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9 Feb 2006 : Column 1419W—continued

Departmental Expenditure

Pete Wishart: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what has been the annual expenditure on vehicles for (a) his Department and (b) each (i) non-departmental public body, (ii) executive agency and (iii) other public body for which he is responsible in (A) Scotland, (B) Wales, (C) each of the English regions and (D) Northern Ireland in each of the last three financial years; and what the planned expenditure is for 2005–06. [39982]

Mr. Woolas: Expenditure on vehicles purchased for ODPM and bodies where information is available is as follows. No vehicles are provided by the ODPM in Northern Ireland or Scotland. The Department also supports specialist vehicles engaged in the transportation of resilience equipment in England and Wales and these figures are shown in the total. The Department does not maintain a record of expenditure broken down by region.

				£ million
	2002–03	2003–04	2004–05	(19)2005–06
ODPM England	6.9	8.245	8.17	5.642
Agencies	0	0.441	0.030	0.848
Other bodies	0.596	0.659	0.672	0.751
Total	7.496	8.904	8.842	6.092

⁽¹⁹⁾ To date

Departmental Groups

Mr. Weir: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many staff work in his Department's Regional Development Group; how many are based in (a) London and (b) each region and what the total salary costs were of the group in each area in the last year for which figures are available. [48834]

 
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Jim Fitzpatrick: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has 120.94 staff on full-time equivalent (FTE) basis working in the Regional Development Group, of these 102.27 (FTE) staff are based in London. The total salary costs for the 2005–06 financial year currently stands at £3.782 million.

The above figures are as at 2 February 2006.

The ODPM does not hold data regarding the regions; such a breakdown could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Pete Wishart: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many staff work in his Department's (a) Ministerial Group, (b) Legal Directorate and (c) Tackling Disadvantage Group; how many in each category are based in (i) London and (ii) each region; and what the total salary costs were of each group in each area in the last year for which figures are available. [48852]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The information requested is tabled as follows:

	Total (FTE)	London based (FTE)	Total salary costs 2005–06 (million)
Ministerial Group	61.94	61.94	3.187
Legal Directorate	61.93	61.93	3.231
Tackling Disadvantage Group	228.76	221.26	8.756

Note:
The figures are as at 2 February 2006.
Source:
ODPM (Central) Finance and HR IS.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not hold data regarding the regions; such a breakdown could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Departmental IT Systems

Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much his Department has spent on IT systems in each year since 1997; what the purpose of each system is; what the outturn against planned expenditure of each system was; and what the (a) planned and (b) actual date of completion was of each system. [41311]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was established in May 2002. For IT projects completed between May 2002 and 2004 I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) on 19 January 2005, Official Report, column 998–99W. The following tables identify the IT systems completed since that date.
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister HQ 2005

System	Purpose	Planned expenditure (£000)	Outturn (£000)	Planned time	Outturn time
The Supporting People Directory Services	To provide information about the housing-related support services available across England, including their referral route details	1,622	1,763	January 2005	August 2005
Planning Portal Upgrade	To provide a one-stop-shop for the planning system in England and Wales, with the aim of improving the planning system and adding value to the related services. In 2004–05 the project upgraded the hardware and software of the Planning Portal to reflect growing demand and usage	1,441	1,441	February 2005	February 2005
Thames Gateway Programme Management	Effective management of the Thames Gateway programme, with the purpose of: Providing timely and up to date information on programmes and projects: Being better able to challenge delivery partnership performance and financial management: Enabling more efficient working practices and less dependence on ad-hoc requests	557	549	August 2005	September 2005
Total (£ million)	—	3.62	3.75	—	—

 
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Government offices in the regions

System	Purpose of each system	Planned expenditure (£000)	Outturn (£000)	Planned time	Outturn time
Web Rationalisation Project	Delivery of unified government office websites based upon a common look, feel, navigation and content housed on central resilient architecture which also allows authoring of content to be devolved to those responsible for its production and maintenance	1,500	1,500	March 2005	Completed in June 2005 due to suspension of information activities during the general election.
Human Resources Database	Delivery of unified cross Government office HR database	355	355	March 2005	March 2005
Government Office Contacts database	Delivery of a cross Government office database to record and manage all external contacts.	300	300	March 2005	March 2005
Online Performance Management System	Delivery of a single on- line Business and Resource Planning and Reporting system enabling Government offices to plan manage and report on their performance against PSAs and GO high level priorities, and which supports raised performance across the network	95	95	March 2005	March 2005
GOGIS1	Implementation of first stage of a Graphical Information System throughout the Government offices to allow geospatial data sharing and presentation	20	20	May 2002	May 2002
GOGIS2	Second stage of the above.	50	50	April 2003	October 2003
Total (£ million)	—	2.32	2.32	—	—

Disabled Facilities Grants

Mr. Hunt: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how long it has taken on average to approve an application for the disabled facilities grant in each year since 1997. [49791]

Yvette Cooper: The information requested is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Local authorities are responsible for administering their disabled facilities grant schemes and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not request this information from them. A good practice guidance—Delivering Housing Adaptations for Disabled People—has been issued to the local authorities on indicative time targets for assessments. The targets depend on the complexity and urgency of the case, from 65 working days/three months up to 179 working days/nine months.

Fire Service

Jeremy Wright: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many employees of the fire service on long-term sick leave are claiming incapacity benefit. [49988]

Jim Fitzpatrick: The information requested is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
 
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Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what steps he plans to take to encourage fire authorities to retain firefighters in an administrative role who are forced to retire from front-line duties due to ill health. [49765]

Jim Fitzpatrick: Fire and rescue authorities, as employers, are responsible for issues relating to the redeployment of firefighters in their employ who are no longer able to undertake operational duties due to ill health. Formerly such employees normally took medical retirement, but in September 2004, in order to enable and encourage fire and rescue authorities to consider such redeployment, amendments to the firefighters' pension scheme were made to allow regular firefighters to remain in active employment of fire and rescue authorities performing duties appropriate to the role of a firefighter other than, or in addition to, engaging in firefighting.

In addition The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 extended the functions of fire and rescue authorities to include fire safety, consequently giving wider scope for the employment of staff with experience of firefighting on other role-related duties.
 
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