consultancy orders were charged to a general consultancy code and cannot now be identified separately without incurring disproportionate costs. Transport consultancy is not currently recorded separately in the central Department's accounting system.
(58)Information not recorded in this format.
(59)VOSA was formed in April 2003.
(60)Spend on IT consultancy is not recorded separately by DVLA. The figures are the total spend with known IT consultants.
(61)Highways Agency spend for 2002–03 may be understated because of the difficulty in matching categories to those used in previous accounting system.
(62)DSA changed to a new accounting system in 2003–04. Information in respect of prior years is not readily available.
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Martin Horwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what mechanisms are in place to assess the effectiveness of consultant-led projects in his Department; what sanctions are available to penalise consultants who run unsuccessful projects; how many projects conducted by consultants were assessed as unsuccessful in each year since 2000; and what sanctions were imposed in each case. [29060]
Ms Buck: The Department follows Office of Government Commerce (OGC) best practice programme, project and contract management procedures. Programmes and projects are subject to OGC's Gateway process which provides assurances at critical stages of a programme or projects lifecycle, and is applicable to programmes and projects managed by both internal and external resources.
The Department's internal guidelines also stipulate that consultancy assignments should be reviewed on completion to assess whether goals and objectives have
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been achieved, and to ensure that any lessons learnt are disseminated and incorporated in the Department's management systems.
By following best practice, the Department seeks to eliminate unsuccessful projects. Where a consultant fails to deliver the specified outcomes, they may be required to pay liquidated damages, the contract may be terminated, or payment withheld. The consultant may also be required to meet any additional costs incurred in completing the project.
Details of how projects are resourced and the outcome of any assessment against project-specific success criteria, together with details of any sanctions imposed on any consultants involved, are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Salaries
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the 10 highest-paid employees in his Department, broken down by (a) job title and (b) salary including bonuses; and whether the individual concerned is (i) a civil servant and (ii) a contractor in each case. [27436]
Ms Buck: The salary bands (including bonuses) and the numbers in each band for the senior civil servants inmy Department are given in the Department for Transport Annual Report 2005 Table B3. The salaries for contractors/consultants are not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Staff
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff in his Department were (a) civil servants, (b) contractors and (c) other staff in each year since 1997. [27442]
Ms Buck: The civil servant staffing levels for the Department are contained in Table C of Civil Service Statistics. Civil Service Statistics is available in the Library of the House.
The numbers of contractors and other non-civil servants is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Websites
Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to ensure the Department's websites attain the W3C AAA standard of accessibility for people with visual and other disabilities; and if he will set a target date for this standard to be achieved by. [30957]
Ms Buck: The Cabinet Office Government website guidelines, which govern the conduct of Government websites, specify that 'All UK Government websites are expected to achieve, as a minimum, and adhere to the single 'A' (Priority 1 items) level'.
Considerable effort is spent in improving the accessibility of all the DfT family of websites. DfT gov.uk sites comply with single 'A' and the majority are working toward achieving 'AA'. This is an ongoing process, as standards for accessibility evolve and change. As such there is no target date to achieve 'AAA'.
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The Department regards achieving 'AA' throughout our websites as a benchmark. All of the DfT family of sites fulfil at least some of the criteria needed for 'AAA' rating.
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many requests for information have been received other than from the police and local authorities under Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 (SI2002/2742) citing reasonable cause in each month since the regulations came into force; how many were (a) acceded to and (b) refused in each month; if he will list the private companies who secured information in this way; and what the total financial receipts obtained by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency from this process have been. [31879]
Dr. Ladyman: The following figures represent the number of requests accepted monthly under the 'reasonable cause' provisions since 2002 are:
| Month | Number |
|---|---|
| April | 75,641 |
| May | 76,890 |
| June | 60,349 |
| July | 77,963 |
| August | 65,530 |
| September | 73,498 |
| October | 77,836 |
| November | 74,323 |
| December | 56,357 |
| January | 80,331 |
| February | 71,895 |
| March | 77,772 |
| Month | Number |
|---|---|
| April | 71,757 |
| May | 71,100 |
| June | 71,537 |
| July | 79,375 |
| August | 66,316 |
| September | 74,859 |
| October | 79,440 |
| November | 70,721 |
| December | 67,043 |
| January | 74,317 |
| February | 76,663 |
| March | 86,535 |
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| Month | Number |
|---|---|
| April | 77,051 |
| May | 73,464 |
| June | 84,318 |
| July | 78,633 |
| August | 76,032 |
| September | 80,289 |
| October | 79,138 |
| November | 86,984 |
| December | 71,524 |
| January | 85,196 |
| February | 78,318 |
| March | 89,613 |
| Month | Number |
|---|---|
| April | 82,889 |
| May | 85,117 |
| June | 88,589 |
| July | 93,659 |
| August | 85,997 |
| September | 100,548 |
| October | 84,882 |
The number of requests refused is not available.
A list of all the private companies that secure information this way is not available. Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis. However, a list of private car parking enforcement is available. A list has been placed in the Libraries of the House.
Revenue collected for all requests handled since 2002 is around £9 million.
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the national performance targets are for Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) offices and test centres; and what the performance of DVLA offices and test centres in Devon and Cornwall has been against those targets. [32058]
Dr. Ladyman: The following table shows the performance of the Exeter and Truro offices against the relevant internal targets for the current financial year.
(63)Figures are recorded as year to date only due to the low numbers received.
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