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5 Feb 2010 : Column 537W—continued
House of Commons Commission
Reprography: Paper
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission what the average purchase price, excluding value added tax was of a 500 sheet ream of white A4 photocopier paper for use in the House of Commons; and how much the House of Commons Commission spent on photocopier paper in the latest year for which figures are available. [314938]
Nick Harvey: The House Administration spent a total of £129,506 excluding VAT on A4 80 gsm paper for use in photocopiers at an average cost of £2.15 per 500 sheet ream during the period 1 January to 31 December 2009.
Culture, Media and Sport
Departmental Accountancy
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether any written instructions have been provided to his Department's Accounting Officer in accordance with paragraph 5.5 of the Ministerial Code since 1997. [315322]
Mr. Simon: There have been no instances since 1997 when the Minister in charge of the Department has provided the Department's Accounting Officer with written instructions in accordance with paragraph 5.5 of the Ministerial Code.
Departmental Recruitment
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) how many job vacancies in his Department and its agencies were filled through using external recruitment in the last year for which figures are available; [315213]
(2) how many job vacancies in his Department and its agencies were filled through external recruitment in the last year for which figures are available. [315217]
Mr. Simon: Six vacancies were filled by DCMS through external recruitment during 2009. Our agency the Royal Parks have filled 14 jobs through external recruitment.
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much his Department and its agencies spent on external recruitment consultants in the last 12 months. [315214]
Mr. Simon: In the last 12 months neither DCMS nor the Royal Parks have used recruitment consultants for external recruitments.
Digital Broadcasting: Scotland
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport pursuant to the answer of 26 January 2010, Official Report, column 777W, on digital broadcasting: Scotland, how many meetings with small local radio stations in Scotland have been held to date; and with which stations meetings have been held. [315682]
Mr. Simon: My Department has held two local radio summits with the commercial radio representative body RadioCentre, to discuss the effects of the Digital Radio Switchover with small station owners. This included representatives of radio stations in Scotland.
Gambling: Licensing
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether he plans to review the power of local authorities to monitor the activities of licensed social clubs in respect of gambling and gaming. [315427]
Mr. Sutcliffe: There are no specific plans to review the power of local authorities to monitor the activities of licensed social clubs in respect of gambling and gaming. However, together with the Gambling Commission and local authority representatives, we will continue to monitor the operation and effectiveness of the regulatory regime established by the Gambling Act 2005.
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether a club premises certificate enables social clubs to facilitate the playing of poker games with cash prizes. [315428]
Mr. Sutcliffe: A Club Premises Certificate is issued under the Licensing Act 2003 (the 2003 Act) and does not authorise social clubs to facilitate the playing of poker games with cash prizes. A certificate relates solely to licensable activities under the 2003 Act and does not confer any entitlements provided for by the Gambling Act 2005, such as offering facilities for gambling.
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many prosecutions of unlicensed poker rooms by the Gambling Commission resulted in a conviction in each of the last three years. [315429]
Mr. Sutcliffe: To date, there have been no prosecutions by the Gambling Commission against unlicensed poker rooms that have resulted in convictions. However, the Commission continues to work closely with local authorities to tackle illegal poker including, where appropriate, making objections to club gaming permit applications and taking enforcement action against poker played without the necessary authorisation. The Commission has also been working with the licensed trade to provide guidance on the regulations governing the playing of poker in pubs.
Newspaper Press
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport with reference to the contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport of 13 January 2010, Official Report, column 290WH, on local authority newspapers, what the timetable is for asking (a) the Office of Fair Trading and (b) Ofcom to consider the potential impact of local authority newspapers on the paid-for newspaper market. [314941]
Mr. Simon: The Government are still considering their response to the Audit Commission's report on this subject and will respond in due course.
Playing Fields: Coventry
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what steps his Department is taking to retain playing fields in Coventry. [315943]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Playing fields now enjoy the best protection ever through Government planning regulations and arrangements overseen by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Schools in England need permission from the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families before they can sell any school playing fields or any part of a school playing field.
Under planning guidance, local authorities are required to protect all open space which communities need. Sport England is a statutory consultee on all planning applications affecting local authority owned playing fields. The latest published statistics for 2007-08 show that out of 1,287 planning applications proposing development on playing fields referred to Sport England in 2007-08, 96.3 per cent. led to improved or protected sports provision.
From 6 April 2009, the protection the Government provide for larger playing fields was also extended to cover smaller fields.
As a result of this change a local authority now has to consult Sport England on any planning application in relation to playing fields where the playing field includes a playing pitch of 0.2 ha where the proposal is likely to prejudice the use or lead to the loss of use of land being used as a playing field.
Justice
Corruption: Public Service
Jim Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 19 January 2010, Official Report, column 13WS, on the UK Foreign Bribery Strategy, which Departments and agencies will be regular members of the Foreign Bribery Strategy Board. [313743]
Mr. Straw: The following Departments and agencies are regular members of the Foreign Bribery Strategy Board:
Attorney-General's Office, Association of Chief Police Officers, Cabinet Office, City of London Police, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Office, Crown Prosecution Service, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for International Development, Export Credit Guarantee Department, Financial Services Authority, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency, Office of Government Commerce, Serious Fraud Office and UK Trade and Investment.
Other Departments and agencies are invited as required by the agenda.
David Kelly Death Inquiry
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Lewes of 1 February 2010, Official Report, column 113W, on the David Kelly death inquiry, whether Lord Hutton made that recommendation after consultation with Dr Kelly's family; and whether Dr Kelly's family has been given access to the post mortem examination report. [316102]
Mr. Wills: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on 1 February 2010, Official Report, column 113W. No determination has been made that the medical reports and photographs connected to the death of Dr. David Kelly should be closed for 70 years. Rather, Lord Hutton requested that the post mortem examination report relating to Dr. Kelly not be disclosed for 70 years because he was aware of the distress that could be caused to Dr. Kelly's wife and daughters. Disclosure of information during the course of the inquiry to any party to the proceedings was a matter for the inquiry and is not a matter on which the Government are able to comment.
Departmental Accountancy
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether any written instructions have been provided to his Department's Accounting Officer in accordance with paragraph 5.5 of the Ministerial Code since 1997. [315324]
Mr. Wills: Since 1997 no written instructions have been provided to accounting officers of the Ministry of Justice or its predecessors, the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Lord Chancellor's Department, in accordance with paragraph 5.5 of the Ministerial Code.
Departmental Consultants
Julia Goldsworthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much consultants employed by his Department and its agencies have been paid (a) in total and (b) in reimbursable expenses in each of the last 10 years. [313998]
Mr. Straw: The information requested is as follows.
(a) The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) collates dates on consultancy expenditure as part of its Consultancy Value Programme which assists Departments in driving greater value from Government's use of consultants. The Ministry's expenditure on consultancy for 2007-08 is reported as £56 million and can be found in the following link:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/professional_services_consultancy_ value_programme.asp
Expenditure for 2008-09 is £49.7 million and will be reported soon on the same website.
The OGC definition of consultancy is broad and includes professional services provided by, for example, lawyers, surveyors and architects and the employment of specialists on an interim basis to deliver project solutions, providing expertise for a defined period of time that is not available in-house.
Both the 2007-08 and 2008-09 figures reflect expenditure by the Ministry of Justice headquarters, Her Majesty's Courts Service, the Tribunals Service, and the National Offender Management Service (except for the Probation Service).
The Ministry was established in May 2007 so data are not available prior to 2007-08 in their current form.
(b) Expenses incurred by consultants in the course of Ministry of Justice business are normally included within their overall bills and are therefore included within the figures stated in part (a). The amount attributable to expenses can be disaggregated from the total only at disproportionate cost.
The costs of business related travel and accommodation by consultants may sometimes be met directly by the Ministry through contracted booking agents or by Government Procurement Card. Occasionally consultants may also claim for reimbursement of expenses met, in the first instance, from their own pocket. It is not possible to identify amounts relating specifically to consultants in any of these cases without incurring the disproportionate cost of examining huge numbers of supporting records held locally across the business.
Julia Goldsworthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many consultants his Department and its predecessors and its agencies have employed in each of the last 10 years; and how many hours were worked by such consultants for his Department and its agencies in each such year. [314020]
Mr. Straw: The Ministry of Justice was formed on 9 May 2007. This merger included the former Department of Constitutional Affairs and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). NOMS previously formed part of the Home Office.
Availability of the data requested is therefore incomplete due to several machinery of Government and organisational changes which meant that procurement for my Department was not centralised prior to April 2009, and these data could therefore be gathered only at disproportionate cost.
However, a manual data collection exercise for the period April 2008 to March 2009 was concluded on 31 October 2009. The scope of the manual data collection exercise was limited to NOMS (excluding Probation) and Access to Justice (excluding Legal Services Commission) and did not cover any non-departmental public bodies.
Using the data received, there were 694 consultants/interim managers working for the Ministry of Justice in the financial year of 2008-09.
Limitations with the collected data only make it possible to provide the total number of consultants/interim managers for 2008-09 without any breakdown of the specific hours worked.
Departmental Manpower
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many employees in (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies are in transition prior to being managed out; how long on average the transition window between notification and exit has been in (i) his Department and its predecessors and (ii) each of its agencies in each of the last five years; what estimate he has made of the salary costs of staff in transition in each such year; and what proportion of employees in transition were classed as being so for more than six months in each year. [313237]
Mr. Wills: Currently, there are 520 employees in the Ministry of Justice (including all agencies) who are in transition after accepting a voluntary early departure on severance or retirement terms. The breakdown of staff across the Ministry is as follows: two from the Office for the Public Guardian, 308 from the Access to Justice group, 199 from the National Offender Management Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service, 11 from the Corporate Performance Group. The majority are due to leave the Ministry within the next two to three months and the terms are governed by the Civil Service Compensation scheme. There are also 185 employees across the Ministry actively seeking permanent re-deployment following organisational change programmes.
For the early departure, the term 'transition time' is defined as the elapsed time from a formal agreement to leave to the actual date of departure. For redeployment, it is the elapsed time from the re-organisation occurring to the individual taking up a new work post. The average transition time is 90 days. There are 10 staff who have remained on the redeployment list, as an exceptional basis, for longer than 6 months. Whilst employees are on the redeployment list, or have accepted voluntary early departure, they continue to undertake meaningful work duties.
The average transition time in previous years has been 90 days.
The department is unable to provide the average salary costs for staff in transition in each year. This information is not held centrally and obtaining it would incur a disproportionate cost as the department currently operates several pay and HR structures and would be reliant on a number of different sources to establish the information requested.
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many performance reviews were undertaken in respect of staff of (a) his Department and its predecessors and (b) its agencies in each of the last five years; in how many cases performance was rated as unsatisfactory or below; how many staff left as a direct result of such a rating; and what percentage of full-time equivalent staff this represented. [313827]
Mr. Wills: Staff employed by the Ministry are subject to differing performance management arrangements according to their terms and conditions and depending on which part of the Ministry of Justice or its agencies they are employed in.
For all employees, performance management is a continuous process with annual and mid-year formal performance reviews of progress against objectives. The Ministry's performance management system requires poor performance to be addressed when it occurs and not simply at specific points in the reporting year. Where appropriate, additional coaching and support is provided to employees to enable them to reach and maintain the required standards of performance appropriate to their roles. However, when employees are unable to meet and maintain acceptable standards of performance, sanctions up to and including dismissal are available.
Members of the senior civil service (SCS) are subject to a common performance management system based on relative assessment of achievement. Since 2007, the system has had four performance categories. Performance group four denotes performance not meeting the required standard. Prior to this, the performance management system had three performance categories: top, middle and lower tranche. The number of SCS employees receiving either a lower tranche or performance group four assessment is set out as follows.
| Year of award | Number in lowest performance group | Percentage of SCS staff |
| (1) Refers only to former Department for Constitutional Affairs. | ||
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