Written Answers to Questions
Tuesday 21 April 2009
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Broadband: Cleveland
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many households in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency had access to broadband services (a) in 2004 and (b) at the latest date for which figures are available. [268434]
Mr. McFadden: The matter raised is the responsibility of the independent regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which is accountable to Parliament rather than Ministers. Accordingly, I have asked the chief executive of Ofcom to reply directly to the hon. Member. Copies of the chief executive’s letter will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Departmental Absenteeism
Mr. Hands: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many staff of his Department were recorded absent for non-medical reasons on (a) 2 February 2009 and (b) 3 February 2009; what estimate he has made of the (i) cost to his Department and (ii) number of working hours lost due to such absence; and what guidance his Department issued to staff in respect of absence on these days. [260468]
Mr. McFadden: It is not possible to provide exact numbers as annual leave and arrangements for absence are agreed locally between line managers and their staff. Asking each individual line manager in the Department for details would incur disproportionate cost.
An estimate of the costs and working hours lost has not been completed and it would incur disproportionate cost to do so. However, the Department has assessed the proportion of staff able to work on the 2 and 3 February 2009. All departmental buildings were open
on those dates. It is estimated that approximately 25 per cent. of staff attended the office. In addition, approximately 65 per cent. of staff have remote access to the Department’s IT system and all London-based staff have remote telephony access and can access the office telephone system from home or elsewhere. It is estimated that approximately 10 per cent. of staff cannot work from home and were unable to work in any way on the days in question.
Staff were issued with advice on travel information and reminded of departmental guidance on adverse weather and travel disruption. Where possible, staff made alternative arrangements with their line managers including
Working flexibly or from home
Different work patterns to ease disruption of public transport e.g. start work later
Using annual leave
Where line managers considered it was unreasonable to require staff to attend the office and it was impossible to work from home, managers had discretion to authorise staff to stay at home without loss of pay.
Departmental ICT
Jenny Willott: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the initial estimated (a) cost and (b) delivery date for each ICT project initiated by his Department and its predecessor that cost more than £1 million was in each year since 2003-04; what the (i) outturn cost and (ii) completion date was of each such project subsequently completed; and how much has been paid to each contractor in respect of each project. [265511]
Mr. McFadden: For the last 10 years the vast majority of the Department's, and its predecessors, IT services have been provided through a PFI agreement with Fujitsu services and covers the provision of all desktop services, web infrastructure services, document management and other business applications. Many of these are charged for as part of overall, bundled, service charges. The Department also has in place an alternative IT framework agreement with a number of suppliers to enable competition where this is deemed appropriate. In addition, previously the responsibility for ICT was of a devolved nature and it is not therefore possible to provide all of the information requested without disproportionate cost. However, the information we do have available for ICT Projects costing over £1 million in each year since 2003-04 is as follows:
| Project | Original estimate (£ million) | Delivery date | Outturn (£ million) | Actual delivery | Main supplier | Notes |
Since 2003-04 all other ICT projects have either been delivered as part of the Fujitsu PFI contract or have cost less than £1 million.
Jenny Willott:
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what steps his Department has taken to address the effect on levels of carbon dioxide emissions
from his Department of its ICT purchases since the publication of the Greening Government ICT Strategy; and if he will make a statement. [269571]
Mr. McFadden: In order to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide emissions the Department has:
Reduced the number of PCs within the Department on a ratio of eight PCs for every 10 staff.
Introduced a printer/employee ratio of 1:20 for monochrome and 1:40 for colour printers.
Reduced the number of desktop printers by over 800 with an associated reduction in consumables.
Reduced the number of Exchange servers from 20 to eight
Introduced improved power saving settings on all PCs and on printers
Introduced automatic night time shut down on all PCs.
Jenny Willott: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the average server capacity utilisation by each division of his Department and its predecessor was in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [269586]
Mr. McFadden: The provision of IT services in my Department are outsourced to a number of suppliers on an array of IT server equipment. Under these arrangements, service level targets are specified and monitored to ensure high standards of service. The measurement of server capacity utilisation is not a contractual reporting requirement and so the information requested is not available.
Departmental Marketing
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform with reference to the answer to the hon. Member for Fareham of 4 February 2008, Official Report, column 894W, on departmental marketing, how much the Insolvency Service has spent on promotional products since February 2008. [252453]
Mr. McFadden: The Insolvency Service spent approximately £11,480 on promotional products since February 2008.
Departmental Press
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how much was spent on subscriptions to (a) newspapers and (b) magazines for delivery to the (i) constituency homes, (ii) London homes and (iii) other homes of Ministers in his Department in each year since 2005. [266345]
Mr. McFadden: Our records show that since 2005 no BERR funded newspapers or magazines have been delivered to any Minister’s home.
Departmental Public Appointments
Harry Cohen: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what information his Department holds on the number of persons appointed to executive positions in bodies for which his Department has responsibility who previously had careers in the banking industry. [261238]
Mr. McFadden: We do not hold information centrally for those members of staff who previously had careers in the banking sector.
Departmental Temporary Employment
Justine Greening: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what his Department’s policy is on the renewal of the contracts of (a) temporary and (b) agency staff. [264316]
Mr. McFadden: Temporary staff are staff that have been recruited on a short-term or fixed term civil service contract.
The Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Code dictates that short-term appointments of 12 months made outside of fair and open competition can be extended up to a total of 24 months. Such extensions are considered only on an exceptional basis. Extensions of these types are not encouraged and BERR’s policy requires line managers to write a business case to the Head of Recruitment to seek approval of an extension.
Fixed term appointments (FTAs) are made through open competition. The person is employed until a specific date is reached, a specific event occurs or a specific piece of work is completed. FTAs are normally made for a period of one to three years and do not usually exceed a total period of four years. BERR’s policy requires line managers to seek authority from the Head of Recruitment to extend or make permanent a fixed term appointment.
Agency staff are new recruits that have joined the Department but are not on a civil service contract and are employed by a third party. The use of agency staff is delegated to line management units. Permission must be sought from an HR Business Partner to use agency staff to fill a post. They can only be used on an occasional basis, where there is a short-term business need and other options for filling a post have been considered. The extension of these contracts is not encouraged.
Departmental Training
Mike Penning: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform whether his Department has provided voice coaching to any of its employees in the last 12 months. [260636]
Mr. McFadden: Training budgets are delegated to line managers. Decisions are made locally on how the money is spent so this information is not held centrally.
Evening Standard
Norman Baker: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform whether the Secretary of State absented himself from the decision on whether to issue an intervention notice under the Enterprise Act 2002 in the case of the proposed sale of the London Evening Standard to Alexander Lebedev. [269053]
Mr. Thomas
[holding answer 20 April 2009]: No. Decisions about issuing an intervention on public interest grounds fall to be taken by my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State as provided for in
Section 42 of the Enterprise Act 2002. I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 29 January 2009, Official Report, column reference 762W, to the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway) which noted that my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State had no plans to issue an intervention notice on public interest grounds in this case.
India: Overseas Trade
Mr. Amess: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many officials of each grade in his Department visited India on official business (a) in 2008 and (b) in 2009 to date. [268520]
Mr. McFadden: The number of BERR officials by grade who visited India on official business in 2008 was:
4—Range 6 (Executive Officer)
8—Range 9 (Senior Executive Officer)
21—Range 10 (Grade 7)
11—Range 11 (Grade 6)
12—Senior Civil Servant
For the period January 2009 to March 2009, the number of BERR officials by grade who visited India was:
2—Range 4 (Admin Officer)
8—Range 8 (Higher Executive Officer)
6—Range 9 (Senior Executive Officer)
5—Range 10 (Grade 7)
2—Range 11 (Grade 6)
5—Senior Civil Servant
All travel is undertaken in accordance with the Civil Service Code and Civil Service Management Code. In BERR the criteria for booking travel is value for money based on cost and convenience.
Israel: Overseas Trade
Mr. Amess: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many officials of each grade in his Department visited Israel (a) in 2008 and (b) in 2009 to date. [268519]
Mr. McFadden: The number of BERR officials by grade who visited Israel in 2008 was:
2—Range 6 (Executive Officer)
3—Range 9 (Senior Executive Officer)
1—Range 10 (Grade7)
1—Range 11 (Grade 6)
2—Senior Civil Servant
For the period January 2009 to March 2009, the number of BERR officials by grade who visited Israel was:
1—Range 10 (Grade 7)
All travel is undertaken in accordance with the Civil Service Code and Civil Service Management Code. In BERR the criteria for booking travel is value for money based on cost and convenience.
Maternity Leave
Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many and what proportion of new mothers went on maternity leave in each year since 1997. [260239]
Mr. McFadden: Information on the take-up of maternity leave in each year is not available.
A new mother must take a minimum of two weeks’ leave after the birth of her child. The most recent estimates of take-up of maternity leave are based on the maternity rights and mothers’ employment decisions in Britain: Survey of Mothers, conducted in 2007. All the mothers surveyed took some time off following childbirth. The survey found 88 per cent. of new mothers took all their entitlement to paid statutory maternity leave.
The survey is available in the House Libraries and at:
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