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21 Apr 2008 : Column 1404W—continued
Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many road accidents the Fire and Rescue Service attended in each fire authority area in each year since 1994; and how many people were rescued from their vehicles in each year. [199038]
Mr. Dhanda: Available information, for the period 1995 to 2006, has been deposited in the Library of the House. This information includes the number of incidents where people were extricated from vehicles.
Information on the number of people rescued from these incidents is not centrally held.
Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many incidents involving flooding the Fire and Rescue Service attended in each year since 1994; and how many people were rescued from flooding in each year. [199039]
Mr. Dhanda: The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Fire Services: Crimes of Violence
Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many attacks there were on fire crews in (a) the East of England and (b) Suffolk in each of the last five years. [187115]
Mr. Dhanda: Communities and Local Government have only collated figures relating to attacks on firefighters since 2004, so data are not available for the last five years. The following figures are based on returns to the Department from Fire and Rescue Authorities.
| 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | |
Ms Dari Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many attacks there were on fire crews in (a) Cleveland, (b) North East England and (c) Stockton South constituency in each of the last three years. [188968]
Mr. Dhanda: Figures are not collected for the Stockton, South constituency. The following figures are based on returns to the Department from Fire and Rescue Authorities.
| 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | |
Fire Services: Manpower
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the effect of the reduction in fire control centre staff by 112 in the South West on performance standards in Fire and Rescue Services in the area in Gloucestershire. [200062]
Mr. Dhanda: The most recent strength figure (March 2007) for staff employed in the South West Fire and Rescue Authorities is 179.69. The number of staff employed by each Fire and Rescue Authority including those in the South West is a matter for them and consequently the total figure fluctuates around this mark. Likewise, the number of staff employed by the Regional Control Centre in Taunton is a matter for them.
The South West Regional Control Centre will ensure that the South West region, including Gloucestershire, has a fully resilient Regional Control Centre that is part of a fully networked national system. This network will provide a first class, resilient control service, whereby each Regional Control Centre will provide support to each other, in the event that one or more Regional Control Centres becomes unavailable.
The performance standards that each Regional Control Centre will meet are presently under discussion but will not be less than those currently achieved. In addition service delivery and firefighter safety will be enhanced through bringing all controls up to the standard of the highest currently in use.
Every Regional Control Centre will be able to mobilise any Fire and Rescue unit anywhere in England, which is currently not possible. This new network and the associated Firelink communications project will deliver a more efficient and resilient control service.
Decisions about exact staffing levels will be a matter for the South West Fire Control Service Ltd. to decide. The Fire and Rescue Authorities included in this company are; Avon, Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Isles of Scilly and Wiltshire.
Floods: Repairs and Maintenance
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many people have not yet returned to their homes due to flood damage from summer 2007; and what assessment she has made of the availability of the (a) plumbers, (b) electricians, (c) plasterers and (d) other essential workers necessary to complete repairs. [197946]
John Healey: The latest figures provided by local authorities indicate that between 6,400 and 6,700 households are still displaced.
We have not carried out such an assessment. Insurance companies have given assurances that there are sufficient resources available in the construction industry to deal with repairs to homes affected by the floods.
Housing: Castle Point
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what target she has set for housebuilding in Castle Point constituency over the next planning period; and what the (a) process and (b) anticipated timing is for finding sites for these houses. [199369]
Mr. Dhanda: The Proposed Changes to the draft Regional Spatial Strategy for the East of England propose a target of 4,000 net additional homes in Castle Point between 2001 and 2021. Of these, 1,114 had been built by the end of March 2007, and planning permission existed for a further 463. General locations for the 2,423 homes still to be identified will be determined through the preparation of Castle Point’s Core Strategy, which is due to be adopted next spring. More detailed guidance will be provided through site allocation documents for Canvey Island and for Benfleet, Hadleigh and Thundersley (both due to be adopted in 2010).
Housing: Standards
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government when she plans to publish the Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix for 2007; and if she will make a statement. [199371]
Mr. Iain Wright: Information collected from local authorities in the 2007 Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix was published on the 18th March 2008 on the Communities and Local Government website at:
Housing: Trade Unions
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the (a) Housing and Communities Agency and (b) OfTenant will maintain voluntary recognition established by the Housing Corporation to (i) Unison and (ii) Unite for collective bargaining purposes; and if she will make a statement. [199987]
Caroline Flint: Staff will transfer from the Housing Corporation to the Homes and Communities Agency and the social housing regulator as though they were transferring under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, with their existing terms and conditions of service. The Housing Corporation’s current voluntary recognition agreement with Unison and Unite will transfer to the Homes and Communities Agency and the social housing regulator and will apply to the staff transferred from the Housing Corporation. As the Homes and Communities Agency will inherit staff from a number of transferring bodies with a variety of different staff representation arrangements, it will develop a set of proposals after creation for a unified approach to staff representation. These will then be used to ballot staff on the issue on the basis of continuous and close involvement of the unions and the staff side.
As the social housing regulator will inherit staff only from the Housing Corporation, it will continue the current recognition arrangements of the Housing Corporation.
JP Morgan
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much her Department and its predecessors paid to JP Morgan in each year since 1997; and what the purpose of each payment was. [199589]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department (as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) was formed in 2002 and no payments have been made to JP Morgan since then. Information prior to this date could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Karian and Box
Mr. Hands: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the value was of each contract awarded by her Department and its predecessors to Karian and Box since 1997. [199635]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department has formally awarded no contracts to Karian and Box since the formation of its predecessor department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, in 2002. The Department co-branded the Karian and Box survey ‘A comprehensive view of local government communications today: LG07 study 2007’.
Information prior to 2002 is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Lighting
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Peterborough of 20 March 2008, Official Report, column 1378W, on lighting, whether switching off street lighting at night is deemed to be a service cut, according to the methodology used by her Department. [199284]
Mr. Dhanda: It would depend on the circumstances. As with any action reported as an efficiency gain, a local authority must assess whether service quality has been maintained and provide evidence to that effect as part of their Annual Efficiency Statement.
Local Area Agreements
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what guidance her Department has provided to local authorities on hon. Members' involvement in the development of local area agreements. [198801]
John Healey: Each local authority responsible for preparing a local area agreement has a duty to consult “such...persons as appear to it to be appropriate” (Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, Section 106(2)(a)(ii)).
Draft statutory guidance on how to fulfil this duty was issued for consultation on 20 November 2007. The relevant passages are at paragraphs 4.8 and 5.7 - 5.12 (Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities), which can be accessed on the Department’s website at:
Local Authorities: Pay
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the (a) highest, (b) mode and (c) mean salary package is for a chief executive of a (i) borough council and (ii) county council, including bonus entitlements. [199386]
John Healey: Central Government do not collect the information requested. However, the Local Government Employers conducts an annual survey of chief executive and chief officer salaries and workforce numbers. The results of this survey are available on their website at:
Local Government Finance: Children
Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what representations she received from local authorities on the adequacy of the children's social services formula used in the 2008 to 2011 local government funding settlement in assessing the needs of children in urban areas; and what account she took of such representations. [199297]
John Healey:
During consultation on the 2008-09 settlement, local authorities representing urban areas expressed a range of views about the children's social services formula that was phased in from 2006-07.
Most local authorities that expressed a view favoured the full implementation of the new children's formula, which better reflects the current patterns of relative need than the formula it replaced.
The House approved the Local Government Finance Settlement for 2008-09, including full implementation of this formula, on 4 February 2008.
Local Government: Migration
Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps she is taking to ensure that local authorities are able to meet costs arising in relation to (a) short-term and (b) long-term international migration. [199303]
Mr. Dhanda: In terms of Government funding, we have been able to provide a fair and affordable settlement for local government in a tight spending round, providing an average real terms increase in Government grant of 1.5 per cent. per year over the next three years.
In the longer term the Office for National Statistics are leading a programme of work to improve the population and migration statistics which will deliver improvements in time to incorporate the results in calculating the next three-year local government settlement.
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