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19 Jan 2009 : Column 1069W—continued
The type of car chosen reflects a range of factors including fuel efficiency, safety standard and practical usage. Where possible, when a lease is up for renewal, we could consider all options in reducing costs to the Department while maintaining the standard required.
District Policing Partnerships: Expenditure
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the cost of funding district policing partnerships in Northern Ireland was in the year ended March 2008. [248930]
Paul Goggins: That is an operational matter for the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which is independent of Government. The hon. Gentleman may wish to write to Dr. Debbie Donnelly, acting Chief Executive of the Policing Board.
Inquiries
Mr. Donaldson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the Wright Inquiry has informed him of the reasons why the inquiry’s former Senior Counsel Derek Batchelor QC vacated his post; and what plans he has to review the circumstances surrounding his departure. [249014]
Mr. Woodward: Instructing Inquiry Counsel is a matter for the Inquiry Chairman. I have no plans to review the circumstances surrounding Mr. Batchelor’s departure.
Offenders
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many former prisoners are employed by his Department; and what his Department’s policy is on employing former prisoners. [246337]
Mr. Woodward: As part of the recruitment process, staff joining the Northern Ireland Office are subject to character checks and security vetting, which includes examination of criminal records. Consideration is given to each individual case, taking into account the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Order (NI) 1978. Once this check is completed, the number of staff recruited who are former prisoners is not monitored.
Police Stations: Construction
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he expects the new prison at Magilligan to be completed; and at what cost. [248931]
Paul Goggins:
Work is expected to begin on the new prison build at Magilligan in late 2011 or shortly afterwards and to take at least four years to complete. The Northern
Ireland Prison Service is currently putting in place the requisite programme management, design and business case services.
The estimated costs are in the order of £200 million inclusive of VAT and 30 per cent. optimism bias.
Police Stations: Repairs and Maintenance
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much the recent maintenance and refurbishment work at Garvagh Police Station, County Londonderry, cost. [248425]
Paul Goggins: That is an operational matter for the Chief Constable. I have asked him to reply directly to the hon. Member, and a copy of his letter will be placed in the Library of the House.
Prisoners Release
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many sentenced foreign prisoners were released from prisons in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months for which data is available. [244482]
Paul Goggins: Between 1 December 2007 to 1 December 2008, 178 sentenced foreign national prisoners were released from prisons in Northern Ireland.
Communities and Local Government
Business Improvement Districts
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with reference to the answer to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield of 19 November 2008, Official Report, columns 508-09W, on local authorities: business, what additional business rate multiplier is applied in each of the business improvement districts. [246947]
John Healey: There are no additional business rate multipliers applied to each of the business improvement districts (BIDs). Businesses within the BID area agree to pay an additional levy on top of their standard business rate bill.
Charities
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to which (a) charities and (b) voluntary organisations her Department has provided funding in the last five years; and how much funding was provided to each. [247364]
Mr. Khan: A complete list of funding to charities and voluntary organisations could be made available only at a disproportionate cost.
However, I refer the hon. Member to a related question that I answered on 11 December 2008, Official Report, columns 243-45W.
Community Development: Finance
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government through which funding streams her Department plans to contribute towards (a) supporting housing, (b) countering social exclusion and (c) regeneration in (i) 2008-09 and (ii) 2009-10. [246368]
John Healey: The following table sets out the funding streams and amounts that the Department plans to contribute towards supporting housing, and regeneration in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Some funding streams for supporting housing, clearly contribute also to regeneration.
A number of the Department's programmes potentially contribute to countering social exclusion, however, it is not possible to quantify the amounts specifically involved.
In addition, the Department is responsible for managing the funds received by the UK from the European Regional Development Fund, which supports regeneration in a number of the English regions.
Council Tax: Valuation
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will make publicly available the location-related datasets for (a) the 10,000 localities drawn up by the Valuation Office Agency for council tax valuations and (b) the 90,000 sub-locations drawn up by the Valuation Office Agency for business rates valuations as referred to on page 29 of her Department's location strategy. [246385]
Mr. Timms: I have been asked to reply.
Map data held by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) for localities are used, among other things, in the provision of commercial valuation services. Publication of this information would weaken the VOA's competitive position. No map data exist for sub-locations, which are codes used by the VOA to group properties with similar characteristics for non-domestic rating purposes.
Councillors: Arun
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for what reasons the Audit Commission has requested councillors of Arun Council to provide details of their personal bank accounts. [246374]
John Healey: This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission and I have asked the chief executive of the Audit Commission to write to the hon. Member direct.
Letter from Steve Bundred, dated January 2009:
Your Parliamentary Question on what reasons the Audit Commission has requested councillors of Arun Council to provide details of their personal bank accounts has been passed to me for reply.
This matter relates to the data collected for the Audit Commission’s data matching exercise, known as the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). The NFI is designed to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud and is one of the ways in which the Audit Commission meets its responsibility of promoting economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the use of public money. We estimate that since it started in 1996 the NFI has helped to detect around £450 million in fraud and overpayments.
The processing of data by the Commission in a data matching exercise is now carried out under powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998, which were enacted in the Serious Crime Act 2007. The Audit Commission does not itself investigate instances of fraud; this is the responsibility of the bodies participating in the NFI and supplying data sets for matching.
Mandatory participants such as local councils, police authorities, probation boards, fire and rescue authorities and NHS bodies are required to submit a number of different dataset types for NFI. One of these datasets is payroll data, that is, all individuals currently being paid a salary/wage/members allowance on a payroll at a particular point in time.
The data sought is limited strictly to those fields that are required for data matching plus any that will assist the investigator in selecting matches where an inconsistency is indicated from the data match that requires further investigation. The fields are set out in a ‘data specification’. The bank account and sort code are included on the payroll data specification; however the name in which the bank account is held is not collected so the Audit Commission cannot make a connection to other account holders.
Bank details (bank account number and sort code) are important for the investigation process, but they are not displayed in the reports that NFI participants receive; instead the matching process looks at whether the bank account number and sort code is the
same or different across the sets of data provided for NFI and then converts this information into a flag (Yes or No). It is then the flag that is included in the NFI reports. This intelligence helps investigators prioritise investigative resources on cases where employment income has, for example, potentially been withheld (e.g. in an undeclared bank account). This data is highly significant in the fight against fraud.
The Audit Commission’s Head of NFI has met elected members at Arun Council to explain why these fields are collected, referring to a number of case studies that not only involve public sector employees but also elected members who have been guilty of benefit fraud by not declaring allowances.
A copy of this letter will be placed in Hansard.
Departmental Catering
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which (a) food and (b) drinks suppliers have been used by her Department in each of the last three years; and how much her Department paid to each such supplier in each of those years. [248379]
Mr. Khan: All procurement is undertaken in line with the European Commission’s procurement rules and to obtain value for money.
Catering services are provided as part of the Department’s Integrated Facilities Management contract. There are a number of third party suppliers used by our caterers and to provide the information requested would be disproportionately costly.
Departmental Data Protection
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what percentage of contractors and suppliers to (a) her Department and (b) its agencies has reported compliance with the Government’s security standards following publication of the report, Data Handling Procedures in Government, and the accompanying document, Cross-departmental Actions: Mandatory Minimum Action, on 25 June 2008. [245319]
Mr. Khan: CLG and its Agencies are using the new standard Office of Government Commerce clauses in new contracts that involve the handling of personal data and reviews of documentation on existing contracts are being carried out.
The Department and its Agencies have assessed their delivery chains and have conducted reviews of contractors’ adherence to data handling requirements. All contracts are currently assessed as compliant or close to compliance.
In some cases CLG HQ security staff have been or are directly involved in visits to contractors to assess data handling procedures.
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