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3 May 2006 : Column 1677W—continued

Capita

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what estimate he has made of the number of contracts Capita has with local government organisations. [66307]

Mr. Woolas: The information requested is not held centrally.

Departmental Staff Survey

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to the answer of 10 March 2006, Official Report, column 1834W, on the departmental staff survey, when he will place in the Library a copy of the narrative report. [66313]

Jim Fitzpatrick: Eight paper copies of the report were sent to the deposited papers clerk, at the House of Commons Library on the 28 March 2006.

Domestic House Sales

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what estimate the Government has made of the number of domestic properties placed on the market for sale in England in each year since 1997. [66387]

Yvette Cooper: Information on the number of domestic properties placed on the market for sale is not collected centrally. However information on the number of properties so!4 since 1996 is available from the Land Registry and published on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister website at:

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/pub/162/Table588Excel87Kb_ id1156162.xls

Equal Pay

Dr. Cable: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what steps are undertaken within his Department to ensure that women are obtaining equal pay to men doing work of equal value. [65838]

Jim Fitzpatrick: It is our practice to equality proof annual pay awards and key inputs to pay awards.
 
3 May 2006 : Column 1678W
 

Free Bus Travel

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will take steps to ensure that the money allocated to local authorities to cover the cost of the free bus travel policy announced in the Budget is spent solely for that purpose. [66846]

Mr. Woolas: Government funding for the cost of free bus travel, as for many other services provided by local authorities, is distributed through the unhypothecated formula grant. This enables councils to take their own decisions on local funding priorities, accountable to local people. The Government are considering the implementation of the national scheme for free bus travel, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the whole issue of the efficiency and effectiveness of current arrangements for bus travel, in the context of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007.

Home Inspection Packs

Mr. Drew: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the timetable is for the introduction of home inspection packs. [63180]

Yvette Cooper: Home information packs will be introduced on 1 June 2007.

Housing (Lettings and Allocations)

Andrew Stunell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of choice-based housing lettings policy by local authorities; if he will provide additional guidance on how councils should determine between housing choice and need in their allocation schemes; and if he will make a statement. [64060]

Yvette Cooper: An independent evaluation of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister-funded choice-based lettings (CBL) pilot scheme was carried out and a report published in May 2004. The evaluation report showed that the pilots were successful in offering increased choice to social housing applicants and that applicants largely welcomed the move to CBL, feeling that it gave them greater choice and control and increased the transparency of the lettings process. Local authorities were also very positive about their experience of CBL. In order to build on the evaluation and assess the longer term impacts of CBL, ODPM has commissioned Heriot Watt University to undertake further research which is currently underway and scheduled to complete by summer 2006.

ODPM is committed to producing statutory guidance to local authorities on choice based lettings. This will include advice on how to frame a CBL scheme which offers applicants a choice of accommodation while continuing to meet the statutory obligation to ensure that priority for social housing goes to those in greater housing need. The guidance will also be issued for consultation later this year.

Local Government Finance

Mr. Kidney: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will enable local authorities to retain the additional income raised from abolishing the council tax discount on empty homes. [66273]

 
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Mr. Woolas: When the Government introduced new powers for local authorities to reduce the council tax discount on long term empty homes in 2003 we concluded that, to ensure that any decision to reduce the discount was made on housing grounds not for financial reasons, the additional resources raised should be distributed nationally. We have no plans to change the current arrangements.

Mr. Kidney: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many local authorities have used the discretionary powers contained in the Local Government Act 2003 to abolish the council tax discount on (a) second homes and (b) empty homes. [66284]

Mr. Woolas: As at 10 October 2005:
 
3 May 2006 : Column 1680W
 

(a) 244 authorities (69 per cent. of billing authorities) were using their discretionary powers to reduce the council tax discount offered to second homes; and,

(b) 186 authorities (53 per cent. of billing authorities) were using their discretionary powers to reduce the council tax discount offered to long term empty homes.

These figures are generated using the CTB1(S) form, which was completed by 353 billing authorities (that is, all authorities with the single exception of Wandsworth, which has therefore been excluded from the figures).

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what funds have been allocated by the Government to each Greater London Borough Council in each of the last eight years. [67030]

Mr. Woolas: The information available is shown in the following table.
Government grant allocated to each greater London borough council from 1998–99 to 2005–06 £000

	1998–99	1999–00	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	2003–04	2004–05	2005–06
City of London	85,052	86,929	88,806	92,503	101,051	116,301	121,278	125,061
Camden	200,121	208,994	218,845	237,742	248,752	266,756	286,979	330,004
Greenwich	207,230	225,508	246,101	264,300	276,789	317,948	338,057	351,270
Hackney	246,385	258,648	272,945	288,231	338,591	371,425	391,775	408,216
Hammersmith and Fulham	148,850	159,107	168,927	180,845	190,898	213,397	223,648	230,169
Islington	201,697	224,987	243,470	257,123	272,635	310,144	313,671	339,010
Kensington and Chelsea	120,870	127,582	136,376	142,022	152,609	175,652	176,988	184,014
Lambeth	266,091	284,441	297,079	315,585	339,190	370,394	387,923	400,164
Lewisham	234,615	249,200	271,900	283,458	293,515	353,362	392,906	375,722
Southwark	252,635	279,265	313,860	326,016	351,218	427,964	457,163	435,418
Tower Hamlets	269,788	289,204	310,219	335,064	359,807	409,164	438,278	470,231
Wandsworth	208,076	218,592	229,475	240,694	248,308	279,577	285,924	294,774
Westminster	205,743	214,927	223,983	234,166	248,985	283,096	288,940	301,905
Barking and Dagenham	136,439	153,355	168,827	181,277	193,347	223,681	223,364	237,538
Barnet	197,653	206,389	222,831	240,316	241,925	268,501	282,047	291,894
Bexley	138,397	150,293	161,768	174,242	183,207	200,136	207,772	217,696
Brent	228,112	237,213	250,397	269,426	276,662	324,396	346,623	351,665
Bromley	158,935	170,679	184,021	198,772	199,956	222,117	231,040	240,993
Croydon	213,961	223,053	243,635	266,718	288,307	321,602	340,776	348,684
Ealing	219,684	231,883	248,310	268,568	277,684	302,347	311,933	330,313
Enfield	202,007	219,856	240,111	264,089	275,061	307,878	323,901	334,760
Haringey	217,479	236,886	270,816	296,350	301,816	336,846	344,869	330,309
Harrow	124,974	131,021	140,587	151,243	160,383	182,826	193,032	197,054
Havering	129,039	137,320	148,095	160,585	166,805	182,496	192,558	200,620
Hillingdon	156,474	173,676	171,976	209,693	214,850	235,171	250,302	275,883
Hounslow	164,042	175,518	185,410	198,506	205,749	224,736	236,326	247,493
Kingston upon Thames	75,483	80,037	86,752	94,245	96,829	109,459	115,155	124,820
Merton	107,148	116,318	123,479	128,796	132,213	147,252	162,299	172,209
Newham	286,302	308,655	335,547	362,671	391,428	447,333	458,173	484,876
Redbridge	167,213	183,073	202,581	219,850	212,881	235,121	250,203	259,094
Richmond upon Thames	75,758	81,937	94,629	100,260	106,081	116,903	118,025	122,849
Sutton	106,006	114,785	124,048	132,822	135,718	154,422	170,483	177,818
Waltham Forest	192,707	210,339	229,063	248,061	263,757	278,861	294,979	295,469

Notes:
1.Government grant is defined here as the sum of specific grants inside Aggregate External Finance, formula grant (revenue support grant, redistributed business rates and police grant) and Greater London Authority (GLA) grant.
2.Changes in grants between years may be affected by changing local authority responsibilities.
3.The information excludes those grant programmes, such as European funding, where authorities are simply one of the recipients of funding paid towards an area.

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