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18 Dec 2007 : Column 1259W—continued
Children’s Centres: Midwives
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children's centres make facilities available to midwives working in the community. [174233]
Beverley Hughes: All Sure Start children's centres should link to maternity services. The Government's Practice Guidance (2006) for local authorities and the health service says that in the most disadvantaged areas we expect to see midwives working from Sure Start children's centres, or having strong links with centres.
We do not collect information at national level on the nature and extent of services provided in every Sure Start children's centre. We have, however, asked our delivery contractors, Together for Children (TfC), to ensure that local authorities and local health partners are working together to plan and deliver children's centre services. TfC are also collecting evidence of good practice to share and disseminate with local authorities and the health service.
Children’s Centres: Standards
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what progress has been made towards the target for a children's centre in each community by 2010. [174432]
Beverley Hughes: As of 13 December there are 1,789 designated Sure Start Children's Centres. The Government are on track to meet its commitment to deliver a Sure Start Children's Centre for every community in England by 2010, offering integrated services that will improve outcomes for young children, and reduce inequalities between the most disadvantaged and the rest.
Children’s Review: Public Participation
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many submissions have been made online to the Children’s Review. [173192]
Kevin Brennan: Details of responses received on line to the ‘Time to talk’ consultation can be found in the ‘Time to Talk Consultation Report Summary’. The full report is available on the DCSF website. The relevant extract from the report shows:
| Response rates | ||
| Method | Number of responses from adults | Number of responses from children/young people |
Climate Change
Rob Marris: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps his Department (a) has taken and (b) intends to take by (i) 2012 and (ii) 2020 in relation to adaptation to the effects of climate change as they affect his departmental responsibilities; and if he will make a statement. [166422]
Kevin Brennan [holding answer 6 December 2007]: The steps the Department has taken and intends to take are set out in the Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP), ‘Learning for the Future’, covering 2006-08. We recently submitted a progress report on this to the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the Government’s independent watch dog on Sustainable development.
SDC will be shortly be publishing their analysis of the progress of Government Departments.
We are currently working on the content of a new SDAP that will cover 2008-10. This will incorporate the Government’s overall intentions as laid out in the recent Climate Change Bill and the cross-Government Adaptation Policy Framework to be published in the spring.
Subsequent SDAPs are likely to continue to reflect the work of the Department in addressing the effects of climate change on children, schools and families.
Departmental Marketing
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will place in the Library a copy of the guidelines issued to staff maintaining his Department's and its agencies' corporate identities; and what the estimated annual cost is of (a) producing and (b) complying with such guidelines. [170239]
Kevin Brennan: We do not produce hard copies of our brand guidelines, but will have one copy printed for the Library, as requested.
(a) This year we spent £4,876 on revising existing brand guidelines when the Department for Children, Schools and Families was created.
(b) Complying with our brand guidelines incurs no additional cost. They have been designed to minimise costs, as we require no special inks, papers or formats.
We do not hold information centrally on agencies' costs.
Departmental Publicity
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department, its predecessors and its agencies spent on managing their corporate identities in the last 12 month period for which figures are available. [167353]
Kevin Brennan: The costs for producing branded material when the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) was created were:
£14,215 for the design, production and installation of signs (to date).
£900 to recycle out-of-date stationery stock; electronic headed paper, at no cost, was used until the next scheduled production run of printed stationery.
A further £3472 of expenditure was incurred recently to replace the Department's signage at our Moorfoot site in Sheffield. However, these costs were primarily related to replacement of dilapidated signage.
This year we spent £4,876 on revising existing Department for Education and Skills brand guidelines when DCSF was created.
We do not hold information centrally on agencies' costs.
Departmental Standards
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families for what targets his Department has sole or joint responsibility; what assessment he has made in each case of whether the target is being met; and if he will make a statement. [172096]
Kevin Brennan: The Department published its autumn performance report on 7 December 2007 and copies are available in the House Library (Cm 7279). The autumn performance report assesses progress against my Department’s Spending Review 2004 public service agreement (PSA) targets, including our efficiency target and any PSA targets outstanding from earlier Spending Reviews. The 2007 comprehensive spending review announced new PSAs for my Department to lead on, details of which are available on the HM Treasury website at:
Julia Goldsworthy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what information is
collected against the performance management indicators published by the Citizen and Business Contact Centre. [173390]
Kevin Brennan [holding answer 11 December 2007]: The Department’s Public Communications Unit, which responds to public inquiries made by phone, letter and email, has submitted a response to the dry run Citizen and Business Contact Centre Council performance report for July-September 2007. The response is based on those indicators which are relevant to the contact services the Department provides.
National Identity Register
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what plans his Department has to make use of data on the National Identity Register when it is established; and what the estimated annual cost to his Department of that use is. [174028]
Jim Knight: The Department for Children, Schools and Families has no current plans to make use of data on the National Identity Register when it is established.
Pupil Exclusions
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many permanent exclusions in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools there were in each of the last three years, broken down by school term. [171040]
Kevin Brennan: Information on the number of permanent exclusions broken down by school term is not available. Information is collected retrospectively via school census (SC) returns. Prior to 2005/06, school census returns were made on an annual basis. Since 2005/06, data for secondary schools have been collected termly, primary schools began making termly returns in 2006/07. As this is a new collection, data on numbers of permanent exclusions are subject to checking by local authorities. This is done on an annual basis; data broken down by school term are therefore not yet available
The readily available information on the number of permanent exclusions is given in the table.
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