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20 Apr 2009 : Column 159W—continued
Departmental Buildings
Dr. Pugh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what buildings are owned or operated by her Department under a private finance initiative (PFI) arrangement; and which companies are involved with each such PFI arrangement. [267410]
Mr. Woolas: 2 Marsham Street London SW1 is operated under a private finance initiative contract with Anne's Gate Property plc. The Department has no other PFI building contracts.
Departmental Consultants
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much has been spent on consultants by (a) her Department and (b) each of its non-departmental public bodies in 2007-08, broken down by consultancy. [255920]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The Home Office's expenditure on consultancy (including that of its Executive agencies) in the year 2007-08 was £95.6 million. This represents 7 per cent. of overall Home Office expenditure on third party goods and services. It is also 36 per cent. less than in 2006-07, reflecting a desire to reduce consultancy expenditure. The expenditure by Home Office NDPBs on consultancy in 2007-08 is tabled as follows:
| £ | |
It is not possible to give a detailed breakdown by consultancy, but the majority of this expenditure is on major programmes (e.g. eBorders, national identity scheme) where most of the work is contracted out to specialist contractors.
Departmental Data Protection
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many members of staff have been (a) investigated, (b) suspended and (c) dismissed for losing (i) memory sticks, (ii) laptop computers, (iii) desktop computers and (iv) mobile telephones in each year since 1997. [247959]
Mr. Woolas: No member of staff has been investigated, suspended or dismissed for losing memory sticks, laptop computers, desktop computers and mobile telephones in the last three years. Information prior to 2005 is not held centrally and to provide such information would incur disproportionate costs.
Anne Main: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether her Department uses WPA2 encryption protocol on all its wireless networks. [259804]
Mr. Woolas: Identity and Passport Services are the only part of the Home Office that uses wireless functionality on their networks. IPS utilises the WPA2 protocol to protect this wireless network.
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanisms are in place to ensure the security of personal data held by her Department. [268357]
Mr. Woolas: Good progress is being made on implementing the mandatory minimum measures set out in the data handling procedures in Government Report published in 2008 (a copy of which is in the House Library) following the review undertaken by Robert Hannigan. These and other mechanisms are being applied across the Home Office to reduce the risks to the security of personal and other sensitive information. These include:
Establishing a board-level senior information risk owner for the Home Office, and counterparts in each of our agencies and non-departmental public bodies;
Establishing an information assurance risk assessment and management process;
Creating a register of all information assets, identifying owners for all those assets and training those owners in managing information handling risks;
Carrying out training and raising awareness amongst all staff;
Setting up a bureau to allow any restricted or personal data that need to be sent, or received from, beyond the secure network to be encrypted;
Restricting the ability to write data to removable media to those that have a business need to do so;
Replacing existing USB sticks with encrypted ones, where they are required; and
Obtaining assurances from delivery partners that they will handle our data in line with the Hannigan requirements.
Departmental Detergents
Annette Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make it her policy to ensure that no cleaning products or ingredients of cleaning products used by her Department have been tested on animals. [261125]
Mr. Woolas: My Department inclusive of its agencies does not generally contract directly for cleaning services, but procures them through wider Facilities Management (FM) or operational service contractors. Typically contracts between my Department and FM suppliers stipulate that the suppliers should consider environmentally preferable products and materials. Our key suppliers have confirmed that their policy is only to use cleaning products or ingredients tested on animals if required to meet legal requirements.
National and international regulatory bodies require that products, ingredients and chemicals are tested to ensure that they are not a danger to children, adults, household pets and the environment. Until reliable alternatives are developed, this means that procedures have to be performed using animals.
Departmental Empty Property
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the change in the cost to her Department of maintaining empty public buildings leased by it as a result of the changes to empty property rate relief that came into effect in April 2008. [267905]
Mr. Woolas: The Home Office including its Executive Agencies made budgetary provision in the financial year 2008-09 for an additional £65,377 as a result of the changes to empty rates relief that came into effect on 1 April 2008.
Departmental Energy
Greg Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much (a) electricity, (b) gas and (c) other fuel was used by (i) her Department and (ii) each of its agencies in each of the last 10 years. [267343]
Mr. Woolas: 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 dioxide emissions from offices by 12.5 per cent. by 2010-11 against a 1999-2000 baseline.
The Department does not hold comprehensive information on how much electricity, gas and other fuel was used across the whole Home Office estate and its agencies for the last 10 years.
The latest assessment of Government’s performance against these targets was published by the Sustainable Development Commission on 12 December 2008:
Departmental Freedom of Information
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of freedom of information requests received by her Department gave rise to responses that were published by her Department in 2008-09. [269688]
Mr. Woolas: The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly statistics on the number of FOI requests received by central Government Departments, the most recent of which relate to the third quarter (July to September) of 2008. The statistics show that during the period April to September 2008, the Home Office received 1,019 requests, of which 394 resulted in a full or partial release of information.
82 (8 per cent. of the number of requests received) of these responses have been published in the Freedom of Information disclosure log on the Department's website.
Departmental Manpower
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people are employed in her Department’s departmental security unit. [269175]
Mr. Woolas: At the end of February 2009 there were 53.82 headcount full-time equivalent permanent paid civil servants working in the Home Office departmental security unit.
Departmental Marketing
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much funding her Department allocated for publicity and promotional purposes in its budget for 2008-09. [267455]
Mr. Woolas: The Home Office allocated £13,183,000 for the financial year 2008-09. This was allocated to a range of public facing activity which includes advertising, public relations, events, leaflets and supporting literature. This figure excludes executive agency and NDPB expenditure, VAT, supplier fees, and recruitment advertising.
Departmental Procurement
Mr. Grieve:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with reference to the answer of 21 October 2008, Official Report, column 259W, on departmental procurement, how much was paid to (a) the Labour party, (b) Biometrix, (c) Information Risk Management plc, (d) Good Relations Ltd. and (e)
Marks and Spencer Lunch to Go in 2007-08; and for what purpose in each case. [241874]
Mr. Woolas: Based on the purchase order data held in the Home Department’s financial database, the details of the payments made to (a) the Labour party, (b) Biometix (c) Information Risk Management plc, (d) Good Relations Ltd. and (e) Marks and Spencer Lunch to Go in 2007-08 are as follows:
In accordance with section 170 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the Home Office reimburses security costs incurred by political parties provided that this is accompanied by a letter from the Chief Officer of Police for the host area confirming that the security measures are justified.
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there has been any nugatory cost to her Department and its agencies relating to tendered procurement where the tender process has been cancelled prior to the award of the contract in the last three years. [242462]
Mr. Woolas: In the last three years the Home Department and its Executive agencies have not incurred any nugatory bid costs from suppliers where tender processes have been cancelled prior to the award of contract.
Departmental Public Expenditure
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much capital expenditure has been brought forward in response to the economic downturn by her Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies to (a) 2008-09, (b) 2009-10 and (c) 2010-11; from which years such expenditure has been brought forward; and if she will make a statement. [251399]
Mr. Woolas: As announced in the pre-Budget report on 24 November, £20 million of capital expenditure has been brought forward from 2010-11 to 2009-10 to improve the estates of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Police Improvement Agency, developing and installing high technology systems and enhancing intelligence gathering against serious organised crime.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what her latest estimate is of her Department's capital expenditure in (a) 2008-09, (b) 2009-10, (c) 2010-11 and (d) 2011-12; and if she will make a statement. [268121]
Mr. Woolas:
As published in the Pre-Budget report on 24 November 2008, the Home Office capital budget in 2008-9 is £0.9 billion, in 2009-10 £0.8 billion, and in 2010-11 £0.8 billion. The Government have not set Departments' Capital DEL budgets for years beyond 2010-11. Capital DEL budgets for 2011-12 and beyond are a matter for the next spending review. The Government
do, however, publish projections for PSNI (Public Sector Net Investment) over the forecast period at Budgets and Pre-Budget reports.
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