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10 Mar 2009 : Column 340W—continued
Government Departments: Trade Union Officials
Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what (a) guidance and (b) advice the (i) Cabinet Office and (ii) Cabinet Secretary has provided to Government departments on the provision of departmental office space to trade unions for union representatives to use for union activities. [258603]
Mr. Watson: No guidance or advice has been issued by the Cabinet Office to Departments.
Learning Disability: Expenditure
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proportion of expenditure on learning disability services from the public purse was funded by central Government in the last financial year for which figures are available. [260530]
Phil Hope: I have been asked to reply.
It is not possible to say what proportion of expenditure was spent on learning disability services from the public purse funded by central Government in the last financial year. This is because Government expenditure on adult social care funding is part of a larger sum of money given by Government to councils and it is the responsibility of individual councils to determine how these funds are allocated between different local priorities, including adult social care.
Council services are funded from three different sources:
the formula grant distributed by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to each council;
the council’s ability to raise revenue through council tax and making local means tested charges for services; and
by specific grant allocation from the Department of Health and other Government Departments.
Non-departmental Public Bodies: Costs
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what the total cost of non-departmental public bodies was in (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08 and (c) 2008-09 to date. [262048]
Mr. Watson: Information on funding and expenditure of non-departmental public bodies for 2006-07 and 2007-08 is published in the Cabinet Office annual publication “Public Bodies”. Copies of “Public Bodies” are available in the Libraries of the House and can be downloaded from:
Information for 2008-09 will be published in due course.
Stockley House: Empty Property
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what the estimated cost in empty property business rates for the vacant property recorded on the e-PIMS database at (a) Stockley House and (b) the Emergency Planning College is in 2008-09. [258539]
Kevin Brennan: The business rates associated with the vacant space at Stockley House and the Emergency Planning College in 2008-09 were £88,438 and £1,346 respectively.
Trade Unions
Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster which trade unions are recognised in the Cabinet Office. [262080]
Mr. Watson: I refer the right hon. Member to the answer I gave on 25 February 2008, Official Report, column 1185W, to the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie).
Children, Schools and Families
Children: Bed And Breakfast Accommodation
Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children under 16 have been recorded as living in bed and breakfast accommodation in each of the last five years; and what steps are being taken to reduce the number of children in such accommodation. [261042]
Mr. Iain Wright: I have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 2 March 2009, Official Report, column 1225W, which gives a national estimate of the number of children in bed and breakfast-style temporary accommodation under homelessness legislation as at the end of September 2008, and steps that are being taken to reduce that number. The September 2008 quarter was the first for which the response rate and quality of data reported at local authority level was sufficiently high to produce a national estimate, so national figures for previous years are not available.
Children: Databases
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families whether the ContactPoint children's database (a) is fully accredited to Government standards and (b) has undergone a privacy impact assessment. [258414]
Beverley Hughes: In response to part (a) of the question, ContactPoint is designed, built, operated and managed to HM Government standards for security and complies with the strict controls imposed by HM Government security policy. Data contained within the system are made available only to authorised users who have been subject to vetting and have completed mandatory training. Organisations that provide data or require access to ContactPoint must meet strict system accreditation requirements.
We have developed an ongoing systematic engagement of children, young people and parents, both at national and local levels, throughout the development and implementation of ContactPoint to ensure that any concerns about privacy were addressed.
We have sought to understand the views of children and young people, parents and carers, using a variety of methods, including:
directly seeking the views of children and young people from a wide range of backgrounds, facilitated by independent specialists in this field;
reviewing a wide body of independent research about the views of children and young people;
understanding the experiences of local authority trailblazers who developed local ‘pilot’ systems and who consulted with children, young people, parents and carers; and
engaging children, young people, parents and carers in a number of public consultations since 2003.
The views of children, young people, parents and carers have played, and continue to play, an important role in the development and implementation of ContactPoint.
This work has shown that, in general, children and young people understand the benefits of ContactPoint. Understandably, they want reassurance that the system will be secure and accurate; that practitioners will use their information appropriately and respect their privacy, and that access to ContactPoint will be limited to those who need it to do their job.
We have developed materials to help inform children, young people, parents and carers them about ContactPoint. These materials take into account Fair Processing Notice obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. These materials are being distributed through a range of channels,
national and local, which include direct mailing to households (where practicable), at points of service and public areas (e.g., libraries), on websites and through the media.
In addition, ContactPoint has been, and continues to be, subject to regular risk reviews, including the consideration of risks to privacy.
Children: Day Care
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 3 February 2009, Official Report, columns 1058-62W, on children's day care, how many childcare settings have closed in each quarter in 2008-09. [260031]
Beverley Hughes: The available information is shown in the table.
Due to changes in legislation as at 1 September 2008 new categories have been introduced for the collection of child care data and the current categories have ceased to exist. The latest Ofsted figures for a full quarter were published in June 2008. Ofsted are currently reviewing how these data will be published in the future.
| Number and percentage of childcare providers that have opened and closed( 1) position as at each quarter , England 2008 | |||||||
| Childminders | Full d ay c are | Out o f s chool d ay c are( 2) | |||||
| Number | Rate | Number | Rate | Number | Rate | ||
| (1) Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 if under 100, and to the nearest 100 if over 100. (2) Out of school day care figures may not include services in extended schools as OFSTED data only include providers that have to register separately. Source: Ofsted | |||||||
Children: Protection
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what guidance his Department has issued to (a) Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council and (b) the Mayor of Doncaster on their responsibilities for child protection issues; [249161]
(2) what the responsibility is of the Mayor of Doncaster for child protection policy and practice in that area. [248908]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 19 January 2009]: It is the local authority as a whole that is legally responsible for the discharge of its statutory functions, regardless of the arrangements by which the authority decides to discharge those functions and, in particular, whether the authority is led by a directly elected Mayor. While the elected Mayor is politically accountable—alongside the Lead Member for Children's Services—for the way in which the authority discharges its statutory functions for child protection, he or she is not legally responsible for the discharge of those functions.
Doncaster metropolitan borough council has been issued with the same guidance as all organisations and individuals with responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. This is contained principally within ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2006):
In addition, local authorities that are children's services authorities, including Doncaster, have a duty under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 to ensure that their functions are discharged with regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Specific guidance for these organisations about their duty under section 11 is contained in ‘Making Arrangements to Safeguard and Promote the Welfare of Children’ (2005):
Children: Social Services
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 25 February 2009, Official Report, column 802W, on children: local services, what methodology was used to allocate the funds between local authorities. [260477]
Beverley Hughes: Local authorities' grant allocations have been calculated by applying the children's social care relative needs formula, details of which can be found at the following website:
Children’s Centres: Standards
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what proportion of children’s centres’ nurseries were deemed (a) excellent, (b) good, (c) satisfactory and (d) inadequate by Ofsted in each year since Ofsted was established. [252068]
Beverley Hughes: These are matters for Ofsted. The Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert, has written to the hon. Member and copies of her replies have been placed in the Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert , dated 9 February 2009:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, for reply.
As you will be aware, Ofsted was established in 1992, but the first children’s centres were only designated from June 2003, with many developing from Sure Start Local Programmes and Early Excellence Centres. The services offered by Children’s Centres varies but may include integrated early education and childcare. This means that a Children’s Centre may include a provision registered by Ofsted (day care and childcare on non-domestic premises) or a maintained school which will be inspected by Ofsted. However, we do not identify if childcare providers or schools are part of a Children’s Centre on our databases.
The figures below should be treated with some care. To produce these we have cross-referenced the postcodes of Sure Start Children’s Centres, according to the DCSF Sure Start database (which is updated by local authorities), with those of the childcare providers and nursery schools on our records. This matching is unlikely to be fully accurate. A Sure Start Children’s Centre may have the same post code as a childcare setting while not being the same establishment.
The following tables A and B show the number and proportion of registered childcare providers with a postcode match to a Sure Start Children’s Centre receiving each overall quality grade following an Ofsted inspection from 1 April 2003 to 31 August 2008. Table C shows the number and proportion of registered childcare
providers with a postcode match to a Sure Start Children’s Centre receiving each overall quality grade following an Ofsted inspection from 1 September 2008 (when the early years foundation stage was introduced) to 31 December 2008, which are the latest data available on childcare inspections. Between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2005, the early years inspection framework was based on the Children Act 1989, and used a three-point scale, ranging from good to unsatisfactory. Between 1 April 2005 and 31 August 2008, the inspection framework (commonly known as the Inspecting Outcomes for Children framework) used a four-point scale, ranging from outstanding to inadequate. The early years foundation stage inspection framework, introduced on 1 September 2008, uses a similar four-point scale.
The following tables D and E show the number and proportion of nursery schools receiving each overall effectiveness grade following an Ofsted inspection from 1 September 2003 to the 31 August 2008, which are the latest data available on school inspection outcomes. Under the previous school inspection framework (commonly known as Section 10), this judgment was made using a seven point scale: excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, poor and very poor. Since September 2005, the judgment has been made under the current school inspection framework (commonly known as Section 5) using a four point scale: outstanding, good, satisfactory and inadequate.
It is not possible to operate a simple read-across approach between frameworks, so simple comparisons are not possible. Inspectors do not make reference to, or comparisons with, different inspection frameworks. Ofsted’s criteria for making inspection judgments about childcare and schools are clearly set out in our inspection guidance.
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