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4 Mar 2009 : Column 1700W—continued
Union Modernisation Fund
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 4 February 2009, Official Report, column 1319W, on the union modernisation fund, what his Department’s policy is on taking minutes at official meetings. [257527]
Mr. McFadden: The Department has a general requirement to keep an appropriate record of departmental business; but does not have a specific policy on taking minutes.
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 4 February 2009, Official Report, column 1319W, on the union modernisation fund, what the (a) remit and (b) function of the Supervisory Board is. [257528]
Mr. McFadden: The functions and remit of the UMF supervisory board, established following a public consultation, are:
The board advises Ministers on the projects which they consider should be supported by the fund in each bid round in the light of their assessment against the selection criteria. The final authority for approving bids rests with Ministers;
At the request of Ministers, the board will advise Ministers on matters relating to the performance or operation of the fund, including its future development; and
The board will be advised and supported by BERR officials. Subject to this, the board is responsible for determining its own procedures, including protocol in cases of possible conflicts of interest.
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 4 February 2009, Official Report, column 1319W, on the union modernisation fund, on what dates the Supervisory Board has met in the last 24 months. [257530]
Mr. McFadden: The UMF supervisory board has met twice over the last 24 months on
2-3 July 2007;
7 November 2008.
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform pursuant to the answer of 4 February 2009, Official Report, column 1319W, on the union modernisation fund, for what reasons minutes were not produced for the Supervisory Board meetings. [257531]
Mr. McFadden: No minutes are taken at the UMF supervisory board at the request of the board members in line with its terms of reference.
World Economic Forum
Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the cost of (a) flights, (b) accommodation, (c) gifts and (d) other expenses was for the visit by the Secretary of State, the Minister for Economic Competitiveness and Small Business and Minister for Trade, Investment and Consumer Affairs to the Davos summit in January 2009; and how many departmental staff accompanied them. [254633]
Mr. McFadden: The BERR Ministers who went to Davos were the Secretary of State, the Minister for Competitiveness and Small Business and the Minister for Trade and Investment.
Since 1999, the Government have published a list of all overseas travel by Cabinet Ministers costing over £500. Information for the last financial year, 2007-08, was published on 22 July 2008 and for the first time included details in respect of all Ministers. Details for the current financial year will be published as soon as possible after the end of the financial year. All ministerial travel is undertaken in accordance with the Ministerial Code.
Justice
Antisocial Behaviour: Fixed Penalties
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether he has plans to provide for penalty notices for disorder to be issued to 10 to 16 year olds; and what conclusions were drawn from the pilot scheme that ran from July 2005 to June 2006. [260073]
Mr. Hanson: The evaluation report on penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) for 10 to 15-year-olds was published on 5 November 2008. The report highlighted the benefits of the scheme, such as the impact of PNDs on young people’s behaviour and savings in police time. Some of the police forces involved in the pilots are continuing to use PNDs because they consider them an effective tool for dealing with certain offences by this age group. The evaluation report also suggests improvements that could be made to the administration of the scheme. We are discussing the learning from the report with key stakeholders.
Departmental Internet
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether (a) consultants and (b) other external staff were engaged to develop and maintain his Department's Youtube video channel. [259767]
Mr. Straw: No consultants or external staff were engaged to develop and maintain the Ministry of Justice Youtube channel, which we are not actively using at present, and the Youtube channel set up for the Governance of Britain programme which has been used as an embedded mechanism to engage and inform external audiences. Youtube hosts video free of charge.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much has been spent on video recording equipment for the purposes of providing content for his Department's Youtube video channel. [259768]
Mr. Straw: A total of £785.34 has been spent on two cameras and a camcorder which are used for ministerial visits and events. These are used for press and media purposes as well as providing content for the Department's Youtube video channel.
No video recording equipment costs have been incurred for work done for the Governance of Britain Youtube channel.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many staff in each pay grade work on his Department's YouTube video channel; [259769]
(2) how many staff work on (a) maintaining and (b) supplying content for his Department's YouTube video channel. [259770]
Mr. Straw: We currently have no members of staff who are solely dedicated to work on the YouTube video channels. Ad hoc work has been undertaken but this has minimal resourcing implications and does not constitute an ongoing resource requirement at present.
In addition to the small proportion of time spent by the permanent staff, some content was supplied by a contractor on a short-term contract as part of other work. This did not constitute a full headcount.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department has paid to website designers for the design of its YouTube video channel. [259771]
Mr. Straw: No website designers were employed to work on the design of its YouTube channel or of the Governance of Britain Youtube channel, and so no costs were incurred.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost was of producing each video available for the Department's YouTube video channel. [259772]
Mr. Straw: Videos produced for the Ministry of Justice YouTube channel have been prepared by existing staff and a contractor on a short-term contract as a small part of their work during the year, for example when attending ministerial visits, and because of this it is difficult to separately cost the proportion of work undertaken for the YouTube channel.
Videos produced for the Governance of Britain YouTube channel were part of a wider programme of work to support the Governance of Britain programme.
Five of these were produced to provide a record of public regional events in June and July 2008 in Bristol, Brighton, Newcastle, Nottingham and London. The total cost of producing and editing these five videos was £3,965.62
Four other videos produced as part of the Governance of Britain programme of work were produced by an in house film crew who work for HM Prison Service, and the estimated costs of all four videos amount to £1,434.20.
Departmental Legislation
Mr. Garnier:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what Acts for which his Department has policy responsibility received Royal Assent between 1 May
1997 and 1 January 2009; which provisions of those Acts (a) have not yet come into force, (b) have been repealed prior to coming into force and (c) have been repealed after coming into force; and how many prosecutions have taken place for each offence created under each of those Acts. [260666]
Mr. Wills: There is currently no central record of the information required. In order to obtain this information, a detailed investigation will need to be undertaken which will take some time. This information is being collated and I will write to the hon. Member as soon as it is available. A copy will be placed in the House Library.
Departmental Ministerial Policy Advisers
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much has been claimed in reimbursable expenses by special advisers in his Department in 2008-09 to date. [260359]
Mr. Straw: Between 1 April 2008 and 28 February 2009. a total of £640.85 was claimed in reimbursable expenses by the Department's special advisers.
Departmental Surveys
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department spent on staff surveys in each of the last five years; and which companies were contracted to carry out the surveys. [260253]
Mr. Wills: There has been one staff survey for the Ministry of Justice since its creation on 9 May 2007. This was a Staff Engagement Survey held in September 2008.
In 2007-08 £30,000 (£35,250 inc. VAT) was spent on preparatory work. The cost incurred in 2008-09 was £186,184.70 (£212,459.70 inc. VAT).
Towers Perrin-ISR conducted the survey and ORC International provided the analysis and reporting outputs.
Domestic Violence
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) arrests, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions for offences relating to domestic violence there were in (i) North West Cambridgeshire constituency, (ii) Cambridgeshire, (iii) the East of England and (iv) England and Wales in each of the last 10 years; and what proportion of victims of the offences were (A) male and (B) female. [254428]
The Solicitor-General: I have been asked to reply.
The following table shows the number of defendants in domestic violence proceedings, prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), whose case was completed in each of the three years for which reliable data are available. The table also shows the number and the proportion which resulted in a conviction and in an unsuccessful outcome.
No separate data are held for the hon. Member’s constituency. The data provided represent the domestic violence cases prosecuted by the Northern Prosecution Team within CPS Cambridgeshire, which covers the city of Peterborough and surrounding villages. These cases comprise part of the data shown in the next section of the table covering the whole of CPS Cambridgeshire. Figures are also provided for the Eastern Group of the CPS, comprising Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk; and for England and Wales as a whole.
The CPS capacity to record data relating to the gender of victims of crime is under development. In those cases where gender was recorded nationally during 2007-08, 85.7 per cent. of victims of domestic violence were women and 14.3 per cent. were men. No comparable figures are held for CPS Cambridgeshire.
The information requested on arrests is not collected centrally.
The arrests collection held by the Home Office covers arrests for recorded crime (notifiable offences) only, broken down at a main offence group level, covering categories such as violence against the person and robbery.
From these centrally reported data we are not able to identify specific offences from within the main offence groups.
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