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12 Nov 2009 : Column 741W—continued
Charities: Government Assistance
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what payments her Department has made to charities to tackle socio-economic disadvantage and promote social inclusion in the last 12 months. [299451]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Charities: Schools
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the policy of the Charity Commission is on undertaking investigations of whether schools with charitable status are promoting the public benefit; and what statutory provisions govern such Charity Commission investigations. [299475]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Charity Commission: Manpower
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many full-time equivalent staff were recruited by the Charity Commission in each year since 1996-97. [299476]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Charity Commission. I have asked the Commission to reply.
Letter from Nick Allaway, dated 11 November, 2009:
In the absence of the Chief Executive, Andrew Hind, and as the Executive Director with responsibility for this area of our work, I have been asked to respond to your written question regarding the number of full-time equivalents recruited to the Charity Commission since 1996.
In the table below, I set out the number of staff recruited in each year since 1998/99. The figures in the table include all staff recruited on either a casual, fixed-term or permanent basis. For clarity, I have also included a column to indicate how many were recruited on a permanent basis in each year and a final figure that represents the Commission's average staffing levels (again, on a full-time equivalent basis), to aid context.
Comparable figures for 1996/97 and 1997/98 are not possible to break down but the total numbers recruited in the calendar years 1996, 1997 and 1998 were 87, 56 and 47 respectively.
| Recruitment year | Total recruited | Of which on a permanent basis | Average FTE staffing |
The two recent spikes in recruitment (in 2006/07 and 2008/09) were in connection with our modernisation, restructuring and efficiency programmes, which were necessitated by our 2005/06 Strategic Review and the 2007 Spending Review settlement.
I hope this is helpful and if you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Charity Commission: Surveillance
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answer of 27 April 2009, Official Report, column 1081W, on the Charity Commission: surveillance, (1) what the nature of the surveillance undertaken in each of the eight cases since 2004 was; and whether any prosecutions were brought; [299245]
(2) if she will place in the Library a copy of each of the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner's inspection reports of the Charity Commission that are held by the Commission; [299246]
(3) whether the Charity Commission has (a) made and (b) rejected any requests for authorisations under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 for surveillance of schools with charitable status. [299247]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Charity Commission. I have asked the Commission to reply.
Letter from Nick Allaway, dated 11 November 2009:
As the Chief Executive of the Charity Commission, Andrew Hind has been asked to respond to your written Parliamentary Question on the Commission's use of its powers in connection with Surveillance using of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Andrew is currently away so I am responding in his absence.
It may assist if I provide some background information on the Commission's use of RIPA to date: The Commission has not made use of RIPA in connection with Directed Surveillance (DS), nor have we used Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS), but have used our powers in connection with obtaining Communications Data under section 21 (4) (c) of RIPA eight times since 2004. The Commission only seeks RIPA authorisations when necessary to assist with our investigations, where it is proportionate to do so, and in cases of the most serious concern.
The Charity Commission has not authorised the use of RIPA for any surveillance, of schools with charitable status or otherwise. In none of the eight occasions where RIPA authority was sought for obtaining communications data by the Commission were the requests rejected.
Since 2004 the Commission has been inspected three times by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners (OSC) and after each inspection, received a report as RESTRICTED under government protective marking. Unfortunately, therefore, it would not be appropriate to make copies generally available.
As mentioned previously the use of RIPA was to obtain Communications Data. As you may be aware, the Charity Commission
is a civil regulator and not a prosecuting authority, but has a clear regulatory function to identify and investigate abuse in charities. Where we identify or are alerted to criminal activity within a charity, we will inform the police or other relevant agencies where this has not already happened, for them to consider further action and prosecute where appropriate. To our knowledge, to date, no prosecutions have been brought directly in relation to the eight RIPA authorisations. We can confirm that some of the charities, subject to use of communications data, are or have been directly or indirectly connected to criminal prosecutions.
I hope this is helpful.
Christmas
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how much her Department spent on Christmas (a) cards, (b) parties and (c) decorations in the last 12 months. [299275]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Civil Servants
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 24 June 2009, Official Report, column 57WS, on Report to Parliament on Civil Service Delegations/Authorisations, what the details of each delegation or authorisation were; and what the purpose was of each. [299321]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Civil Servants: Foreign Workers
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office with reference to the decision of the British Council to outsource staff to India, whether her Department has issued recent guidance to non-departmental bodies and executive agencies on the outsourcing of Civil Service jobs to areas outside the UK. [299453]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Civil Servants: Pay
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answers of 20 July 2009, Official Report, column 1035W, and of 27 April 2009, Official Report, columns 1082-4W, on civil servants: pay, how many employees of the public bodies listed are in receipt of a salary of over (a) £100,000, (b) £150,000 and (c) £200,000. [299330]
Tessa Jowell: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Civil Servants: Pensions
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office whether the proposed changes to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme will require changes in (a) primary and (b) secondary legislation. [299481]
Tessa Jowell: The Minister for the Civil Service amends the Civil Service Compensation Scheme using powers conferred by the Superannuation Act 1972.
Civil Servants: Recruitment
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what requirements there are on the use of open competition to recruit people to Civil Service posts. [299405]
Angela E. Smith: Appointment into the civil service is made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as laid out in the Civil Service Order in Council 1995 (as amended) and the Diplomatic Service Order in Council 1991 (as amended).
The Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Principles give guidance on how this may be achieved in practice. A copy of the "Order in Council and The Recruitment Principles" is available on the Civil Service Commissioners website
and copies have been placed in the Libraries of the House.
Civil Servants: Training
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answer of 2 June 2009, Official Report, column 422W, on civil servants, if she will place in the Library a copy of the guidance on taking minutes. [299319]
Tessa Jowell: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Civil Servants: Vacancies
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to the answer of 2 June 2009, Official Report, columns 422-3W, on civil servants: vacancies, what the (a) job title, (b) salary range and (c) sponsoring public body was of each job vacancy posted on the Civil Service Recruitment Gateway that was only advertised on the private part of the website in the last three months. [299322]
Angela E. Smith: It has not proved possible to respond to the right hon. Gentleman in the time available before Prorogation.
Committee on Standards in Public Life
Sir John Stanley: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office which 12 constituencies are referred to in paragraph 5.74 of the Twelfth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Cm 7724. [299618]
Tessa Jowell: Information contained in its report is a matter for the Committee.
Death: Cancer
Chloe Smith: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many (a) diagnosed cases of and (b) deaths from oesophageal cancer there have been in (i) each region and (ii) Norwich North constituency since 1997. [298256]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Jil Matheston, dated November 2009:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many (a) diagnosed
cases of and (b) deaths from oesophageal cancer there have been in (i) each government office region and (ii) Norwich North parliamentary constituency since 1997.
[298256].
The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases (incidence) of oesophageal cancer are for the year 2007, while the latest figures for deaths are for the year 2008.
Table 1 provides the number of (a) diagnosed cases of oesophageal cancer from 1997 to 2007 and Table 2 provides the number of (b) deaths from oesophageal cancer from 1997 to 2008, for (i) each government office region and (ii) Norwich North parliamentary constituency.
| Table 1: Registrations of newly diagnosed cases of oesophageal cancer( 1) , by Government Office region and Norwich North parliamentary constituency( 2) ,1997-2007( 3) | |||||||||||
| Government Office Region | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| (1) Oesophageal cancer is coded to C15 in the International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD-10) (2) Based on boundaries as of 2009 (3) Newly diagnosed registrations in each calendar year | |||||||||||
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