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26 Mar 2008 : Column 295W—continued
Departmental Internet
Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills if his Department will (a) follow the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) guidelines and (b) display ICRA's label on the websites for which it is responsible. [191773]
Bill Rammell: The Government are committed to safety online for all users, including children. The Central Office for Information is preparing a new set of guidance for many aspects of the Government web estate and we will implement what they mandate.
Departmental Manpower
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills when his Department's whistleblowing procedures were reviewed to reflect the provisions in the revised civil service code. [162458]
Bill Rammell: DIUS have not yet established their own whistleblowing procedures. Ex DfES staff in DIUS raise whistleblowing concerns with DCSF. Ex DTI staff raise concerns with BERR.
Departmental Plants
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much his Department has spent on pot plants since it was established. [192060]
Bill Rammell: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills was created as a result of machinery of government changes in June 2007. Since its establishment the Department has not spent any money on pot plants.
Departmental Public Expenditure
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what changes have been made to his Department's budget since the publication of the comprehensive spending review conclusions on 9th October. [173161]
Bill Rammell: Since the publication of the comprehensive spending review conclusions on 9 October there has been no change in the Department's budget.
Departmental Public Participation
Nick Herbert: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much his Department has spent on (a) citizens' juries, (b) focus groups and (c) other deliberative forms of public opinion research in each month since January 2006. [166588]
Bill Rammell: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills was created at the end of June 2007. Since then, the Department has paid to Sciencewise projects (Sciencewise is a programme funded by the Government to help policy makers find out people's views on emerging areas of science and technology so that they can take these into account when making national policy decisions) the following amounts, broken down by month:
| £ | |
| Month | Spend |
The Department has also held five student juries as preliminary work to the National Student Forum which took place on the following dates and locations:
| Date | Location |
The costs for these juries totalled just over £30,600.
Departmental Publicity
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much (a) has been spent and (b) is planned to be spent on establishing his Department and its corporate identity. [164204]
Bill Rammell: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) was created as a result of Machinery of Government changes in June 2007. The cost of creating the Department and its corporate identity has been met from the existing baseline. From this baseline, a budget of £60,000 was earmarked for the task, of which £33,557 has been spent.
Departmental Recycling
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what weight of paper his Department recycled in each of the last five years. [179455]
Bill Rammell: As the Department was only formed on 28 June 2007 we do not have five years of waste recycling to report on.
Departmental Redundancy
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (1) what the cost was of redundancies in his Department in the 12 months preceding (a) 30 June 2004, (b) 30 June 2005 and (c) 30th June 2006; [175332]
(2) when he will answer Question 175332 on the cost of redundancies in his Department tabled by the hon. Member for Fareham on 13 December 2007. [193352]
Bill Rammell: The Department was created as part of the Machinery of Government changes on 28 June 2007. In the period since it was formed there have been no redundancies affecting employees of the Department.
Departmental Sick Leave
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many staff in his Department (a) were disciplined and (b) had their employment terminated as a result of a poor sickness record in each of the last five years. [163699]
Bill Rammell: The information requested is as follows:
| Staff disciplined | Employment terminated | |
Departmental Temporary Employment
Pete Wishart: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what average hourly rate his Department paid to employment agencies for agency staff in each year since 1999, broken down by employment agency. [187796]
Bill Rammell: It is not possible to provide this information without incurring disproportionate costs of collection. Since the Department was formed by machinery of government changes on 28 June 2007 it has continued to make use of the services of temporary staff from agencies. Preferential rates of pay and terms of engagement have been negotiated with certain selected agencies under an over-arching framework agreement. This procurement process has the purpose of achieving best value for money and is used across Government.
Eurostar
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much his Department has spent on (a) first and (b) other class travel by Eurostar since establishment. [187747]
Bill Rammell: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills was created as a result of Machinery of Government changes in June 2007. Information on travel expenditure to this detail is not collected centrally in the Department. This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, since establishment, the Department has spent £117,940 on rail travel.
Fair Trade Initiative
Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills if he will take steps to promote Fairtrade Fortnight 2008 amongst staff within his Department; and if he will make a statement. [189494]
Bill Rammell: This Department’s accommodation, facilities management, catering and events hospitality are provided on our behalf as a shared service by the Department for Children Schools and Families and the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The answers given by those Departments will therefore cover this Department also.
Foundation Degrees: Admissions
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many people have applied to join foundation degree courses in each year since 2001; and how many such applications were successful in each such year. [194398]
Bill Rammell:
The latest available published figures from UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) are shown in the table. The figures relate to numbers of applications rather than applicants and numbers of accepted applicants to full-time foundation
degree courses and exclude applications to part-time courses and direct to institutions. Each applicant can apply to up to six courses.
| Number of UK and overseas domiciled applications and accepted applicants to foundation degree courses in the UK—years of entry 2002 to 2007 | ||
| Year of entry | Applications( 1) | Accepted applicants |
| n/a = Not available (1) As each applicant may apply to up to six different courses/institutions, these applications figures will be larger than those for applicants. (2) Figures for the number of applications to foundation degree courses in the 2002 year of entry have not been published by UCAS. Source: Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). | ||
Currently, there are almost 71,000 people studying foundation degrees. We are therefore making good progress towards achieving our target participation rate of 100,000 by 2010. We are committed to foundation
degrees as a key vehicle for HE expansion as they are precisely the type of business-facing, demand-led provision which is helping employers to address higher level skill needs.
Higher Education: Admissions
Stephen Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2008, Official Report, column 2434W, on high education: admissions, if he will provide a break down of the information in the Answer by (a) full-time undergraduate students taking a first degree, (b) part-time undergraduate students taking a first degree, (c) full-time undergraduate students taking a second degree, (d) part-time undergraduate students taking a second degree, (e) full-time students taking a postgraduate degree and (f) part-time students taking a postgraduate degree. [194390]
Bill Rammell [holding answer 17 March 2008]: The latest available information is given in the following tables. Table 1 covers full-time entrants and table 2 covers part-time entrants. Comparable figures for the 2007/08 academic year will be available in January 2009.
| Table 1—full-time entrants( 1) to higher education courses at English higher education institutions( 2) by age( 3) and level of study—academic years 2001/02 to 2006/07 | ||||||||||
| 17 to 21 | Over 21 | |||||||||
| First Degree | First Degree | |||||||||
| Academic year | On 1( st) Degree( 4) | On 2( nd) Degree( 5) | Other UG( 6) | Post graduate | Total | On 1( st) Degree( 4) | On 2( nd) Degree( 5) | Other UG | Post graduate | Total |
| (1) Includes students from the UK and overseas. (2) Excludes the Open university. (3) Excludes a small number of students with an unknown age or an age less than 17 (this was less than 0.6 per cent. in 2006/07). (4) Includes entrants to first degree courses who do not already have qualifications of first degree level or higher. (5) Includes entrants to first degree courses who already have qualifications of first degree level or higher. (6) Figures for entrants to other undergraduate courses (such as HMD, HNC) have been included for completeness. Note: Figures are given on a HESA Standard Registration Population and are rounded to the nearest five. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) | ||||||||||
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