House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 29 Jun 2009 (pt 0018)

29 Jun 2009 : Column 78W—continued

Terrorism

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 15 June 2009, Official Report, column 40W, on terrorism, what follow-up action on protective security is necessary after Project Argus events. [281882]

Alan Johnson: Project Argus events are not designed to provide bespoke advice on protective security for individual businesses but follow-up action may include providing advice on specific protective security issues raised by businesses.

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 15 June 2009, Official Report, column 40W, on terrorism, whether any central record is kept of the organisations which have participated in Project Argus training. [281883]

Alan Johnson: While organisations that have attended Project Argus events are recorded and held locally by the police counter-terrorism security advisers (CTSAs), there is no central record.

Travel Restrictions

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 17 June 2009, Official Report, column 321W, on travel restrictions, with which foreign governments his officials have discussed the Government’s policy on exclusion since 5 May 2009. [281931]

Mr. Woolas [holding answer 25 June 2009]: The Government of the United States of America.

UK Border Agency: Manpower

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) directors, (b) senior managers, (c) specialist and delivery managers and (d) executive support and administration staff there were in each UK Border Agency office in each of the last five years. [280611]

Mr. Woolas: UK Border Agency staff whose records are held within the central computerised personnel system are not broken down into the specific categories (a) to (d). It is not possible to identify staff numbers against these categories and to break them down into each UK Border Agency office over five years, except at disproportionate cost.

The best estimate of UK Border Agency staff into the categories listed in the question is given in the following table:

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Category	1 January 2005	31 March 2006	31 March 2007	31 March 2008	Workforce 2009^{( 1)}
(a) Directors⁽²⁾	5	10	10	14	13
(b) Senior	28	38	44	45	42
Managers⁽³⁾

(c) Specialist and delivery managers	15,337	17,155	18,784	18,095	17,639
(d) executive support and administration staff⁽⁴⁾

Total active FTE⁽⁵⁾	15,370	17,203	18,838	18,154	17,692
Total paid FTE⁽⁶⁾	—	—	—	—	17,826
⁽¹⁾ 31 May 2009 Rounded FTE. Figure provided excludes former HMRC and UKVisas workers joining UKBA in machinery of Government transfer. ⁽²⁾ SCS payband 2 and 3. ⁽³⁾ SCS payband 1. ⁽⁴⁾ Grades AA to Grade 6. We do not distinguish ‘specialist and delivery managers’ across UK Border Agency staff. ⁽⁵⁾ Internal UKBA metric excludes some paid staff as below, source ADELPHI. ⁽⁶⁾ ONS metric includes paid maternity leave, paid career breaks, source Dataview.

Vetting

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what recent representations his Department has received on (a) the time taken to process Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks and (b) the effect of delays in CRB checks on the recruitment of staff in the health and social care sector; [280488]

(2) how long it took on average to process each type of Criminal Records Bureau check in each of the last four quarters. [280497]

Mr. Hanson: The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) receives inquiries from applicants, employers and others acting on their behalf across all employment and voluntary sectors on a regular basis.

Data concerning the average time taken to complete a disclosure are not a performance target and are not collated by the CRB. Average figures do not give an accurate indication of performance, since any force’s performance can be affected by a number of factors, including the volume of cases sent to a force to process in any given month, the number of staff available to process the checks and the IT resources on hand to forces. With these variables, performance can fluctuate within individual forces from one month to the next.

Work Permits

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many work permits have been issued to non-UK nationals in each quarter since 1 January 2007. [281116]

Mr. Woolas: The number of work permit applications approved for non-UK nationals in each quarter for the period 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008 is shown in the following table:

		Number
Q1	2007	35,510
Q2	2007	33,160
Q3	2007	34,010
Q4	2007	28,380
Q1	2008	28,260
Q2	2008	32,335
Q3	2008	38,460
Q4	2008	24,655
Total	—	254,765
Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to nearest 5. 2. The figures quoted are not provided under National Statistics protocols and have been derived from local management information and are therefore provisional and subject to change.

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 11 February 2009, Official Report, column 2057W, on work permits, how many applications for a work permit on the basis of an intra-company transfer in respect of non-UK nationals were (a) made and (b) granted in each quarter since January 2004. [281117]

Mr. Woolas: The number of work permit applications made and approved for Intra-Company Transfers in each quarter since January 2004 is shown in the following table:

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Work permit intra-company transfer applications made and approved for each quarter during the period 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2008
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Total
2004
Applications made	8,235	8,005	9,355	8,050	33,645
Applications approved	8,060	7,765	9,140	7,805	32,770

2005
Applications made	8,460	8,845	8,900	8,475	34,680
Applications approved	8,250	8,595	8,610	8,290	33,745

2006
Applications made	10,860	10,745	11,200	11,145	43,950
Applications approved	10,625	10,520	10,960	10,945	43,050

2007
Applications made	12,865	12,960	12,945	11,460	50,230
Applications approved	12,590	12,685	12,440	11,020	48,735

2008
Applications made	12,375	13,385	14,565	9,385	49,710
Applications approved	11,870	12,930	14,135	9,080	48,010
Notes: 1. Figures are rounded to nearest 5. 2. Because of rounding, figures may not add up to totals shown. 3. The figures quoted are not provided under National Statistics protocols and have been derived from local management information and are therefore provisional and subject to change.

Written Questions: Government Responses

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to answer Question 269160, tabled on 1 April 2009, on tourist visas. [278605]

Mr. Woolas: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 11 June 2009, Official Report, column 938W.

Pete Wishart: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to answer question 272236, tabled on 27 April 2009, on highly-skilled migrants. [281259]

Mr. Woolas: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 18 June 2009, Official Report, column 456W.

Health

Abortion

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many abortions were performed under the Abortion Act 1967, as amended by section 37 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, where the unborn child had a cleft (a) palate and (b) lip, broken down by (i) grounds for abortion, (ii) length of gestation and (iii) health authority in 2008. [282222]

Gillian Merron: There were less than 10 abortions in 2008 with a cleft lip and palate. Data cannot be broken down by gestation or health authority for confidentiality reasons in line with the Office for National Statistics' guidance on the disclosure of abortion statistics (2005). All abortions were performed under Section l(l)(d) of the Abortion Act 1967, that there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

For years 2006, 2007 and 2008, some of the principal medical conditions for abortions performed under Section l(l)(d) were suppressed as the totals for each single year were too small to release. In the three years 2006-08, there were also less than 10 cases with a principal medical condition of the congenital malformation cleft lip and/or cleft palate.

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