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14 May 2009 : Column 994W—continued
Employment Tribunals Service
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many actions under employment law were brought against the Department in each of the last three years, broken down by category of action; and how many were contested by the Department at an employment tribunal. [275624]
Mr. Simon: The Department was created in June 2007. There have been no cases brought against the Department since it was established.
Rotherham College of Arts and Technology
Mr. MacShane: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills by what date he expects Rotherham College of Arts and Technology to have been allocated funding for its building programme. [275355]
Mr. Simon: Capital funding for Further Education colleges is administered by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). As the information requested is with regard to an operational matter for the Council, I have asked Geoffrey Russell, the acting LSC Chief Executive, to write to the hon. Member with the further information requested. A copy of his letter will be placed in the Libraries.
Training: Ministerial Policy Advisers
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what training courses funded from the public purse are available to special advisers. [274062]
Mr. Simon: Special advisers are temporary civil servants appointed under Article 3 of the Civil Service Order in Council 1995, and are allowed the same training opportunities open to permanent civil servants, if there was a sufficient business case. As with all of their work, special advisers should not use official resources for party political activity. This would also include any training that they were allocated.
All training courses undertaken by the special advisers are linked to the Professional Skills for Government agenda and the Department's business and improvement objectives.
Communities and Local Government
Council Housing: Sales
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much was received by the Exchequer in right to buy social housing receipts in each year since 1997; and what use was made of the receipts in the most recent year for which figures are available. [275660]
Mr. Iain Wright: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 27 April 2009, Official Report, column 1118W.
Departmental Offices
Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the address is of each site at which offices of her Department and its agencies are co-located with offices of the Homes and Communities Agency; and whether any further such co-location is planned. [273294]
Margaret Beckett: The following table identifies existing co-locations between the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Government Office Network (GON). The table also identifies where my Department and the HCA, in conjunction with GON colleagues, have identified the following buildings already within the CLG group estate where further co-locations would bring potential operational efficiencies.
While not strictly a co-location, the East of England HCA are proposing to occupy surplus Government office accommodation, which again makes efficient use of the CLG group estate.
Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) whether her Department and its agencies have received recent representations from representatives of the Homes and Communities Agency on the co-location of staff; [273295]
(2) whether recent discussions have taken place between her Department and its agencies and representatives of the Homes and Communities Agency on the availability of office space leased or owned by her Department. [273296]
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what discussions officials in her Department have had with the Homes and Communities Agency on the future location of its offices. [273409]
Margaret Beckett: The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) property team actively participate in the quarterly Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) Property Asset Management (PAM) Board meetings. The last PAM Board meeting took place on 21 April 2009. The Department's PAM policies can be accessed through the following link:
In addition to the PAM process, as a consequence of the creation of the new non-departmental public body, officials from my Department have been meeting with representatives of the HCA to discuss estate and property matters on a monthly basis. There is an ongoing dialogue between officials from my department and the HCA on estates matters.
Eco-towns
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if she will place in the Library a copy of each full assessment from which her Department's eco-towns assessment summaries published in June 2008 were made. [273597]
Margaret Beckett: Given the nature of the eco-towns assessment summaries there is not a full assessment document of each location that I am able to place in the House Library. The assessment summaries were working documents intended to give feedback to promoters where schemes were not selected for shortlisting. They identified in outline from a range of source material at that time, the issues arising from the initial scrutiny of the eco-town proposals.
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) of 25 March 2009, Official Report, column 471W, on eco-towns, which external advisers conducted the eco-towns Financial Viability Study; and at what cost to the public purse. [273690]
Margaret Beckett: The assessments undertaken in the Financial Viability Study of the Eco-towns Programme were carried out by a team led by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). The team included: DTZ; Buro Happold; Davis Langdon: and DentonWildeSapte. Further details about the work carried out and our external advisors are set out in section 1.3 and Appendix A of the Study, which is available on my Department's website.
As set out in my answer to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) of 25 March 2009, Official Report, column 471W, we have spent £720,800 on stage one of this contract, and are in the process of completing stage two.
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which of the proposed eco-towns could be established without public funding. [274816]
Margaret Beckett: I refer the hon. Member to the “Financial Viability Study of the Eco-towns Programme” (March 2009), which is available on the Department's website and provides an initial high level assessment of whether an eco-town could be economically viable in the locations that we have shortlisted. This includes conclusions on the outline financial assessment and whether the proposal has the potential to generate sufficient value to cover the direct and indirect costs of delivering the scheme without recourse to public subsidy beyond existing public sector funding sources:
Later in the year, following our consideration of the consultation responses and further assessment work, including the Financial Viability Study, I will announce which locations we are satisfied have the potential to be an eco-town. Individual schemes will then need to submit planning applications, which will be for local authorities to determine through the local planning process.
Emergency Calls
Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (1) what steps her Department plans to take to enable deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people to make effective use of the 999/112 emergency numbers for the fire and rescue service; [275433]
(2) what steps her Department is taking to enable deaf and hard of hearing and speech-impaired people to communicate with the fire and rescue service using the short message text service. [275434]
Mr. Khan: The FiReControl Project is part of the Government's fire and rescue service modernisation agenda. Once implemented, it will provide the emergency call handling and mobilising function for the fire and rescue service in England.
Local arrangements exist for some fire services to receive emergency call via text message. Under the current planning assumptions, regional control centres will have access to existing local services until such a time as they are replaced by a national equivalent.
We are in the final stages of completing a comprehensive equality impact assessment which considers the implications for those who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired. We aim to publish this assessment shortly.
Empty Homes Agency: Finance
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what funding the Empty Homes Agency will receive from (a) her Department and (b) the Homes and Communities Agency in (i) 2009-10, (ii) 2010-11 and (iii) 2011-12. [274007]
Margaret Beckett: The Department is not providing any direct funding to the Empty Homes Agency in the period 2009-12.
Decisions on allocations for the next three years will be made as part of the HCA’s Corporate Planning process.
Empty Property: South West
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many empty dwellings there are in the South West region, broken down by local authority area. [275542]
Mr. Iain Wright: Details of the number of empty dwellings in each local authority area in the South West region are shown in the following table.
| Number of empty dwellings | |
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