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11 Nov 2008 : Column 1101W—continued
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what steps the Government have taken to ensure the funding formula of the Higher Education Funding Council for England is equitable for all higher education institutions. [234073]
Mr. Lammy: The Government issue strategic direction from time to time to the Funding Council on the objectives to be achieved through its funding of institutions. We do this most notably in the annual grant letter to the Council determining priorities for the year ahead.
Higher Education: Research
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what recent steps the Government have taken to improve standards in research at UK universities. [234075]
Mr. Lammy: This Government are committed to maintaining the UK's world class university system and have already taken significant and recent steps to sustain the excellence of the UK research base and improve the exploitation of knowledge. The decline in public investment in science during the 1980s and early 1990s has been reversed. Since 1997, the ring-fenced science budget has more than doubled and by the end of the spending review period research funding from the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills will reach almost £6 billion per annum. The Government have addressed the backlog of underinvestment in research infrastructure through a combination of capital funding and a move towards funding the full economic cost of research.
The dual support funding system for research has a strong incentive effect. The combination of the research assessment exercise, which informs the HEFCE quality related block grant, and the Research Councils’ competitive allocation of funding through peer review has driven up the quality of research. The combination has been extremely successful over the last decade and the UK ranks second only to the USA in the world for research excellence overall.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much the Government have allocated for research programmes in West Midlands universities in 2008-09. [234076]
Mr. Lammy: The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills funds research programmes in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Research Councils.
For West Midlands HEIs, HEFCE research funding for the year 2008-09 is £91.9 million. Data on Research Council funding is collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) from university returns. The most recent HESA data are for 2006-07, when West Midlands HEIs received £58.9 million of Research Council funding.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what steps the Government plan to take to improve the standards of research in UK higher education institutions. [234077]
Mr. Lammy: The dual support funding system for research creates strong incentives for institutions to drive up the quality of their research. The Higher Education Funding Council is currently working on plans for the research excellence framework, which aims to promote excellent research while reducing the administrative burden of assessing it.
Mr. Laxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much quality related funding was awarded in the last funding round to universities in each region. [234225]
Mr. Lammy: Quality Related research funding (QR) is allocated and distributed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
The following table sets out QR funding from HEFCE for each of the regions in 2008/09. Figures include both quality-related research (QR) funding and capability funding. QR funding accounts for 98 per cent. of total HEFCE research funding.
| 2008-09 HEFCE research funding by region | |
| Region | (£ million) |
Intellectual Property
John Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills when the proposed work programme for the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy will be made available; and what funding has been provided for the Board to conduct research. [234846]
Mr. Lammy: Since its establishment in June, the Board of SABIP has identified a number of topics for its work programme and advised Ministers of these. Work is due to begin shortly on two of these, and a further three topics are in the process of being scoped.
In line with the Gowers recommendation, £500,000 p.a. is available for SABIP to conduct its research programme.
Full details of the work programme are available at
Science: Higher Education
Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 29 October 2008, Official Report, columns 32-33WS, on Education (Student Support) Regulations, (1) which parts of the science budget are not ring-fenced; [232741]
(2) whether the research funding component of the Higher Education Funding Council for England's budget will be considered in his Department's search for cost savings. [232742]
Mr. Lammy
[holding answer 3 November 2008]: Funding for science and research has doubled since we took office. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
made clear in his statement on 29 October 2008, Official Report, columns 32-34WS that all of the budget for science will be maintained. That includes the research funding component of HEFCE's budget.
Student Loans Company: Telephone Services
Stephen Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many calls have been made to the Student Loan Company’s premium rate telephone line in each year since 2000; what the average duration of such calls was; what the revenue raised was; and if he will make a statement. [232404]
Mr. Lammy: The Student Loan Company has not operated any premium rate telephone lines since 2000.
Vocational Training
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what qualifying criteria he has established for skills health checks. [230750]
Mr. Simon: In 'Opportunity, Employment and Progression: Making Skills Work' published in November 2007, which sets out our plans for reforming our welfare and skills system, the Government announced the introduction of a skills health check to help fully to assess the skills and learning requirements needed by unemployed people to support their return to work.
The skills health check, which will include a new diagnostic assessment tool, will be delivered by careers advisers who will use the full range of advisory services they have at their disposal to consider an individual's skill strengths and gaps, and agree an action plan to address any needs they have. There are no qualifying criteria laid down to determine who should get this service, but priority will be given to those with the greatest need for help in getting back to work.
The skills health check, including a prototype skills diagnostic tool, is being trialled as part of an integrated employment and skills offer, initially in the West Midlands, and from autumn 2010 will be available as part of a national adult advancement and careers service.
Work and Pensions
Attendance Allowance
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many applications for attendance allowance were (a) made, (b) granted and (c) refused in each of the last five years; and of those applications refused, how many have been subject to (i) successful appeal, (ii) unsuccessful appeal and (iii) further review. [232327]
Jonathan Shaw: The available information on attendance allowance claims is in the following table. It is not possible to identify how many of the refused applications were subject to appeal.
| Attendance allowance claims: Great Britain | |||||
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | |
| Notes: 1. This information is generated by the disability living allowance/attendance allowance computer system for management purposes. It is not a National Statistic. Management information records and counts events. This means that the number of claims refused is not directly comparable to the number of claims received because a decision to refuse or accept a claim is not necessarily made in the same time period. 2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. 3. Claims received: It is not possible for a claimant to make concurrent multiple claims. A customer can make more than one claim in a year. However, a new claim cannot be made until a decision on the previous claim has been made. 4. All decisions will include decisions made on claims that were made in the previous year. Source: DWP Management Information Statistics | |||||
Children: Maintenance
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of children live in families receiving Child Support Agency payments. [225345]
Kitty Ussher [holding answer 9 October 2008]: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have therefore asked the Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Commissioner for Child Maintenance.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many children live in families receiving Child Support Agency payments (a) in total and (b) as a percentage of the total cohort. [225345]
The Agency does not hold information on the number of children who live in families receiving child maintenance payments; however information on the number of children in respect of whom child maintenance is paid is available. At the end of September 2008, regular maintenance had been received in respect of 778,200 children, 69% of the total number of children in respect of whom maintenance was due.
Further information on the number of children benefiting from maintenance payments, and the number of cases receiving regular maintenance is routinely published in the Child Support Agency's Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS), the latest copy of which is available in the House of Commons library or online at:
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many Child Support Agency cases are being dealt with manually. [226097]
Kitty Ussher: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have therefore asked the Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Commissioner for Child Maintenance.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Support Agency cases are being dealt with manually. [226097]
At the end of September 44,000 open cases were being progressed clerically which is around 3% of the total caseload. Under the Agency’s Operational Improvement Plan cases which for technical reasons can not be processed on the current computer system (CS2) were moved to our Bolton site to be administered clerically. By the end of September 2008, almost £60 million in child maintenance had been passed to parents with care whose cases are processed clerically.
Information on the number of clerical cases is routinely published in Table 20 of the Child Support Agency Quarterly Summary of Statistics (QSS), the latest copy of which is available in the House of Commons library or online at:
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Andrew Selous: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) of 20 October 2008, Official Report, column 17, if he will bring forward proposals to change the basis of assessment of non-resident parents' incomes in respect of deductions allowed for company cars. [233177]
Kitty Ussher [holding answer 4 November 2008]: There are no plans to amend legislation in this respect.
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