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24 Jun 2008 : Column 269W—continued
| Local government public service agreements—2nd Generation starting in 2004 | |
| Local authority | |
| Pilot 1 | 1st Instalment |
Planning
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what changes have been made to the 18/84 planning procedure since 1997. [212732]
Mr. Iain Wright: Since 1997 the procedures for development by the Crown set out in Part IV of DOE Circular 18/84 have been revoked, following the implementation of part 7 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 in June 2006, which ended the Crown's immunity from the planning system. Crown bodies now have to apply for planning permission like any other developer subject to special arrangements for urgent development. Guidance on development by Crown bodies is given in DCLG Circular 02/2006 ‘Crown Application of the Planning Acts’.
Public Participation
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will place in the Library a copy of the report produced by GfK NOP Ltd. for her Department on the feasibility of undertaking a national survey of attitudes. [212629]
Mr. Dhanda:
The feasibility study carried out by GfK Nop Ltd., on undertaking a national survey of attitudes, produced a technical report to inform methodological development. As such, it was not designed to collect responses for data analysis. A summary of the feasibility study report findings is shown as follows. I will not be placing a copy of the full report in the Library at
present, as this could jeopardise ongoing policy development, but I will review this position in due course once current policy formulation in this area has reached a conclusion.
Summary of the feasibility study report for a communities attitudes survey
This paper summarises the key points from the Feasibility Study and its recommendations.
There was a good response from respondents. Once eligibility was established, respondents were keen to take part and the number of refusals to participate was generally very low.
Male face-to-face interviewers reported difficulties obtaining interviews with some female respondents; they were not unwilling to participate but sought the consent and/or presence of male relatives.
Interviewers felt that respondents were concerned about confidentiality and anonymity, despite the reassurances given throughout the interview. This was felt by interviewers to affect the truthfulness of answers to some questions.
The presence of other people during the interview, which was common in face-to-face interviews, was also felt to present risks to validity.
It appeared to be harder for telephone interviewers to authenticate the legitimacy of the research and gain respondents' trust.
Respondents expressed concern about the questions which asked for demographic information about other members in the household.
The average interview lengths of the face-to-face and telephone interviews were 43 minutes and 35 minutes respectively.
There was a relatively high number of incompleted telephone interviews; questionnaire length was one factor thought to contribute to this. This was not a problem with face-to-face interviews.
There were problems with some questions on sensitive issues, including a relatively high number of 'don't knows' to some.
In the face-to-face interviews, audio-CASI (audio-recorded questions which the respondent completes themselves and nobody else hears the responses) was used for some questions. This method, which is used in surveys to ask about sensitive topics, was generally successful although there were some issues with the foreign language versions of the questions.
The language and concepts in the questionnaire more generally was thought to be over-complex in places.
The study demonstrated that a large-scale nationally representative survey of community attitudes is feasible, provided that certain measures are taken into consideration.
A face-to-face methodology is recommended because of:
Length of interview;
Greater ability to reassure respondents about confidentiality;
Lower incidences of terminated interviews; and
Ability to use Audio-CASI for sensitive questions.
The length of the interview (for face-to-face) should be no longer than 35 minutes.
Extensive development is required on questions on sensitive issues.
Regional Planning and Development: East of England
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what consultation process was used by the Government Office for the East of England to consult residents of (a) Castle Point and (b) Essex on the Revision to the Regional Spatial Strategy for the East of England. [213009]
Mr. Dhanda: There were three stages of public consultation leading to the development of the East of England Plan, the Revision to the Regional Spatial Strategy for the East of England. A 14-week consultation on the Draft Plan was held from 8 December 2004 until 16 March 2005. A 12-week consultation on the Secretary of State’s Proposed Changes to the Draft Plan took place from 19 December 2006 until 9 March 2007. Finally, there was an eight-week consultation on the Secretary of State’s Further Proposed Changes to the Draft Plan that took place from 23 October 2007 until 18 December 2007. All of these consultations were open to all members of the public, including residents of Castle Point and Essex.
Television
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much her Department spent on (a) commissioning and (b) funding the production of television programmes (i) in each of the last three years and (ii) in 2008-09 to date; what programmes these were; and which companies made them. [213555]
Mr. Dhanda: The Department has not commissioned or funded television programmes in the period specified.
Children, Schools and Families
After School Clubs: Chorley
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department has spent on after-school clubs in Chorley constituency in each year since 1997. [213639]
Beverley Hughes: Information of this kind is not collected centrally, It is for local authorities, working with schools and children service partners, to develop strategies for how funding for extended activities In schools is allocated, depending on local need, The Department made a total of £840 million available to local authorities and schools between 2003 and 2008 to support start-up of extended services in schools. A further £1.3 billion will be made available over the next three years to support start-up and sustainability of services. Individual local authority allocations are available online at:
Other funding is also available to support extended schools, including money available to support personalised learning during and beyond the school day, and money available to support neighbourhood renewal.
Children in Care: Missing Persons
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 22 April 2008, Official Report, columns 2027-8W, on children in care: missing persons, how many of the 3,520 children who went missing from local authority care in the last five years have never been traced. [211161]
Kevin Brennan: My answer of 22 April 2008 provided figures on the number of children who went missing from their agreed placement for 24 hours or more during each of the years ending 31 March 2003 to 2007. Those are reproduced in table 1. These figures cannot be aggregated to give the number of children who had gone missing at least once over the five year period. This is because the same child may have gone missing from their agreed placement in more than one year and will be counted in each of those years. Aggregating the data would therefore lead to double counting.
| Table 1 | |
| Number | |
| Source: SSDA 903 return on children looked after. | |
Although it is not possible to derive from this data the number of children who have never been traced, we do collect information on the number of children who were still missing from their agreed placement at the 31 March each year. These are shown in table 2. The figures for a particular year will, however, include children who went missing in that year and a number of children who first went missing in a previous year. So, again it is not possible to aggregate these figures over any particular time period without double counting.
| Table 2 | |
| Number | |
| Source: SSDA 903 return on children looked after. | |
When a child is reported as “missing” from care; it is essential that the authority works with the police and provides all necessary information so that the child can be located. One of the requirements set out in statutory guidance ‘Children Missing from Home and Care—a Guide to Good Practise’, issued in 2002, is that each local authority must designate a senior manager to be responsible for monitoring incidents of children missing from care to identify any trends and to investigate any further action necessary to respond to children's needs ensuring that they are properly safeguarded.
On 26 March we published ‘Care Matters: Time to Deliver for Children in Care’ which sets out our intention to update and reissue guidance to the Children Act 1989 and subsequent legislation. As part of this we shall be emphasising the responsibilities of local authorities to respond consistently and effectively whenever a child is missing from care.
Children: Day Care
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many registered child care places there were in (a) Leeds West constituency and (b) Leeds metropolitan district in each year since 1997. [213350]
Beverley Hughes: Information is not available in the form requested.
The information available relates to the number of registered childcare places in Leeds local authority area and is given in the following tables.
| Table 1 : Number( 1) of registered child care places for children under eight years of age by type of care, Leeds local authority area—position at 31 March each year 2003-08 | ||||||
| Type of care | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
| (1) Figures ham been rounded to the nearest 10 if under 100, and to the nearest 100 if over 100. Source: Ofsted | ||||||
| Table 2 : Number( 1) of day care places for children under eight years of age by Leeds local authority area—Position at 31 March each year 1997 to 2002 | ||||||
| Type of provider | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 |
| n/a = not available. (1) Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 if under 100, and to the nearest 100 if over 100. (2) From 1999, places were counted once for each school holiday. Before 1999, places were counted once each year. Source: Children's Day Care Facilities Survey. | ||||||
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