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27 Jan 2010 : Column 963W—continued
Cabinet Office
Green ICT Delivery Group
3. Derek Wyatt: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on the contribution of her Department's Green ICT delivery group to the Government's presentation to the Copenhagen climate change conference. [313353]
Tessa Jowell: I have regular meetings and discussions with ministerial colleagues on all areas of my Department's work.
This includes ensuring that the Government's Green ICT strategy supports delivery of the wider sustainability policy across the public sector.
Good progress is already being made, with over £6.8 million and 12,000 tonnes of carbon savings as reported in our One Year On Report.
NHS Charities
11. Mr. Carswell: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what discussions she has had with the Charity Commission and the Secretary of State for Health on proposed changes to the accounting treatment of NHS charities. [313362]
Angela E. Smith: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave earlier today to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone).
10 Downing Street: Repairs and Maintenance
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the original provisional budget was for the works in No. 10 Downing Street under planning application reference 09/00619/LBC. [312369]
Angela E. Smith: Information on capital expenditure on improving Cabinet Office buildings, including the Downing Street estate, is included in the annual Cabinet Office resource accounts.
Business: Kent
Damian Green: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many small businesses started up in (a) Ashford constituency and (b) Kent in each of the last 12 years. [313506]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated 26 January 2010:
As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning how many small businesses started up in (a) Ashford constituency and (b) Kent in each of the last 12 years (313506).
Annual statistics on business births, deaths and survival are available for 2002 onwards from the ONS release on Business Demography at
The table below contains the latest statistics available on business births for Kent county and Ashford by employment size band.
| Enterprise births in Kent county and Ashford by employment size band | ||||||
| 0-4 | 5-9 | 10-19 | 20+ | Total | ||
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. [312287]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Charity Commission. I have asked the Commission to reply.
Letter from Andrew Hind, dated 20 January 2010:
As Chief Executive of the Charity Commission, I have been asked to respond to your question on 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 (312287).
In July last year, the Charity Commission published public benefit assessments of twelve charities, which included five charitable fee-charging schools. We conducted these assessments on a co-operative basis with the charities concerned. In the case of the schools, we worked with two that had volunteered to be assessed and with three that agreed to be assessed after we had approached them.
In terms of our policy and the context in which this is set, we carried out these assessments following the Charities Act 2006 which:
changed the definition of charity by removing the presumption that certain categories of charity, including those which advance education, are for the public benefit. The revised definition means that all charities have to show that they have purposes which are for the public benefit; and
gave the Charity Commission, as the independent regulator of charities, a statutory objective to promote awareness and understanding of the operation of the public benefit requirement.
These public benefit assessments are part of our work in furtherance of this statutory objective. We explain our policy on carrying out these assessments in section H of Charities and Public Benefit which, following extensive consultation, we published in January 2008. It is guidance to which all charities must have regard and which sets out the approach and factors we take in all those cases where we are looking at the public benefit of an organisation. In summary, we said that:
in order to provide clear information about how the public benefit requirement is met by different groups of charities, we will issue guidance about what public benefit means for different types of charity and that such guidance would include pilot assessments of the public benefit of individual charities in different sub-sectors; and
we were likely to carry out detailed public benefit assessments on charities most affected by the removal of the presumption of public benefit and about which public benefit concerns were raised during the debate on the Charities Bill, such as fee-charging charities.
These first assessments have provided practical examples on the application of the public benefit principles and guidance which should help other school charities to meet the requirement themselves. We think that, at this stage, these are sufficient for schools and we have not included schools in the second round of public benefit assessments which we started in December. Public benefit will, however, continue to be an essential element of our separate, reactive casework with charities (including schools) which we would not routinely publicise. In these cases we will explore public benefit in more detail only where:
it is necessary to do so (because, for example, we must be satisfied that the revised aims of a charity will continue to be charitable before agreeing to a change of purpose), and
there is a high risk that public benefit will be difficult to demonstrate-examples of high risk factors include private benefits, novel or controversial purposes, narrowly defined beneficiary classes and high fees.
In terms of the statutory provisions governing these assessments, the Commission has power, both at common law and under the Charities Act 1993, to do anything which may fairly be regarded as necessary, conducive or incidental to carrying out its statutory objectives and functions. Section 1D of the Charities Act 1993 (as inserted by the Charities Act 2006) requires us (so far as is necessary) to have regard to the principles of best regulatory practice in the performance of our functions. I should also mention, for the sake of completeness only, that we have formal inquiry and protection powers under section 8 and 18 of the Charities Act 1993: we have not used these powers in relation to charitable schools and public benefit and would only do so where serious misconduct or mismanagement is involved or where it is necessary to protect charity assets.
We published a short briefing for MPs about these assessments last July, and I will arrange for a copy to be placed in the Library of the House.
I hope this is helpful.
Civil Servants: Location
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office whether her Department has issued recent guidance to non-departmental bodies and executive agencies on the outsourcing of civil service jobs abroad. [312289]
Angela E. Smith: The Department has not issued guidance to non-departmental bodies and executive agencies on the outsourcing of civil service jobs abroad.
Civil Servants: Recruitment
Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office 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. [312304]
Angela E. Smith: I refer the right hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), then Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, on 2 June 2009, Official Report, column 422W.
Deaths: Infectious Diseases
Anne Milton: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office in how many cases (a) staphylococcus aureus, (b) meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and (c) Clostridium difficile has been mentioned on death certificates in each region in each year since 1997. [313937]
Angela E. Smith: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated 27 January 2010:
As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking in how many cases (a) staphylococcus aureus, (b) meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and (c) Clostridium difficile has been mentioned on death certificates in each region in each year since 1997. (313937)
The tables attached provide the number of deaths where (a) Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) (Table 1), (b) meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (Table 2) and (c) Clostridium difficile (C difficile) (Table 3) was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, either as the underlying cause or as a contributory
factor, in each government office region in England, for the years 1997 to 2008 (the latest year available). Figures for 1997, 1998 and 2000 are not available for Table 3.
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