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22 Apr 2008 : Column 1958W—continued
Culture, Media and Sport
Arts Council of England: Finance
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much of Arts Council England’s annual budget, as announced in his Department's press release 117/07, dated 12 October 2007, has been reserved for future partnership schemes with his Department. [199842]
Margaret Hodge: The following amount of Arts Council England funding have been reserved for future partnership schemes with my Department over the next three years.
| £000 | ||||
| Budget | Joint research budget | Taking Part | Living Places | ArtCo |
The Arts Council will also be contributing towards the jointly owned work programme of the cultural services improvement unit at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA). A figure for this contribution has not yet been finalised.
Conference Centres
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether his Department provides (a) capital and (b) revenue support to any conference or exhibition centre; and if he will make a statement. [199436]
Mr. Sutcliffe: According to the Department’s records, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport does not provide any capital or revenue support to conference and/or exhibition centres.
Departmental Legislation
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what criminal offences have been abolished by primary legislation sponsored by his Department since May 1997. [198290]
Margaret Hodge: The information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Public Expenditure
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much of his Department’s budget as allocated in the Comprehensive Spending Review is yet to be assigned. [199841]
Andy Burnham: In successive spending reviews, we have sought to allocate settlements in full over the three years of each review. This provides our sponsored bodies with maximum financial certainty within which to plan ahead for the development and provision of excellent services. Some scope to change plans is provided at the margin by end year flexibility.
Accordingly, our resource budget is fully allocated. Our capital budget is almost fully allocated.
English Sports Council: Finance
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much of Sport England’s annual budget for 2008-09 has been reserved for future partnership schemes with his Department. [199843]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Sport England will contribute at least £600,000 to part fund the Taking Part Survey commissioned by the Department and its key non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), £36,000 towards a joint research budget for the Department and its NDPBs, and £25,000 towards the administration of the Living Places Partnership, an agreement between the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department and its partner NDPBs and the Academy for Sustainable Communities, to ensure that all communities can benefit from cultural and sporting opportunities.
Sport England is still considering whether a contribution will be made to the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) for the coming year. Sport England will agree its overall strategy in May 2008.
The exact figures will be available once their 2008-09 budget has been set.
Euclid
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what services his Department obtained from Euclid in each of the last three years; and what the cost of these services was in each year. [199864]
Margaret Hodge: Euclid is contracted by DCMS to act as the UK’s cultural contact point (CCP) for the European Union’s Culture Programme. Euclid provides European and international information, research and consultancy services to the cultural sector, including guidance on funding opportunities. The UK CCP receives funding of £50,000 from the European Commission annually and my Department match funds to this amount. The current CCP contract runs from January 2007 until December 2009.
Euclid also holds the contract to promote the European Year of Intercultural dialogue in the UK. The cost of this contract was a one off payment of £10,000.
Internet: Children
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what the cost of the Byron Review has been. [198394]
Margaret Hodge [holding answer 2 April 2008]: Dr. Tanya Byron published her report on 27 March 2008 and the Government have accepted her recommendations. The review has just ended and while accounting procedures are still to be completed, we estimate that a total of around £275,000 has been spent on the review, not including salaries and expenses of the civil servants on the Review's secretariat.
This included expenditure on consultation with parents and other stakeholders, and a comprehensive literature review.
This expenditure has been incurred in accordance with the Cabinet Office guidelines and a value for money assessment.
Mobile Phones: Rural Areas
Mr. McLoughlin: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what is being done to promote better mobile telephone coverage in rural areas of the country. [195219]
Malcolm Wicks: I have been asked to reply.
The mobile network operators build base stations in order to meet customers need for coverage and service. The decision to build in a particular location is largely a commercial matter for the operators.
For new 3G networks, an 80 per cent. population coverage obligation by 2007 was placed on each licence holder to encourage network rollout. This could equate to approximately 45 per cent. land area coverage averaged over the whole of the United Kingdom. The Office of Communications (Ofcom) has now completed its assessment of compliance with the obligation and has proposed action against O2, the one operator not yet having complied. However coverage beyond this obligation would again be a commercial matter for operators. For 2G or GSM networks the original coverage obligations laid on GSM operators were discharged many years ago and have been significantly exceeded on a voluntary basis.
In some areas, opposition to mast construction can have detrimental effect on operators’ plans to extend mobile phone coverage. It is possible that a direct approach to an operator indicating a suitable site might be productive in obtaining greater mobile coverage for an area.
Museum, Libraries and Archives Council: Finance
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much of the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council’s budget for 2008-09 has been reserved for future partnership schemes with his Department. [199844]
Margaret Hodge: The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is contributing £80,000 towards the “Taking Part” survey commissioned by the Department and its partner non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs); £78,000 towards the jointly owned work programme of the cultural services improvement unit at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA); £24,000 towards the administration of the Living Places Partnership—an agreement between the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department and its partner NDPBs and the Academy for Sustainable Communities—to ensure that all communities can benefit from cultural and sporting opportunities, particularly those experiencing housing-led growth and regeneration; and £7,000 towards a joint research budget for the Department and its partner NDPBs.
Tourism: Essex
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what steps his Department has taken to promote tourism in Essex since 1997. [197652]
Margaret Hodge: Government support for tourism promotion in the east of England, and the other eight regions of England, has increased substantially since 1997.
From 1997-98 to 2002-03, the east of England tourist board received funding of between £427,000 and £868,000 per year from the former English Tourism Council (previously known as the English Tourist Board).
As part of the DCMS Tourism Reform programme, responsibility for supporting tourism passed to the regional development agencies (RDAs), including the east of England development agency (EEDA) in 2003. The RDAs together estimate total spending of £43.5 million on tourism support in 2007-08. EEDA has invested substantially in sector, with £0.8 million, £1.5 million and £1.8 million in 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 respectively.
At national level, DCMS funds VisitBritain to market and promote all parts of England, including the east of England, to domestic and international visitors. Spreading the benefits of this work is an important part of the relevant funding agreement, which requires VisitBritain to achieve a specified proportion of additional expenditure by inbound visitors outside London. For 2005-06, the target was 55 per cent. and VisitBritain achieved 61 per cent. For 2006-07, the target was 54 per cent. and VisitBritain achieved 57 per cent.
Further support for the sector, including the bulk of promotion to the domestic market (which makes up around 80 per cent. of the sector), is led by local councils. DCMS has also made substantial investment in heritage, arts and culture throughout the country since 1997. These sectors, in addition to their intrinsic value to the nation's cultural life, benefit the visitor economy.
Tourism: North East
Mr. Kemp: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what steps the Government has taken to promote tourism in the North East since 1997. [197264]
Margaret Hodge: Government support for tourism promotion in the north east, and the other eight regions of England, has increased substantially since 1997.
From 1997-98 to 2002-03, the Northumbria Tourist Board received funding of between £241,000 and £570,000 a year from the former English Tourism Council (previously known as the English Tourist Board).
As part of the DCMS Tourism Reform Programme, responsibility for supporting tourism passed to the regional development agencies (RDAs), including One NorthEast (ONE) in 2003. The RDAs together estimate total spending of £43.5 million on tourism
support in 2007-08. ONE has made a substantial investment in the tourism sector; including funding of £1.7 million, £4.4 and £3.6 million in 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 respectively to promote the north east.
At national level, DCMS funds VisitBritain to market and promote all parts of England, including the north east, to domestic and international visitors. Spreading the benefits of this work is an important part of the relevant funding agreement, which requires VisitBritain to achieve a specified proportion of additional expenditure by inbound visitors outside London. For 2005-06, the target was 55 per cent. and VisitBritain achieved 61 per cent. For 2006-07, the target was 54 per cent. and VisitBritain achieved 57 per cent.
Further support for the sector, including the bulk of promotion to the domestic market (which makes up around 80 per cent. of the sector), is led by local councils. DCMS has also made substantial investment in heritage, arts and culture throughout the country since 1997. These sectors, in addition to their intrinsic value to the nation's cultural life, benefit the visitor economy.
International Development
Children: Poverty
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps the Government have taken to reduce child poverty globally in the last year. [199408]
Gillian Merron: The UK Government have committed significant funds for reducing child poverty, including £8.5 billion for education (2007-15), £150 million for children affected by HIV/AIDS (2004-2007) and over £7 million for addressing forced labour and child labour.
In addition the Department for International Development supports children and young people through direct funding to non-governmental organisations, including Plan UK (2007-2011; £3.1 million for the first three years) and Save the Children (2005-2011; £20.7 million for the first three years). In 2007 a joint DFID and civil society network on children was established to learn from civil society experience of working to promote child rights and reduce child poverty. DFID has also contributed £7 million (2006-2009) to the ‘Young Lives project', which is a 15 year study of child poverty in four countries.
In 2008 HMG is leading on a global ‘Call to Action' around the millennium development goals (the MDGs), which focus on achieving measurably improved outcomes for millions of the world's most deprived children on for example income poverty, nutrition and access to education and health services. DFID will be renewing efforts around the MDGs and we will also be working with other international players to ensure that the global community—including the business community—commit all the resources and energy needed to reduce child poverty.
Departmental Pay
Mr. Hoban:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the hourly rates of pay of all non-permanent staff working for his Department were in each of the last 12 months; and
how many staff were receiving each rate in each of those months. [196447]
Gillian Merron: Non-permanent members of staff at the Department for International Development (DFID) receive payment on either an annual salary basis or an hourly rate basis, depending on the terms of their contract.
Non-permanent, salaried staff are recruited to fill a wide range of managerial, advisory and administrative posts, and salaries vary significantly depending on the post held. The salary may also be subject to review during the period of their appointment. Details of the hourly rates of pay for all salaried non-permanent members of staff for each of the last 12 months could only be provided at disproportionate cost, following a detailed review of each individual's salary records.
DFID also appoints non-permanent staff through recruitment agencies to undertake both administrative and specialist roles, including IT and communications specialists. Administrative appointments are managed centrally, but individual departments within DFID have delegated authority to engage specialist staff. Records are not held centrally for this group.
Since April 2007 the majority of administrative appointments have been made through two agencies serving our two headquarters locations—one in London and one in East Kilbride. The average hourly rate paid for these agency staff over the past 12 months (from April 2007 to March 2008) is:
| £ | |
| Note: Under the terms of the contract with the agency suppliers, DFID is unable to make public information that may be of value to a competitor. This specifically precludes us releasing details of the hourly rates paid for each grade of staff. | |
The number of staff appointed through these agencies in each of the last 12 months is detailed in the following table.
| 2007 | Number |
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