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31 Mar 2009 : Column 1036W—continued
Treasury
Departmental Data Protection
Patrick Mercer: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the Interim Report on Data Handling Procedures in Government, 17 December 2007, if he will issue guidance on the use of removable electronic media by staff in his Department. [267234]
Angela Eagle: HM Treasury continually reassesses its security standards, procedures and risks to ensure that it is providing high levels of security for its data and other assets. Changes have been implemented in response to the Interim Report on Data handling Procedures, and the intention is to further strengthen existing procedures during 2009.
Departmental Empty Property
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the change in the annual cost to his Department of maintaining the empty public buildings owned by his Department as a result of the April 2008 changes to empty property rate relief. [267129]
Angela Eagle: The Treasury actively manages its estate, and ensures value for money through managing holdings until the leases expire and, wherever possible, disposing of empty properties. The cost in 2008-09 of maintaining properties was £119,000, of which £41,000 was a result of the April 2008 changes to empty property rate relief.
Departmental Publications
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the (a) production and printing and (b) other costs to his Department of producing its most recent (i) departmental annual report and (ii) autumn performance report. [266685]
Angela Eagle: The Treasury’s most recent annual report was published in July 2008 and cost of production and printing was £3,585.
The Treasury’s most recent autumn performance report was published in December 2008 as primarily an online document, and the cost of production and printing was £365.
Production of these reports involves many teams across the Treasury. As such, it is not possible to isolate other costs relating to the production of these documents without incurring disproportionate costs.
Departmental Standards
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the cost to his Department of measuring compliance with its targets under its public service agreements in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [266704]
Angela Eagle: Work is undertaken by teams across the Treasury which impacts on delivery of its objectives and PSAs. As such, it is not possible to separate the costs of compliance measurement from those of managing performance without incurring disproportionate costs.
In accordance with central guidance, the Treasury publishes information on cost and resource allocation against its objectives as part of its resource accounts. The most recent resource accounts was published in July 2008.
Government Departments: Standards
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) devising and (b) monitoring performance against public service agreement targets; and what the annual cost of such staff is. [266583]
Angela Eagle: For the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review period, HM Treasury is lead Department for one public service agreement (PSA):
"Halve the number of children in poverty by 2010-11, on the way to eradicating child poverty by 2020 (PSA 9)".
Work is undertaken by teams across the Treasury which impacts on delivery of this PSA. In addition, DWP, DCSF, HMRC, CLG and DEFRA are delivery partners for this PSA. As such, it is not possible to isolate costs for this PSA without incurring disproportionate costs.
More information on the Treasury's resources can be found in its Resource Accounts.
Members: Correspondence
Mr. Burns: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when his Department plans to reply to the letter of 30 January 2009 from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford Ref: 4/32912/2009, on his constituent, Mr. Simon Payne of Chelmsford. [268008]
Angela Eagle: I replied to the hon. Member on 23 February.
Motor Vehicles: Government Assistance
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps the Government is taking to provide assistance for car finance businesses during the economic downturn. [266660]
Angela Eagle: The Minister for Trade and Investment (Lord Davies) is exploring with the motor finance industry possible options to help improve the flow of liquidity to car finance companies. The issues are complex but discussions on this front are continuing.
Mutual Societies
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to encourage the growth of mutual organisations in the financial sector. [266821]
Ian Pearson: The Government fully support the mutual sector and have set up an £80 million Growth Fund for Credit Unions to enable them to lend to their members and increase the capacity of the sector to serve the financially excluded. It will shortly be publishing a Legislative Reform Order to update the legislative framework for credit unions and industrial and provident societies.
Parliament recently passed the Mutual Societies (Transfers) Order 2009 which will enable building societies to transfer their business to the subsidiary of another mutual, as an alternative to full demutualisation. This is the Treasury's first use of the powers in the Building Societies (Funding) Mutual Societies (Transfers) Act 2007, a Private Members Bill supported by the Government.
Private Equity: EU Action
Mr. Todd: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the merits of proposals for EU regulation of private equity and hedge funds; and if he will make a statement. [267512]
Ian Pearson: The Government welcome the European Commission's decision to bring forward proposals in this important area and look forward to working with the Commission and other EU member states to reach an agreed position.
Tax Allowances: Motor Vehicles
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received from the UK premium car industry on changes to their write-down allowance; and if he will make a statement. [266572]
Angela Eagle: Treasury Ministers and officials receive representations from a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Government's practice to provide details of all such representations.
Tax Credit Office: Correspondence
Mr. Steen: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will instruct the Chief Executive of the Tax Credit Office to reply to the hon. Member for Totnes' letters of 5 February and 3 March 2009, on the issues surrounding Mrs. Yvonne Allen of Salcombe's working tax credits following the loss of her records by HM Revenue and Customs. [267857]
Mr. Timms: HM Revenue and Customs have advised me that they will reply to the hon. Member shortly and apologise for the delay in doing so.
TNT
Mr. Weir: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions Ministers have had with the Financial Services Authority in respect of TNT since 2005. [267535]
Ian Pearson: Ministers and officials meet the FSA on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of issues.
Mr. Weir: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government have received representations from the European Commission on the under-reporting of profits by subsidiary companies of TPG in (a) Belgium, (b) the Netherlands, (c) Germany and (d) France between 2004 and 2006. [267536]
Mr. Timms: HMRC are not able to provide such information about individual businesses because to do so would breach taxpayer confidentiality.
Communities and Local Government
Council Tax
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the (a) 20 highest and (b) 20 lowest proposed average (i) borough and (ii) county council tax rises in percentage terms between 2008-09 and 2009-10 were. [268135]
John Healey: Details of the changes in percentage terms in council tax between 2008-09 and 2009-10 can be found in the statistical release “Levels of council tax set by local authorities England 2009-10” that was published on the Communities and Local Government website on 26 March 2009. It can be found at:
Departmental Energy
Greg Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps have been taken by (a) her Department and (b) its agencies to improve the thermal efficiency of their buildings in the last 12 months. [266752]
Mr. Khan: The Department has made a number of changes to the thermal efficiency of its buildings over the last 12 months. These include fitting solar film to glazing to reduce solar gain and improved housekeeping to ensure doors are closed in back of house areas to reduce draughts.
Of the Department’s agencies, the Fire Service College has installed thermal insulation in the ceiling voids of recently refurbished offices, and the Planning Inspectorate has added solar film to windows and replaced sliding doors to reduce cold air ingress.
As well as improving thermal efficiency, the Department has taken numerous other measures to reduce energy consumption in its buildings. Gas and electricity consumption was reduced in Communities’ main headquarter building in 2007-08 by 37 per cent. and 22 per cent. respectively, compared to the previous year.
Greg Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much (a) electricity, (b) gas and (c) other fuel has been used by (i) her Department and (ii) each of its agencies since her Department’s establishment. [267340]
Mr. Khan: Communities and Local Government and its agencies have used the following amounts of electricity, gas and fuel since the Department’s inception.
| kWh | |||
| 2006-07 | 2007-08 | ||
| (1) These figures do not include data from the regional Government offices. (2) These figures include data from the Department’s office and non-office estate. | |||
Central Government Departments and their Executive agencies are required to report performance data on their energy consumption for their office estate annually as part of the Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) reporting process, to assess performance against the target to reduce carbon emissions from offices by 12.5 per cent. by 2010-11.
The latest assessment of Government’s performance against these targets was published by the Sustainable Development Commission on 12 December 2008 at:
Empty Property
Margaret Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate she has made of the number of empty dwellings owned by banks and building societies in each year since 2000; and what her most recent estimate is of the number owned by building societies. [267148]
John Healey: This information is not collected centrally.
Fire Services: Manpower
Mr. Drew:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what estimate she has made of the minimum number of staff required
(a) in each regional control centre and (b) to staff the national network of regional control centres to meet the needs of national resilience; on what date each regional control centre was completed; what expenditure has been incurred in respect of each regional control centre since its completion; what estimate she has made of such costs in the period between completion and cut over for each centre; and what expenditure her Department has incurred on consultants engaged to work on the FiReControl project to date. [267875]
Mr. Khan: Information on staffing is included in the “FiReControl Business Case: the National Case” published in November 2008—a copy of the Business Case is available in the House Library. The actual number of staff to be employed within each regional control centre is a matter for each regional local authority controlled company who will be the employers.
To the end of February 2009 the cost of consultancy services for the FiReControl project totalled £45.3 million and this is taken into account within the overall project implementation costs outlined in the Business Case.
The costs from practical completion of each regional control centre until the end of February are set out in the following table:
| Cost (£) | |
The anticipated costs per month until the current planned cutover dates are:
| Cost (£) | |
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