John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what information his Department has on reports that six UN Development Programme staff in Burma have been involved in corruption. [155590]
Mr. Malik: UN Development Programme (UNDP) has recently taken disciplinary action against four UNDP staff in Burma for unsatisfactory performance or for inappropriate use of project resources, totalling about £125.
Mr. Letwin: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what accounts directions were issued by his Department in financial years (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07. [156649]
Mr. Douglas Alexander: HM Treasury issue accounts directions to Departments, pension schemes and agencies (under the Government Resource and Accounts Act 2000) and to trading funds (under the Government Trading Fund Act 1973).
For the years 2005-06 and 2006-07 the Department for International Development did not issue any accounts directions for the form and content of resource and other accounts to any of the Department's sponsored bodies.
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development which private consultancy firms (a) his Department and (b) agencies which report to his Department engaged in each of the last three years; which programmes or projects each firm worked on; and what the approximate cost to the Department or agency concerned was of each engagement. [155873]
Mr. Douglas Alexander: The information requested is available on the DFID website http://www.dfid.gov.uk/procurement/contractslet.asp for the calendar years 2005, 2006 and up to and including September 2007. Providing the same level of information for 2004 would incur disproportionate cost. The information on our website does not include low value contracts issued by DFIDs overseas offices and would also incur disproportionate cost to compile.
Mr. Letwin: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will break down in (a) near cash and (b) non-cash terms columns 1 to 8 of the subhead detail tables for his Department contained in the (i) main estimate, (ii) winter supplementary estimate and (iii) spring supplementary estimate for financial years 2001-02 to 2007-08. [155998]
Mr. Douglas Alexander: The information in the Part II: Subhead detail table of our Supply Estimates is not broken down by near-cash/non-cash. There are no other published documents that provide a near-cash/non-cash breakdown of this data, though the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) publication (copies of which are in the House Library) provides a useful near-cash/non-cash DEL split (see Tables 1.6, 1.7 and 2.1 of PESA 2007 for data for years 2001-02 to 2007-08).
Data taken from Supply Estimates is not necessarily readily compatible with a near-cash/non-cash split, which is used only within the Departmental Expenditure Limit budgetary controls applied by HM Treasury. Providing a near-cash/non-cash split against the columns in the Part II: Subhead detail table in our Estimate would only be possible at disproportionate cost. The ability of Departments to provide such a split will depend partly on the extent of reconciliations between voted provision and budgetary limits.
James Duddridge: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many applications he received for the Governance and Transparency Fund; and whether he plans to publish a list of (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful applications. [156068]
Mr. Malik: The deadline for proposals to the Governance and Transparency Fund (GTF) was midnight on 28 September 2007. We received 265 proposals by this deadline.
We aim to make final funding decisions in December 2007. In accordance with normal practice for our central funding schemes, we will post a full list of successful proposals on the DFID website once all applicants have been informed of the decisions. The question of whether or not to publish the names of unsuccessful applicants, bearing in mind the need to balance respect for confidentiality with a desire to be as open as possible, raises a number of issues; we are currently considering these.
Mr. Letwin: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what his Department's (a) administrative expenditure, (b) other current expenditure, (c) grant expenditure, (d) operating appropriations in aid (A in A), (e) capital and (f) non-operating A in A outturn, broken down in (i) near cash and (ii) non-cash terms, was for financial years 2001-02 to 2006-07. [155997]
Mr. Douglas Alexander: The Part II: Subhead detail table in Main Estimates for each year provide outturn data for one prior year, but these are only broken down to net total resources for each section in the table.
There are no other published documents that provide a near-cash/non-cash breakdown of these data, though the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) publication (copies of which are in the House Library) provides a useful near-cash/non-cash DEL split (see Tables 1.6, 1.7 and 2.1 of PESA 2007 for data for years 2001-02 to 2007-08). However, we have been able to provide a near-cash/non-cash split against the columns in the Part II: Subhead detail table in our Estimate by identifying non-cash items (cost of capital charges,
depreciation, new/adjusted provisions, notional audit fees and other notional charges, losses on disposal of fixed assets) shown in the notes to our Resource Accounts. All other items are near cash. The Resource Accounts do not split non-cash items between Other current expenditure and Grants, therefore all non-cash programme items have been allocated to Other Current Expenditure in the following table.
Data taken from Supply Estimates or resource accounts are not necessarily readily compatible with a near-cash/non-cash split, which is used only within the Departmental Expenditure Limit budgetary controls applied by HM Treasury.
£000 | |||||||
Administrative expenditure | Other current expenditure | Grant expenditure | Operating A in A | Capital | Non-operating A in A | ||
Lyn Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what assistance his Department is providing to aid the development of water operator partnerships; [156342]
(2) what assessment he has made of the potential value of water operator partnerships. [156343]
Mr. Thomas: DFID officials have been in discussion with NGOs such as Oxfam, WDM, WaterAid and others for over a year about more effective ways to support public utilities. We recognise that promoting partnerships is an opportunity to help water utilities identify what works, build their capacity and support them to deliver better services to poor people.
In April of this year, DFID funded regional workshops in Asia and Africa. Working with utility managers, these explored the possibilities of establishing regional partnershipsand examined the support they might need. We have also agreed to fund work to share the lessons from public water utilities about what has worked best in individual countries and we will look to see what can be learnt from partnerships between utilities.
John Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what assessment he has made of the effect of retail price competition through the application of regulation in broadband on the range and price of services available to consumers; and what assessment he has made of the merits of applying similar openness of access to the market for premium content and pay TV. [155936]
Mr. Timms: The matter raised is the responsibility of the independent regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which is accountable to Parliament rather than Minister. Accordingly, I have asked the chief executive of Ofcom to reply directly to the hon. Member. Copies of the chief executives letter will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform if he will review the takeover code in the light of the instability at Northern Rock. [156044]
Mr. Timms: The takeover code is issued and administered by the takeover panel, which operates independently from Government. Changes to the code, if considered necessary, would be made by the panel. The code ensures that shareholders interests are protected during the course of a takeover bid.
Mr. Jenkins:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many
and what proportion of staff in his Department and its predecessor took early retirement in the last five years, broken down by grade; and at what cost. [148742]
Mr. Thomas: A total of 473 staff in the former Department of Trade and Industry took early retirement at age over 50 from April 2002 to March 2007 at a total cost of £15.34 million, broken down as follows:
Number of early retirements | Cost of lump sums (£) | Proportion of depart staff including UKTI (percentage) | |
A breakdown of the grade for this number of staff could only be established at a disproportionate cost.
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