| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10 Nov 2009 : Column 338W—continued
Local Government Services
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his Department's policy is on participating in the Total Place initiative with local councils. [298439]
Mr. Woolas: The Home Office is committed to working with Total Place pilot areas and others to achieve the project's goal of improving public-sector efficiency. The Home Office is represented on the Total Place Ministerial Group and more broadly the Department sits on the Total Place High-Level Officials Group and the Total Place Project Board. The Home Office is actively supporting the work being taken forward through these forums.
Members: Correspondence
Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Walsall North of 29 September 2009, reference: P 1185 I27 (CTS reference B27551/9). [298154]
Mr. Woolas [holding answer 9 November 2009]: In response to the letter of 29 September 2009, the Deputy Director for Family and Economic Migration in the London and South East Region wrote to my hon. Friend on 5 November 2009.
National Public Order Intelligence Unit
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department where the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) is based; who its director is; how many staff the NPOIU (a) employs and (b) seconds from other organisations; what its budget for 2009-10 is; to whom it is accountable; and what databases on prospective threats to public order the NPOIU (i) compiles and (ii) manages. [296886]
Mr. Hanson: The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) is based in central London and is headed by a Detective Superintendent who reports to the Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism, Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell. In turn he is responsible to the ACPO Committee for Terrorism and Allied Matters (TAM). For operational security reasons the identity of the head of NPOIU and the unit's precise location are not disclosed.
NPOIU employs between 60 and 70 police officers and staff all of whom are seconded from local police forces. Its budget for 2009-10 was £5 million.
The NPOIU database is a small intelligence database that is used to coordinate on a national basis intelligence that is collected by forces. The main purpose of the intelligence function is:
to provide the police service with an ability to develop a national threat assessment and profile for domestic extremism;
to support forces to reduce crime and disorder from domestic extremism;
to support a proportionate police response to protest activity; and
to help forces manage concerns of communities and businesses in order to minimise conflict and disorder.
The police will always carefully balance these responsibilities with their duty to facilitate peaceful protest.
Sexual Offences
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate his Department has made of the number of sexual offences committed by drivers of unlicensed cabs in each of the last 12 years. [297672]
Mr. Alan Campbell [holding answer 3 November 2009]: The information requested is not available.
Theft: Motor Vehicles
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases there have been of thieves stealing car keys from a house then stealing the vehicle parked outside that house in (a) the Vale of York, (b) Yorkshire and the Humber and (c) England in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [295742]
Mr. Alan Campbell: Supplementary data on the taking of vehicles during burglaries, often referred to as 'car key' burglaries, have only been available centrally from 2007-08. 38 of the police forces in England were able to provide figures for 2008-09.
The available figures for the Yorkshire and Humber region show there were 3,628 offences of burglary in a dwelling involving the taking of vehicle in 2008-09 (including Humberside).
The available figures for forces in England reveal that there were 19,190 offences of burglary in a dwelling involving the taking of vehicle in 2008-09.
Figures for this supplementary dataset are not collected at local authority level and therefore statistics for the Vale of York are not available centrally.
UK Border Agency: Correspondence
Mr. Hands: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the UK Border Agency plans to respond to the letters of 29 April, 10 July and 9 September 2009 from the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham sent on behalf of his constituent, Mr. Yusef Gutale. [297106]
Mr. Woolas: I am pleased to inform the hon. Gentleman that his letters of 29 April, 10 July and 9 September 2009 were replied to in a letter dated 3 November 2009.
Children, Schools and Families
CAFCASS: Finance
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will estimate the percentage of time spent by Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service practitioners in direct contact with children and families in the course of their official duties in the last 12 months for which information is available. [298687]
Dawn Primarolo: CAFCASS has statutory duties to: safeguard and promote the welfare of the child involved in family court proceedings; advise courts about family proceedings applications; make provision for children to be represented in such proceedings; and provide information, advice and support for children and their families.
CAFCASS practitioners act in a variety of ways to meet these duties depending on the kind of case and exactly what the court asks them to do. All of their roles involve some or all of: keeping a special look out for the best interests of the child; standing up for those interests; making relevant inquiries and writing a report for the court. In doing this, practitioners will spend time in direct contact with the child and their family.
CAFCASS does not routinely collect time usage information and does not hold such an estimate.
Care Homes: Children
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) whether he has assessed levels of (a) antisocial behaviour and (b) other criminal activity by residents of privately run children's homes; [297162]
(2) what guidance his Department has issued to privately run children's homes on (a) reducing and (b) preventing (i) antisocial behaviour and (ii) other criminal activity. [297166]
Dawn Primarolo: Children's homes are required to comply with the Children's Homes Regulations 2001 and are expected to meet the accompanying National Minimum Standards. Children's homes are required to have in place a behaviour management policy, which should set out how the home will promote acceptable behaviour. Children's homes should also promote positive links between children and the local community. Ofsted inspects children's homes against these standards.
Before placing a child in a children's home the local authority should consider how the home will address any challenging behaviour the child may display, including antisocial or criminal activity, and should make sure that the home can meet the needs of that child. No assessment has been made of the level of antisocial or criminal activity among residents in privately run children's homes.
Children and Young Persons Act 2008
Ann Coffey: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when section 8 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 will be brought fully into force. [297650]
Dawn Primarolo: Section 8 of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 amends the 1989 Children Act to substitute new provisions in relation to provision of accommodation and maintenance for children who are looked after by a local authority.
Some provisions inserted by section 8 have already been brought in to force. section 8(3) and schedule 2 came in to force on 12 February 2009. Section 8(1), in so far as it inserts section 22C(11) and 22 (F) into the 1989 Act, and section 8(2) and schedule 1, in so far as it relates to paragraph 4 came in to force on 1 September 2009.
Draft "Care Planning Placement and Case Review Regulations (England)" and related statutory guidance are due to go out to a formal 12 week consultation on 16 November 2009. It is planned that following that consultation the regulations will be made and the guidance issued to come into force in 2010 . The current intention is that the remaining provisions of section 8 will come into force later in 2010.
Children: Databases
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what arrangements are in place to (a) monitor the use of and (b) report on (i) accidents and (ii) security breaches in respect of ContactPoint. [297302]
Dawn Primarolo: ContactPoint is designed, built, operated and managed to HM Government standards for security and complies with the strict controls imposed by HM Government security policy. Data contained within the system are made available only to those authorised users and administrators who have been subject to vetting and have completed mandatory training.
Every access to a child's record is detailed in the audit trail and users need to state clear reasons in order to gain access to a child's record. This is regularly reviewed at local and national level to ensure that any misuse of the system is detected and investigated. If unusual activity by users is detected, suspected or reported, the local authority or national partner ContactPoint Management Team must report the incident to the DCSF immediately, suspend the user's account, notify the user's manager and carry out an immediate investigation using local policies and procedures.
The ContactPoint system, and access to it, is constantly monitored. The security of ContactPoint is treated as the highest priority, requiring immediate response and action by the Department, the user organisation and the system supplier. Suspicious network activity is checked and, if the system was believed to be under any form of threat, or if unauthorised access to ContactPoint was detected, the Operations Director would be notified. Depending on the severity of the breach, the service provider may be instructed to prevent access to ContactPoint for all users until the incident is resolved. The appropriate persons in the Department, including the Senior Information Risk Owner, the Permanent Secretary, the Minister and the Information Commissioner will be notified as appropriate. Access to the system would not be restored until my Department had been assured that the source of attack or unauthorised or improper access had been located and all necessary mitigating actions had been taken. In the event of a security breach, a full review would take place and prosecutions would be instigated where appropriate.
Children: Day Care
Michael Gove: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many providers of daycare and early years foundation stage on non-domestic premises registered with Ofsted are (a) individuals, (b) a partnership, (c) a company, (d) a committee and (e) a statutory body. [295565]
Dawn Primarolo: This is a matter for Ofsted. The Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert, will write to the hon. Member and copies of her reply will be placed in the House Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated October 2009:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for reply.
The Government introduced new arrangements for the registration of childcare providers through the Childcare Act 2006, which took effect on 1 September 2008. From that date, the term 'day care' was no longer used to describe registered childcare provision. The closest equivalent is 'childcare on non-domestic premises'. These are providers who care for individual children up to the age of eight in premises that are not someone's home. These premises can range from converted houses to purpose built nurseries.
Table A shows figures for the number of providers who offer childcare on non-domestic premises, broken down by the type of organisation that you specify, as recorded on our database at 30 September 2009.
| Table A: Number of childcare providers on non-domestic premises active at 30 September 2009 by organisation type | |
| Number | |
A copy of this reply has been sent to right hon. Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children received free child care in (a) Birmingham, Northfield constituency and (b) Birmingham in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [296205]
Dawn Primarolo: The number of children receiving free child care can broadly be quantified by the number in receipt of the free entitlement for three and four-year-olds, although a small number of children may also be receiving free child care through other programmes such as the new targeted two-year-old offer. This is shown in the following table.
| Table 1: Part-time equivalent number of free early education places( 1,2,3) filled by three( 4) and four( 4) -year-olds, position in January | ||
| Birmingham, Northfield constituency | Birmingham local authority | |
| (1)A place is equal to five or more sessions and can be filled by more than one child. (2)Figures are rounded to the nearest 100. (3)In addition to free places taken up through the three and four-year-old offer, a number of children will have access to free provision through other initiatives. Most notably the two-year-olds pilot where Birmingham have been funded to provide 498 places in 2009/10. (4)Age of all children taken at 31 December in the previous calendar year. | ||
Given footnotes 1 and 3, it is likely that the figures presented in the table are a slight underestimate of the true number of children receiving any child care, but the table shows the most accurate number that can be produced from existing data sources.
Children: Protection
Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what funding he has allocated to train those practitioners involved in safeguarding child victims of trafficking. [298925]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: Government guidance, 'Safeguarding children who may have been trafficked', issued in 2007, makes clear that LSCBs should ensure that local training programmes for practitioners and other professionals cover trafficking issues as required, either as part of safeguarding training or as additional training. The budget for each LSCB and the contribution made by each member organisation is agreed locally. DCSF is investing over £130 million in supporting the children and families' social work workforce between 2008 and 2011.
Children: Social Services
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 20 October 2009, Official Report, columns 1504-05W, on children: social services, in which local authorities (a) the three children who were victims of homicide and who were on the child protection register, (b) the two children who were victims of homicide and who were previously referred to social care services prior to the incident but were not receiving services and (c) the 10 children who were not known to children's services resided. [295506]
Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 26 October 2009]: This is a matter for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert, has written to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply has been placed in the House Libraries.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 26 October 2009:
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |