| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
1 Apr 2008 : Column 751W—continued
We have continued to realign funding towards basic literacy and numeracy, full level 2 and full level 3 qualifications providing skills for employment and further progression in learning away from, for example, very short or low quality courses. This has enabled us to support significant increases in participation for young people and adults in these key programmes, providing them with the education and skills they need to fully participate in an economically successful and socially cohesive society.
This Department and the LSC are working closely with the Department of Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus to implement the proposals outlined in “World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England” and the Green Paper, “In Work, better off,” both published in July this year. These include supporting individuals, including older workers into sustainable employment and progression in work and in skills.
In line with this we are working with employers through Train to Gain and the Skills Pledge to meet skill needs and to ensure that all employees including older people have the basic skills, including literacy and numeracy and Level 2 skills (equivalent to five good GCSEs) needed to sustain and progress in employment. To support this we are increasing funding for Train to Gain from £440 million in 2007-08 to over £900 million in 2010-11. We want to encourage all employers in England to make a Skills Pledge that is a specific promise that every eligible employee will be helped to gain basic skills, and a full Level 2 qualification.
We recognise the importance of FE and adult learning in meeting a range of social and community needs and remain fully committed to ensuring that older learners can benefit from a wide range of learning opportunities, including learning for its own sake, for personal fulfilment and to sustain an active role in the community. In addition we have committed £210 million per annum until 2010-11 to safeguard learning opportunities for personal fulfilment, community development and active citizenship.
Home Department
101 Calls
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2008, Official Report, column 803W, on 101 calls, what the annual cost of maintaining the national 101 infrastructure is; and which local authorities are funding their own pilots of the 101 service. [192452]
Mr. McNulty: The annual cost to the Home Office of maintaining the national 101 telephony infrastructure will be £950,000. This funding will ensure that the 101 number continues to be available for all local areas to use to maintain or develop their own locally funded 101 services, informed by the benefits and good practice successfully demonstrated in the initial live areas.
We welcome the decisions taken to date by local authorities in partnership with local police in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Sheffield and Cardiff to continue to operate the 101 service on a locally
funded basis. We also welcome the piloting of a locally funded 101 service by the Greater London Authority together with individual boroughs, London councils, and the Metropolitan Police Service.
Armed Forces: Peterborough
Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2008, Official Report, column 786W, if she will ask the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire to provide the information requested. [196774]
Mr. McNulty: Following the previous answer, my right hon. Friend’s question was passed to the chief constable of Cambridgeshire on 14 March 2008 asking that you be provided with the information requested.
Arrests
Dr. Starkey: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) on what occasions the police have arrested an individual (a) on an aircraft at a UK airport and (b) at the airport after an individual has landed in the last 10 years; [190484]
(2) on how many occasions police in the course of their duty have been denied access to an aircraft at an airport in the UK in the last 10 years; [190485]
(3) what powers the police have to prevent an aircraft from taking off from a UK airport in order to effect an arrest. [190486]
Mr. McNulty: The statistical information requested is not held centrally.
In England and Wales, section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 provides that a constable may enter and search any premises, including aircraft, for the purpose of executing a warrant or to arrest a person for an indictable offence. In Northern Ireland, Article 19(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 provides a constable with the power to enter and search any premises, including aircraft, for the purposes of affecting an arrest of a person for an indictable offence. In Scotland if a constable has grounds to believe that a crime has been committed anywhere within an airport, including an aircraft which has landed and is stationed at a terminal, they can investigate in the same way as for any other crime committed elsewhere within their force area.
Arrest may also be made under European or international warrant. In addition, the Manual of Air Traffic Services enables the police to instruct air traffic controllers to withhold permission for an aircraft to take off.
Asylum
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many attempts to deport asylum seekers were unsuccessful because the receiving country refused to accept them after the flight had left the UK in the last 12 months. [192833]
Jacqui Smith: The information requested could be obtained by the detailed examination of individual case records only at disproportionate cost.
Community Support Officers
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of police community support officers; and if she will make a statement. [195426]
Mr. McNulty: PCSOs are an invaluable addition to policing with their main focus on engaging with their local community, providing high visibility reassurance policing and dealing with low level crime and antisocial behaviour.
The National Policing Improvement Agency is leading a review of PCSOs, considering their role, as well as standardisation of equipment, uniforms, training and career development. The review will report shortly.
Community Support Officers: Complaints
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many complaints in each category of complaint (a) in total and (b) against police community support officers were received by the police complaints and discipline department of each police authority in England and Wales in the last year in which figures are available. [195697]
Mr. McNulty: This information is not held centrally. Such complaints are a matter for each police authority.
Demonstrations: Parliament Square
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) males and (b) females, broken down by age group, were (i) arrested, (ii) prosecuted and (iii) convicted of unlawful public demonstrations in Parliament Square in each of the last three years for which information is available. [192539]
Mr. McNulty: Data showing the number of males and females, by age group, proceeded against and found guilty of organising or carrying out a demonstration in a designated area in 2005 and 2006 are found in the following table. The Ministry of Justice are unable to separate offences committed in Parliament Square from those committed in other locations within the designated area.
The Home Office does not collect the information requested on arrests centrally. However I understand from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that since Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 came into force until the end of December 2006, there have been 91 arrests of individuals for a range of offences connected to demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament. Data on the number of arrests in 2007 are not available.
Departmental Pay
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was paid in discretionary bonuses to staff in her Department in each of the last five years. [187251]
Jacqui Smith: Within Home Office Headquarters and the Border and Immigration Agency discretionary bonuses may be awarded in the form of annual, appraisal-related awards based on exceptional contribution throughout the year; or special bonuses for exceptional outstanding achievements by staff in particularly demanding tasks or situations. senior civil servants can be awarded bonuses as set out in the Senior Salaries Review Body report number 62.
The following table provides information about the amount paid in end of year bonuses (annual appraisal related) in the last five years, and includes information for senior civil servants across the Home Office Group, and staff working within Home Office Headquarters and the Border and Immigration Agency. It does not include figures for special bonuses, as this is not available without incurring disproportionate costs.
| Amount paid (£) | |
| (1) Figures for 2006-07 are subject to some change as data is not yet complete. | |
Staff in the Identity and Passport Service receive end of year corporate bonuses, and change agent bonuses. As the corporate bonuses were only introduced in 2003-04 the following table provides information for the last four years only:
| Appraisal bonus | Special bonus | |
Staff in the Criminal Records Bureau do not receive end of year bonuses. Staff do receive special bonus payments but this information is not available without incurring disproportionate costs.
Data are not available from the Prison Service, who were formally an agency of the Home Office prior to transferring to the Ministry of Justice, as obtaining this data is possible only at disproportionate cost.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |