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7 Nov 2006 : Column 1105W—continued
DFID has not made any assessment of school attendance rates as we do not provide direct assistance to the education sector, with the exception of very limited support (£47,000) for primary education of refugees in 2001-02. Our support to the education sector has been channelled through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). This plays a big part in meeting the recurrent costs such as wages and salaries of teachers and school materials. ARTF resources cover over 90 per cent. of the Ministry of Education’s wage bill and teachers’ salaries represent almost 40 per cent. of ARTF recurrent expenditures. DFID funds a third of these expenditures.
Other donors have taken the lead in providing direct support to the education sector, including the World Bank, USAID and United Nations Agencies. The UK is therefore also supporting the education sector through its contributions to multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and UN.
Departmental Secondments
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many BP employees are on secondment to his Department; what areas they are working on; on what terms; and how many BP employees have been on secondment to his Department in each year since January 2002. [99210]
Mr. Thomas: No BP employees have been on secondment to DFID.
Ethiopia
Mr. Andy Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assistance the UK is giving the Ethiopian Government to help tackle corruption and promote good governance. [99913]
Hilary Benn: DFID and a number of other donors are contributing to the Public Sector Capacity Building Programme in Ethiopia, which aims to improve the Government’s capacity to implement its policies and deliver effective services to the poor. DFID’s contribution is £25 million over five years. An important part of this programme is designed to deliver more effective and efficient public financial management, including procurement, audit, transparency and accountability mechanisms.
The Protection of Basic Services grant, which DFID helped to design and through which we began channelling assistance earlier this year, supports new initiatives for improving the accountability of Government and local officials to local communities for the delivery of basic services and to improve Public Financial Management.
DFID also made a commitment in our White Paper, published in July this year, to conduct quality of governance assessments in partner countries, and we intend to do so in Ethiopia. The assessment will help us to identify how our programmes for promoting better governance might be strengthened.
IT Projects
Mr. Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development which non-web-related information technology projects cost his Department more than £500,000 since 2001; how many qualified tender proposals there were for each project; and which company was awarded each contract. [98599]
Hilary Benn: DFID has awarded the following contracts for IT projects costing more than £500,000 since 2001:
| Project | Description | Qualified tenders | Awarded to: |
All three projects were for systems which are primarily aimed at efficient internal administration within DFID. However QUEST and ARIES have small components which deliver web-facing solutions. These components are fully integrated into the systems which were delivered in the contracts.
Mr. Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much his Department has spent on (a) equipment and (b) consultants for (i) information technology and (ii) web-facing information technology projects in each year since 2001. [98601]
Hilary Benn: The following spend has been made in each financial year since 2001:
| £ | ||
| Equipment | Consultants | |
The figures for consultants include contractors engaged for implementation work on new IT systems. DFID does not keep separate records of the cost of IT consultants engaged in an advisory capacity.
The figures for equipment cover hardware purchased for major IT projects. They do not include small routine equipment purchases and computer consumables.
DFID’s IT projects in this period have been primarily aimed at efficient internal administration. However some projects have small components which deliver web-facing solutions. These components are fully integrated into the systems and it is not possible to separate out their costs.
The high figure for consultants in 2005-06 arises because it includes the costs for the implementation contractors engaged following competitive tender for the QUEST Electronic Document and Records Management system and the ARIES finance, procurement and reporting system.
Mr. Prisk: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what his Department’s five most expensive (a) web and (b) non-web information technology projects have been since 2001. [98919]
Hilary Benn: The five most expensive IT projects undertaken by DFID since 2001 have been:
QUEST Electronic Document and Records Management system
ARIES Finance, Procurement and Reporting system
ASSIST2000 Desktop installation
Human Resource system
CARIS Desktop refresh
All five projects were for systems which are primarily aimed at efficient internal administration within DFID. However QUEST and ARIES have small components which deliver web-facing solutions. These components are fully integrated into the systems and it is not possible to separate out their costs.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what monitoring and evaluation system is used to measure the effectiveness and impact of his Department’s overseas development aid. [99938]
Hilary Benn: DFID has a comprehensive database system containing data on all projects and programmes that have been approved and have spent funds since 1 April 1992.
We assess the performance of all our projects and programmes of £1 million or more on an annual basis and on completion. Each project/programme is scored using a five-point scale, which assesses the degree to which it meets its objectives.
Reviews may be undertaken by the project/programme team, by external consultants or in conjunction with other donors, partner governments or other external stakeholders. All reviews are scrutinised by Heads of Office or Department. A sample is reviewed in depth by our Internal Audit and Evaluation Departments when undertaking country programme audits and studies. Our Corporate Strategy Group undertakes ad hoc spot checks on compliance in project and programme reviews, and commissions external assessments of samples of reviews where appropriate.
As well as country programme evaluations, the work of the Evaluation Department (EvD) includes a series of independent studies which measure effectiveness and impact across a range of sectors relevant to DFID’s current agenda, from HIV/AIDS to Budget Support, from Anti-Corruption to Gender Equality. EvD studies are carried out by external professional evaluation experts who are free to produce objective and challenging reports for both accountability and lesson-learning purposes.
Work and Pensions
Benefits
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many residents of Islington, North constituency are in receipt of (a) income support and (b) jobseeker’s allowance; how many are (i) under 18, (ii) between 18 and 25 and (iii) over 25 years old; and what the equivalent figures were for each of the last four financial years. [99834]
Mr. Plaskitt: The available information is in the following tables.
| Jobseeker’s allowance claimants in the Islington, North parliamentary constituency as at February each year, and by age group. | ||||
| All | Under 18 | 18-25 | 26 and over | |
Jeremy Corbyn:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many residents of Islington, North constituency are in receipt of (a) tax credits, (b) child tax credits, (c) state pension and (d) pension
credit; and what the equivalent figures were in each of the last four financial years. [99835]
James Purnell: Estimates for tax credits and child tax credits are provided by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Their estimates for 2003-04 and 2004-05 of the numbers of in-work families with tax credits awards, by constituency, based on final family circumstances and incomes for 2003-04 and 2004-05 are published in “Child and Working Tax Credits. Finalised Awards 2003-04 Geographical Analysis” and the “Child and Working Tax Credits. Finalised Awards 2004-05 Geographical Analysis”. These publications and provisional estimates for the number of in-work families by constituency with tax credit awards as at selected dates in 2005-06 are available on the HMRC website at:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cwtc-geog-stats.htm.
| Pension credit recipients( 1) , individual beneficiaries and state pensions recipients as at February each year from 2003-06, Islington, North parliamentary constituency | |||
| Thousands | |||
| Pension credit total claimants | Pension credit total individual beneficiaries | State pension recipients | |
| Notes: 1. Figures are taken from the WPLS 100 per cent. data. 2. Caseloads are rounded to the nearest ten and expressed in thousands. Totals may not sum due to rounding. 3. Parliamentary constituencies are assigned by matching postcodes against the relevant postcode directory. 4. Pension credit claimants are those people who claim pension credit either on behalf of themselves only or on behalf of a household. This number is equal to the number of households in receipt of pension credit. 5. Pension credit individual beneficiary figures count total number of individuals in benefit units where pension credit is in payment. Therefore, each couple benefit unit is counted as two individual beneficiaries. 6. Pension credit was introduced in October 2003. Source: JDWP Information Directorate: Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study. | |||
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