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18 Dec 2007 : Column 1301W—continued
Community Relations: Religion
Mr. Paul Goodman:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the statement of the Prime Minister of 14 November 2007,
Official Report, columns 667-72, on national security, if she will publish the work of the Economic Research Council, Kings College and the Royal Society for Arts on dealing with radicalisation both at home and abroad announced by the Prime Minister. [168397]
Mr. Dhanda: This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband).
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) by what criteria the £45 million available to local authorities to help combat violent extremism announced in her Department's press release of 31 October 2007 will be allocated to local authorities; and how the effectiveness of those grants will be assessed; [173929]
(2) how much of the £45 million available to local authorities to help combat violent extremism announced in her Department's press release of 31 October 2007 will be allocated for (a) each year from 2007-08 to 2010-11 and (b) each type of project; [173930]
(3) how she plans to evaluate the effectiveness of grants from the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder fund. [173969]
Mr. Dhanda: On 31 October 2007, the Secretary of State announced an additional £45 million to go direct to local partnerships for work to prevent violent extremism over the next three years. Eligibility and distribution criteria for the funding are being developed and will be made public in due course.
A public consultation is currently under way on the national indicator set for local government, with indicator number 35 (Building resilience to violent extremism) focused on measuring local authority work on this agenda. These measures will be complemented by the work of the Audit Commission and other inspection bodies through the comprehensive area assessment.
For the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund in 2007-08, reporting against spend will happen twice yearly within the overall statement of grant usage process. Local authorities will also report formally against the delivery of project outcomes twice yearly through the local area agreement review process.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) by what criteria the £25 million for national schemes to support communities in tackling violent extremism announced in her Department's press release of 31 October 2007 will be allocated; and who will allocate it; [173937]
(2) how much of the £25 million for the national scheme to support communities tackling violent extremism announced in her Department's press release on 31 October 2007 will be allocated (a) in each year from 2007-08 to 2010-11 and (b) to each type of project; [173944]
(3) how she plans to assess the effectiveness of the £25 million expenditure on national schemes to support communities in tackling violent extremism announced in her Department's press release of 31 October 2007. [173945]
Mr. Dhanda: In her speech on 31 October 2007 the Secretary of State announced that over £25 million would be invested in national schemes to directly support communities in the comprehensive spending review period 2008-09 to 2010-11. The Department is working with a range of partners to develop detail expenditure plan over the three year period and will make details of the grant funds available in due course.
The £25 million for national projects will be allocated to a range of work which will include:
Equipping faith leaders with the skills and understanding required to lead communities, building their capacity to engage with young people on the challenges they face, including extremism. For example, ensuring imams can communicate more effectively with young people;
Support communities to broaden the provision of citizenship education in mosque schools, equipping young people themselves with the understanding and arguments to reject extremists' messages;
Developing new minimum standards for public institutions (e.g. prisons, universities) engaging imams working with young or vulnerable people;
Supporting the Charity Commission's work to improve governance standards in faith institutions, including mosques;
Increase support and engagement to Muslim women and young people.
Evaluation processes will be developed for each project as an integral part of the planning process.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many local authority forums on tackling extremism and Islamophobia have been held; which local authorities organised them; when each forum met; and who attended each. [173938]
Mr. Dhanda: We are aware of 13 forums on extremism and Islamophobia currently in existence, in:
Blackburn
Bristol
Craven
Derby
Dudley
High Wycombe
Kirklees
Leicester
Pendle
Peterborough
Reading
Redbridge
Swansea
Forums are community lead and community run, though the local authorities play an important role in forums.
Because these forums are locally run (and in most cases directly funded by the local authority) Communities and Local Government do not keep details of those who attended or the dates of all meetings.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the progress made by the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board in the five core areas highlighted in the Preventing Violent Extremism report. [173939]
Mr. Dhanda: The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) steering group launched its draft constitution and set of core standards for consultation on the 29 November 2007. The document includes standards related to the five core areas set out in the Preventing Violent Extremism Action Plan: the accreditation of imams; the development of leadership skills for imams and mosque officials; progress in the inclusion of young people and women; improvement in the governance of mosques and; supporting mosques to contribute to the community cohesion and to tackling extremism. The consultation will last until mid-January 2008. MINAB is expecting to publish a revised document in spring 2008 and will continue to support mosques to meet the core standards.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) how she plans to distribute the £250,000 per annum aimed at helping young people to tackle violent extremism announced in her speech to the Preventing Extremism Conference on 31 October; and how the effectiveness of this funding will be assessed; [173953]
(2) when she plans to host the youth conference on tackling extremism mentioned in her speech of 31 October to the Preventing Extremism Conference; and whom she plans to invite to the conference. [173954]
Mr. Dhanda: In her speech on 31 October 2007 the Secretary of State announced that she would provide at least £250,000 a year for the next three years to support projects which will benefit young people, and highlighted the importance of enabling young people to inform and drive this work. The Secretary of State has already identified a range of possible priorities for this funding including: peer mentoring; youth support networks; leadership programmes; arts and culture; and media and sport. We will open discussions with youth organisations and young people in order to involve them in developing funding priorities and processes which reflect their perceptions of the issue of violent extremism. Processes to assess the effectiveness of the funding will be developed as part of the work to develop funding plans and specific proposals.
Plans for the youth conference are being taken forward in partnership with DCSF and other Government Departments. The date and invitation lists for the conference have not yet been finalised.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what progress has been made in the development of the new fully-accredited Continuous Professional Development Programme for Faith Leaders referred to in the Preventing Violent Extremism report. [173957]
Mr. Dhanda: The Continuous Professional Development Programme for Faith Leaders is in its pilot stage, with three pilots already launched and a further two sites expected to launch in early 2008.
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how she plans to evaluate the effectiveness of expenditure under the Preventing Violent Extremism Community Leadership Fund. [173971]
Mr. Dhanda: Each piece of work funded by the Preventing Violent Extremism: Community Leadership Fund is assessed individually according to the proposed measures for effectiveness of the specific activities and objectives of each project.
Council Housing: Finance
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the national level of housing revenue account subsidy was in each year since 1990; and what it is projected to be in each of the next 15 years, using the same assumptions which have been made for the housing revenue account pilot opt-outs. [165558]
Mr. Iain Wright: A table showing the national level of Housing Revenue Account (HRA) subsidy from 1995-96 to 2005-06 (the last year for which audited data is available) is as follows.
The table shows the value of the ‘bricks and mortar’ element of HRA subsidy. Prior to 2004-05, HRA subsidy also contained a rent rebate element. This is omitted from the table to ensure consistency with post 2004-05 data. Prior to 2004-05, surpluses in the ‘bricks and mortar’ element were applied to the cost of rent rebates for local authorities.
| HRA subsidy (£) | |
Pre 1995-96 data is available only at disproportionate cost.
As part of the self financing modelling exercise some broad forecasts of future HRA subsidy entitlement were generated at a national level. These forecasts were based upon a number of assumptions about factors such as the number of dwellings in the HRA subsidy system, interest rates and rates of inflation. The forecasts are highly sensitive to changes in any of these assumptions. It is based upon the 2007-08 HRA subsidy system.
The forecast subsidies generated were as follows:
| HRA subsidy (£ million) | |
Council Housing: Property Transfer
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many council-owned properties were transferred to housing associations via stock transfer in England in each year since 1997-98. [171529]
Mr. Iain Wright: The following table shows how many dwellings have been transferred to registered social landlords via stock transfer from 1997-98 to date.
| Dwellings Transferred to Registered Social Landlords via LSVT since 1997-98 | |
| Number | |
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