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2 Nov 2006 : Column 618W—continued
Minister for Women
Community Facilities
David Taylor: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what assessment she has made of the extent to which there is a need for young women to access female-only community facilities. [97159]
Meg Munn [holding answer 26 October 2006]: There has been no formal assessment of the need for young women to access female-only community facilities.
Communities and Local Government
Community Cohesion
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will place in the Library copies of the minutes of the meeting she had with local authorities on 16 October on community cohesion; and if she will make a statement. [97359]
Meg Munn: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, met chief executives of local authorities from across the country as well as police and Government office representatives in central London on 16 October. The purpose of this private meeting was to discuss how the Department for Communities and Local Government can work with these stakeholders to tackle extremism and no formal minute was taken.
Connect to Your Council Campaign
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the cost was of the “Connect to Your Council” campaign; and what assessment she has made of the effect of the campaign on demand for online services. [95891]
Angela E. Smith: The “Connect to your Council” Take-Up campaign was launched in England in May 2006 with a £3.4 million media budget. Market research commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) from Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) shows that 21 per cent. of respondents who were able to recall the advertising declared that they had already visited their council website as a result of the “Connect to your Council” campaign. This translates into 1.3 million visits to the campaign home page and other local government pages of the Directgov website during the first burst of advertising between May to July 2006, with an increase of 88 per cent. in people accessing council websites from one in 11 of the adult population in England pre-campaign to one in six post campaign. Copies of the Central Office of Information (COI) evaluation report on the impact of the first burst of the campaign are available from the DCLG website.
Council Tax
Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what her most recent estimate is of the amount of council tax paid by members of the armed forces serving overseas. [98872]
Mr. Woolas: My Department has made no estimate made of the amount of council tax paid by members of the armed forces serving overseas.
Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will make it her policy to exempt members of the armed forces from council tax while they are posted overseas. [99116]
Mr. Woolas: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced to the House on 11 October 2006, Official Report, column 298, my Department is discussing with the Ministry of Defence how best to provide support for the council tax costs of service personnel on operations abroad.
Departmental IT
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which of her Department's databases are (a) wholly and (b) partly operated by external organisations or individuals; and which organisations and individuals own those databases. [97751]
Angela E. Smith: Most of the Department’s databases, including those associated with Websites, receive varying degrees of externally provided support in respect of hardware, software and data. A detailed breakdown of these support regimes is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
The ownership of the data stored on these databases resides either with the Department or with third-party data suppliers, under commercial agreements.
Empty Dwellings
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many abandoned homes there are in each local authority area in England. [96364]
Yvette Cooper: Information is not held centrally on the number of abandoned homes and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Energy Surveyors
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many accredited Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure energy surveyors there are. [78342]
Yvette Cooper:
There are many thousands of people with relevant skills and experience who should be able
to qualify quickly as domestic energy assessors once the stand-alone qualification for domestic energy assessors is available early next year and RdSAP software packages have been approved. These are in addition to home inspectors who are already qualified or in training.
Fire Stations
Nick Herbert: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) retained and (b) non-retained fire stations are fitted with smoke alarms. [99581]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested is not held centrally.
Household Numbers
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the factors underlying the change in the number of households since 1990-91. [97030]
Yvette Cooper: An analysis of the components of growth in household numbers between 1991 and 2003 is listed as follows. Household growth has been split into the four principal factors generating additional households.
(a) the projected growth of the total adult private household population;
(b) the change in the age structure of the population;
(c) changes in the marital status of the population, including proportions cohabiting, as well as legal marital status; and
(d) changes in household formation rates specific for age, sex, legal marital status and cohabitation.
The figures include a “remainder” which shows the change due to interaction between the components, for instance, the combined effect of increasing population and changes in the age distribution.
| Components of household growth: England: 1991 to 2003 | |
| Percentage | |
Housing
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what percentage of building on brownfield sites took place on residential land in (a) Bournemouth and (b) Dorset in each of the last five years. [86325]
Yvette Cooper: The information available is from the Department’s land use change statistics.
Estimated proportions are shown in the following table:
| Percentage | ||||||
| Bournemouth | Dorset | |||||
| New dwellings on previously residential land as a proportion of all dwellings | Proportion of new dwellings on Greenfield land | Proportion of new dwellings on Brownfield land | New dwellings on previously residential land as a proportion of all dwellings | Proportion of new dwellings on Greenfield land | Proportion of new dwellings on Brownfield land | |
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