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22 Jan 2008 : Column 1988W—continued
Departmental Contracts
Jim Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the (a) objective and (b) value was of each contract placed with (i) Deloitte & Touche, (ii) Ernst & Young, (iii) KPMG, (iv) PricewaterhouseCoopers and (v) PA Consulting by his Department and its agencies in each year since 2004-05. [179029]
Jonathan Shaw: From information held centrally the core Department’s expenditure with Deloitte and Touche, Ernst and Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and PA Consulting in each year since 2004-05 is:
| £ | ||||
| 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08( 1) | |
| (1) April to December. | ||||
Information on the nature of this expenditure, and on the nature and value of similar expenditure by DEFRA’s agencies and non-departmental public bodies could be provided only at disproportionate costs.
Departmental Ministerial Policy Advisers
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether any of his Department’s special advisers also work for organisations outside his Department. [178481]
Jonathan Shaw: Special advisers are appointed under terms and conditions set out in the “Model Contract and Code” of “Conduct for Special Advisers”, copies of which are in the Library of the House.
Departmental Public Expenditure
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment he has made of the effects of the change in his Department’s budget following the most recent Comprehensive Spending Review on (a) the agri-environment schemes funded under the Rural Development Programme for England and (b) marine monitoring. [177554]
Jonathan Shaw: Final budget decisions following the comprehensive spending review (CSR) have not yet been made and should be announced soon.
However, the Rural Development Programme for England programme budget will be maintained at £3.9 billion. We will need to profile expenditure over the
seven-year life of the programme to take account of the Department’s budget across the CSR period, but the total amount allocated to the programme over the seven years will not be affected.
Departmental Secondment
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many staff have been seconded to (a) his Department and (b) the Waste Resources Action Programme in the last 12 months; from which outside body; and what the length was of the secondment in each case. [176529]
Jonathan Shaw: 38 staff have been seconded to DEFRA in the 12 months ending on 31 December 2007. This includes all staff whose period of secondment commenced before or within 2007 and ended within 2007 or has not yet ended. Their home organisation and length of secondment are shown in the following table.
| Outside body | Length of secondment (months) |
Two staff have been seconded to WRAP during the last 12 months. The details are in the table as follows:
| Outside body | Length of secondment (months) |
Disclosure of Information: Public Bodies
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what work or research is being undertaken or has been commissioned by his (a) Department and (b) its agencies in relation to the development of XML Schema to facilitate sharing of information between public authorities. [176582]
Jonathan Shaw: When developing new IT systems, DEFRA (through IBM, the service supplier) conforms with Cabinet Office UK GovTalk XML schema standards.
DEFRA has adopted a “Service Oriented Architecture” (SOA) which involves the build up of a library of XML schemas derived from DEFRA’s Common Data Model to control the structured message handling of services. This technical strategy enables data sharing among users of these services which can include internal customers, Other Government Departments, NDPBs, local authorities and industry bodies.
This architecture is being utilised by the DEFRA Agency AnimalHealth in developing IT for its Business Reform Programme and is available to all other DEFRA Agencies.
Dogs
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what estimate he has made of the number of (a) Japanese tosas and (b) cross-bred Japanese tosas in the UK in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement; [177718]
(2) what estimate he has made of the number of (a) pit bull terriers and (b) cross-bred pit bull terriers in the UK in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement; [177719]
(3) what estimate he has made of the number of (a) Dogo Argentinos and (b) cross-bred Dogo Argentinos in the UK in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement; [177720]
(4) what estimate he has made of the number of (a) Fila Brasileiros and (b) cross-bred Fila Brasileiros in the UK in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [177721]
Jonathan Shaw: The number of these dogs for each year is set out in the following table. Cross-breeds are included as they are regarded as ‘types’. These are dogs held legally under the exemption scheme set up under section 1(5) of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. There are no estimates on the number of illegally held dogs.
| Live Dogs | Live Pit Bulls | Live Tosa | Live Dogo Argentina | Live Fila Braziliero | |
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