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29 Apr 2009 : Column 1363W—continued
The 24 projects funded in 2007-08 directly engaged over 2,000 Muslim young people, women and faith leaders to support them to tackle violent extremism
using a range of methods, including leadership training, dialogue and debate, drama and arts projects.
The end of year evaluation reports for projects funded in 2008-09 are due at the end of June 2009.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the work of citizens' juries in determining how targeted provision of teaching English for speakers of other languages can build community cohesion. [271644]
Mr. Khan: The Department for Communities and Local Government co-hosted two citizens' juries with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills as part of DIUS' 2008 consultation on re-focusing English for Speakers of Other Languages. The Government's aim in re-focusing ESOL is to ensure the most socially excluded are not overlooked by existing ESOL provision. The Government believe that the new approach—on which an announcement will be made shortly—will make a major contribution to strengthened community cohesion
No separate evaluation was made of the contribution the citizen jury element made to the wider consultation. But the Government believe Citizens' Juries continue to have a useful role to play as one of a range of consultation tools available to local and national policy makers.
Community Relations: Finance
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what funding her Department provided to Connecting Communities Plus in 2008-09; and what allocation has been made to Connecting Communities Plus for 2009-10. [271571]
Mr. Khan: The Department provided funding under the Connecting Communities Plus Programme of £5,757,119 to organisations working to promote race equality and community cohesion during 2008-09.
Connecting Communities Plus funded national level strategic partners and local level projects for a three-year period from 2006-09. It also funded over 300 small community organisations with one-off grants of up to £12,000.
The Connecting Communities Plus fund ended on 31 March, however in April 2009, we invited bids for the Tackling Race Inequalities Fund, which will provide funding for Third Sector organisations whose works helps to address race inequalities. The fund will provide £3 million in 2009-10.
Departmental ICT
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps her Department has taken to address the effect on levels of carbon dioxide emissions from her Department of its ICT purchases since the publication of the Greening Government ICT Strategy; and if she will make a statement. [269573]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Department for Communities and Local Government has taken the following steps to address the effect of carbon dioxide emissions of ICT purchases since the publication of the Greening Government ICT strategy:
Prepared a Sustainable Procurement Strategy which will address achieving 100 per cent. compliance with the Buy Sustainable Quick Wins Minimum Procurement Specifications list for new procurements.
Produced a Greening Government CIO Green ICT Roadmap to report compliance with operational and strategic Green ICT targets. This includes more re-use of existing equipment, using devices for longer before replacement and reducing the number of devices used by each individual.
CLG will be implementing a Corporate Printer Strategy to reduce the overall number of printers used by the organisation, control their usage to reduce the amount of paper used, and replace individual printers with multi-functional devices with green printing defaults where possible (for example duplex printing).
Eco-Towns
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what recent representations she has received on the implementation of soil sealing strategies for eco-town developments; and what research her Department has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on soil sealing. [270845]
Margaret Beckett: As part of the Sustainability Appraisal and Habitats Regulations Assessment of the draft Planning Policy Statement and Eco-towns Programme, consideration at a strategic level has been undertaken of any significant effects on the environment, including soil. This document is available on my Department’s website and forms part of the current eco-towns consultation.
Issues relating to soil sealing may well be raised as part of the eco-towns consultation, which runs until 30 April. Following our review of the consultation responses we will publish a Government response together with consultation summary report of responses received.
The issue of soil sealing is also addressed in a project jointly funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the British National Space Centre to develop a methodology for using Earth Observation to identify and monitor changes in soil sealing, and assess methodologies for determining the effect of soil sealing on urban drainage and aesthetic value. The report is available on the DEFRA website.
Empty Property
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 25 March 2009, Official Report, columns 472-3W, on empty property, when the seminar to address local authorities took place; and how many local authorities were represented at the meeting. [270600]
Mr. Iain Wright:
The Empty Homes seminar took place at Admiralty House on 23 April and 12 individual local authorities were represented at the meeting, as well as the West London Housing Partnership, representing seven London boroughs, and the Herts, Beds, Bucks Empty Homes Forum, representing 24 local authorities.
A further eight local authorities were invited but were unable to attend. The Homes and Communities Agency, LACORS and the Empty Homes Agency were also represented at the seminar, along with officials from my Department and the Government offices for the regions. I also attended.
Energy Performance Certificates
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on how many occasions energy performance certificates have been issued more than five days after the completion of the (a) construction and (b) modification of a building; and what penalties can be imposed in such circumstances. [270556]
Mr. Iain Wright: No information is collected centrally about the date on which either construction or modification of buildings is completed. However, a building control officer must have evidence that an energy performance certificate is available before they can certify that the construction of a building has been completed. This same requirement only applies to the modification of buildings where this leads to the creation of a separate dwelling or non-domestic unit that has heating, hot water or air conditioning. Enforcement of this requirement is a matter for local authority building control.
Equal Opportunities
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps she is taking to promote race equality and community cohesion in response to the slippage against her Department’s target indicator on discrimination in the labour market, as referred to on page 122 of her Department’s Annual Report 2008. [271539]
Mr. Khan: The Department works with central Government Departments and other stakeholders to mainstream race equality into public policy and delivery and to focus policies on the most significant inequalities, for instance employment and the Criminal Justice System. It was disappointing that the target on perceived discrimination by employers was not met, although in the same public service agreement period, the Government’s target on minority ethnic employment rates was met comfortably.
We have also worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions through the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force to address these issues and will work with the Task Force to implement the findings of the National Employment Panel’s Business Commission Report, which made a number of recommendations for Government to increase the levels of employment and progression of minority ethnic people in the private sector.
The Government’s overall approach to race equality over the last few years was set out in our race equality and community cohesion strategy—Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society.
On 24 February 2009 the Department for Communities and Local Government launched Tackling Race Inequalities: A discussion document which is seeking views from the public, private and third sectors, and the
public, on the next steps the Government should take on tackling inequalities faced by many people from minority ethnic groups.
Equity
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many equity loan completions there were in each region in March 2009. [270628]
Mr. Iain Wright: There were 804 equity loan completions in March 2009. This is significantly higher than the average monthly equity loan completion rate of 579.
| Sponsor LA region name | Total |
Fire Services
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what plans she has for a Centre of Excellence for the Fire and Rescue Service. [271633]
Mr. Khan: The Department issued a consultation on proposals for a Centre of Excellence for the fire and rescue service in November 2007. While the majority of respondents supported, in principle, the establishment of a Centre of Excellence, there was a lack of consensus on some important issues, not least funding, and therefore it was decided not to proceed with the proposal for the time being. Therefore while we have no immediate plans to establish a Centre of Excellence, we have continued to explore with key stakeholders how the concepts might best be taken forward.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what recent progress her Department has made towards the objective of installing Firelink radios in all fire appliances. [271634]
Mr. Khan: The installation of Firelink radio equipment into fire and rescue service vehicles is progressing well. To date, radios have been installed in 3,000 fire vehicles, which represents approximately one third of the fire and rescue service fleet.
Fire Services: Finance
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what funding her Department allocated to the Fire and Resilience programme for (a) 2008-09 and (b) 2009-10. [271635]
Mr. Khan: The Department's provisional outturn figure for expenditure on the Fire and Resilience Programme in 2008-09 is £196 million. The latest forecast for expenditure in 2009-10 is £199 million.
Fires: Death
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which fire and rescue authorities had a fatality rate from accidental fires in the home of more than 1.25 times the national average in the most recent year for which figures are available. [271631]
Mr. Khan: Because of inherent fluctuations in the number of fatalities in individual fire and rescue authority (FRA) areas from year to year, the public service agreement target on this measure is based on five-year averages.
Only finalised data is suitable for analysis of number of deaths in individual fire authorities. Finalised fire incident data for 2007-08 that takes account of cross checking against records from the General Register’s Office will not be available until August. Thus the latest five years of suitable data is for 2002-03 to 2006-07, and these are shown in the table.
| Fire authorities exceeding 1.25 times the national average rate of accidental dwelling fires, 2002-03 to 2006-07 | |
| Area | Average fatality rate (per 100,000 population) based on 2002-03 to 2006-07 data |
| (1) The figure for South Yorkshire is higher than 1.25* the national average when taken to 3 decimal places. | |
Housing
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) what level of housing delivery was achieved in the area to which RPG9 relates in (a) 2007-08 and (b) 2008-09; [271566]
(2) what projection she has made of the level of housing delivery in the area to which RPG9 relates in 2009-10. [271567]
Mr. Iain Wright: The net increase in the numbers of dwellings in the South East region in 2007-08 was 35,407, 33,398 of which were newly built homes. A figure for 2008-09 is not yet available, although latest figures show 21,600 new homes were completed in the first nine months of 2008-09. The Government do not make projections of future housing delivery. The housing provision for the South East in RPG is 28,050 dwellings per annum, with an additional 1,500 from partial reviews of the Growth Areas of Milton Keynes and Aylesbury Vale and Ashford.
Housing Revenue Accounts
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 6 March 2009, Official Report, columns 71-2WS, on local authority rents, what estimate she has made of the likely change to the Housing Revenue Account of local authorities which bid for additional subsidy. [268754]
Mr. Iain Wright: The change in subsidy will depend on how many local authorities have accepted the offer set out in the written ministerial statement of 6 March. This is currently being reviewed in the light of local authorities’ responses to the consultation on a draft amending subsidy determination, which ended on 24 April.
Local authorities’ actual subsidy entitlements for 2009-10 will not be known until their first subsidy claim forms are received later in the year.
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