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2 Dec 2005 : Column 796W—continued
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Colchester Borough Council
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whose complaint gave rise to the decision by the National Audit Office on the Objection to the Accounts for year ended 31 March 2004 of Colchester borough council; what estimate he has made of the costs of investigating this complaint; and to whom the costs will fall. [33995]
Mr. Woolas: This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission. I will ask the chief executive to write to the hon. Member and to ensure the answer is made available in the Library of the House.
Departmental Estate
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what (a) land and (b) property his Department (i) owns and (ii) rents in each constituency; and if he will make a statement. [33259]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The information is as follows:
(a) Land which Office of the Deputy Prime Minister owns and rents, and the constituencies in which it lies, is as follows:
| Land | Constituency | (i) Owned | (ii) Rented |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Grange, Twenty Acre Road, Great Sankey, Warrington | Warrington, South | Yes | — |
| Mast Pond Wharf, Woolwich | Greenwich and Woolwich | Yes | — |
(b) Property which Office of the Deputy Prime Minister owns and rents, and the constituencies in which it lies, is as follows:
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This answer does not include buildings occupied by Government offices, who carry out functions on behalf of 10 Government Departments.
Firelink
Mr. Drew: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what inter-operability will exist at local level between the emergency services following the decision of his Department to contract O2 to undertake the provision of Firelink. [33782]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is committed to procuring a wide area radio system which meets the requirements for inter-operability and resilience of voice communications in line with the 2002 agreement between the chief officers' associations of the fire and rescue service, police and ambulance service. This provides for major incident multi-service inter-operability at strategic and tactical command levels. Both Firelink tenderers have demonstrated the capability to provide multi-service inter-operability.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has announced a preferred bidder, however a final decision has not yet been made about letting the Firelink contract.
Fire Services
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what estimate the Government have made of the number of (a) job losses and (b) redundancies that will result from the abolition of local fire control rooms. [33173]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister estimates that around 1,000 staff (full-time equivalents) will be employed in the new control centres, subject to decisions by the employers. Currently according to figures supplied by Fire and Rescue Authorities 1,435 people are involved in providing control services, not all of whom are full-time. Some of the functions currently carried out by control room staff will remain elsewhere in Fire and Rescue Services. The number of job losses will depend on decisions made by the employers.
It is not possible to say whether there will be redundancies and if so how many. This will depend on a number of factors including how many staff choose to transfer to the new control centres, how many leave existing control rooms or retire before the creation of the new centres, and how many are redeployed.
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he expects each regional fire control centre to be operational; and if he will make a statement. [32661]
Jim Fitzpatrick:
The current FiReControl timetable schedules all regional controls to be rolled out in 2008
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and 2009. A new timetable will be drawn up shortly, when contracts have been awarded for the provision of infrastructure services.
The first three regions (south west, north east and east Midlands) will go live simultaneously and the remainder will become operational in the following order:
Local Government
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government's plans for unitary local government; and whether the Government intend to propose (a) unitary districts and (b) unitary counties. [31787]
Mr. Woolas: We are considering the arguments for changes to the local government structure in county areas. We have no decisions thus far.
Public Service Agreements
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what method he will use to consolidate the data needed to assess 2004 public service agreement target number 1. [29950]
Jim Fitzpatrick: This is very clearly set out in the PSA 1 technical note published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in November 2004, and available on both the ODPM's website and on HM Treasury's website. It sets out the data sources for each of the floor targets that underpin our PSA 1 target and the frequency of data updates.
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister why an 11-year average starting in 1999 is used to measure performance against 2004 public service agreement target number 3. [29952]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The 11-year period was chosen to provide consistency across Government with the time scales for other healthier nation" targets, as set out in the 1999 White Paper Saving lives: Our healthier nation".
Social Services Funding
Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner) of 24 November 2005, Official Report, column 2238W, on social services funding, if he will extend the table to include the relevant data for Wirral local authority. [34139]
Mr. Woolas:
The information is as follows.
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