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9 Feb 2010 : Column 857W—continued
Roads: Snow and Ice
Mr. Drew: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport whether he has had discussions with the Local Government Association on the state of repair of local authority roads following the recent severe weather conditions; and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that local authorities carry out their duties in respect of road maintenance. [316033]
Mr. Khan: I attended the Local Government Association's Regeneration and Transport Board on 21 January, where the repair of roads following the severe weather was raised. The Local Government Association has subsequently written to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, picking up on some of the points made in discussion.
Local highway authorities have a duty, under s41 of the Highways Act 1980, to maintain the roads in their charge. As with authorities' other duties, there is a range of democratic and legal scrutinies to expose the extent to which they are discharging that remit.
Rolling Stock
Dr. Murrison: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what assessment he has made of the remaining serviceable life period of the (a) Class 158 Express Sprinter and (b) Class 159 South Western Turbo rolling stock; and if he will make a statement. [316084]
Chris Mole: The Department for Transport has not made an assessment of the remaining serviceable life of the Class 158 and Class 159. This would be a matter for the rolling stock leasing company.
Southeastern Rail Franchise
Derek Wyatt: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport if he will discuss with Southeastern Trains management the postponement of the high-speed passenger rail service to St Pancras until the regular service runs to timetable. [316643]
Chris Mole: We have no plans to postpone the high-speed services to and from St. Pancras. The implementation of the high-speed service has been successful. This service delivers significant journey time improvements of up to 46 minutes for commuters in Kent. These trains have been well used since the full service was introduced from 13 December 2009.
The train service reliability problems that have arisen since December 2009 have been related to adverse weather and infrastructure problems, not the operation of high-speed services.
Derek Wyatt: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport if he will review the award of the Southeastern rail franchise. [316644]
Chris Mole: As is the case for all rail franchises, the Department for Transport will continue to review the performance of the Southeastern franchise against the requirements of its Franchise Agreement.
Speed Limits: Cameras
Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport if he will require each local authority seeking to install speed cameras on motorways passing through that local authority's area to use the money raised in consequence of the operation of such cameras to install lighting on motorways throughout that area. [316010]
Chris Mole: The Highways Agency is responsible for maintaining and operating the motorway network including installing speed cameras and lighting.
Lighting on motorways would only be considered where safety benefits gained from the lighting will exceed the whole-life costs of installation, operating and maintaining it.
Fine revenue from speeding offences goes directly to HM Treasury.
Traffic Officers
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how many patrol vehicles were in operation on the motorway network on the latest date for which figures are available. [309459]
Chris Mole: Figures for week commencing Monday 21 December 2009 show that 113 patrol vehicles were deployed for each of the two day shifts and 64 patrol vehicles were deployed for the night shift.
The patrol routes include the motorway network and a small number of specific sections of all purpose trunk roads in England.
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what assessment has been made of the performance of the traffic officer service since its implementation; what recent steps his Department and its agencies have taken to increase the effectiveness of that service; and when he next plans to review the roles of traffic officers. [309468]
Chris Mole: The traffic officer service was established between 2004 and 2007. A review of the service was completed in April 2009 and recognised that performance of the service was in line with expectations in terms of the contribution towards reduced congestion, improved safety and the freeing up of police time.
The effectiveness of the service has been enhanced since becoming fully operational with the introduction of a number of initiatives. These include:
the introduction of key performance indicators;
the national vehicle recovery manager contract which has resulted in improvements to the removal of abandoned and collision damaged vehicles;
the co-location of the police control room staff in the regional control centres enabling improved incident management; and
an award-winning training scheme improving the traffic officer service capability.
There are no current plans to further review the roles of the traffic officers.
Traffic Officers: Expenditure
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how much his Department and its agencies spent on (a) fuel and (b) maintenance for patrol vehicles in each of the last three years. [309452]
Chris Mole: The Vehicle Operator Services Agency and the Highways Agency use patrol vehicles; however, spend information on fuel and maintenance for patrol vehicles is not recorded separately and can be provided only at disproportionate cost. Where information is available it has been set out as follows:
The Vehicle Operator Services Agency spend on fuel for patrol vehicles from October 2008 to September 2009 was £161,467 and spend on maintenance of patrol vehicles from October 2008 to September 2009 was £164,343.
The Highways Agency spend on fuel for patrol vehicles was £2,340,000 in 2006-07, £2,016,000 in 2007-08 and £2,772,000 in 2008-09. Vehicles are provided on a lease basis which includes the lease and maintenance costs which cannot be separated. The lease cost for patrol vehicles was £2,305,000 in 2006-07, £2,337,000 in 2007-08 and £3,118,000 in 2008-09. For 2008-09 approximately one third of the lease cost was for maintenance. The increase in costs is largely as a result of the growth in the number of traffic officer patrols as the service was rolled out across the motorway network in England.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency does not use patrol vehicles but has vehicles that are used in response to incidents.
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what the cost of patrol vehicles maintenance has been in each year since the introduction of the traffic officer service. [309460]
Chris Mole: Traffic officer vehicles are provided on a lease basis and the Highways Agency is charged a monthly fee that comprises costs for both lease and maintenance. The annual spend since 2004 is shown in the following table.
| Financial year | Lease/maintenance (£000) |
For 2008-09 approximately one third of the lease cost was for maintenance.
The increase in costs is largely as a result of the growth in the number of traffic officer patrols as the service was rolled out across the motorway network in England.
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how much his Department and its agencies had spent on the traffic officer service on the latest date for which figures are available. [309470]
Chris Mole: The expenditure on the traffic officer service is not separately identified in the annual report and accounts of the Highways Agency. An extract of the management accounts has been used to provide the information requested.
The Highways Agency has spent the following on the provision of the traffic officer service, from inception to the latest audited accounts.
| Financial year | Expenditure (£ million) |
The early years include the set-up costs for the service. The service was rolled out across the regions, reaching full coverage in October 2006 with the first full year of operation being 2007-08.
Traffic Officers: Training
Mrs. Villiers: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what his most recent estimate is of the average cost to his Department and its agencies of training a traffic officer to the standard required to discharge duties effectively in the latest period for which figures are available. [309469]
Chris Mole: Traffic officers operate primarily either on the road or in a regional control centre and the training requirement for each role is different. The average cost of training for each role is:
| £ | |
This cost covers initial off-the-job training, followed by on-the-job coaching to ensure that new recruits can operate safely and competently in a live environment.
Solicitor-General
Departmental Billing
Dr. Cable: To ask the Solicitor-General what estimate she has made of the average length of time taken by (a) the Law Officers' Departments and (b) its agency to pay invoices from (i) small and medium-sized enterprises and (ii) all creditors in the last 12 months. [315141]
The Solicitor-General:
The Law Officers' Departments and agency are committed to the ongoing improvement of their payment systems in order to meet the Government's target of paying invoices within 10 days of receipt, as announced by the Prime Minister in 2008. Recent changes to payment systems have led to some small gains in performance over the last year, with approximately 76 per cent. of all invoices submitted to the Law Officers'
Departments in November 2009 being paid within 10 days of receipt as compared to just over 73 per cent. in January 2009. It is anticipated that these improvements will increase once the new arrangements are fully embedded.
We do not differentiate payments by supplier size as we aim to pay all suppliers within 10 days.
Hotels
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Solicitor-General how many separate bookings at hotels graded five star or above were made through the Expotel booking service by the Law Officers' Departments in the latest year for which figures are available; and at what cost such bookings were made. [315572]
The Solicitor-General: The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) routinely uses the Expotel service to book hotels for officials engaged on official business, and in the last calendar year booked a hotel rated at 5 stars or above on 12 occasions at a total cost of £3760 (an average of £139.25 per night). This was approximately 1.3 per cent. of all bookings made. As a Government Department the SFO is able to negotiate rates well below commercial ones, and would only select 5 star ratings should other ratings not be available or suitable.
The remaining Law Officers' Departments have made no bookings using Expotel for stays in hotels graded 'five star' or above during this period.
Energy and Climate Change
Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme
Mr. Todd: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what criteria his Department is using to evaluate the effectiveness of the Carbon Reduction Commitment. [315181]
Joan Ruddock: Government will monitor the carbon reductions and the energy savings through the reporting mechanisms of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme itself. These data will be public. We will also undertake work during the first phase which will consider the overall costs and benefits (including total cost savings) to participants. In the longer term, the effectiveness of the CRC in reducing carbon emissions will be determined by the emissions cap which will apply from 2013. In setting the cap, Government will consider advice from the Committee on Climate Change later this year, the available cost-effective emissions reductions and the potential in the CRC sector to contribute to achieving our carbon budgets.
Mr. Todd: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many (a) positive and (b) negative responses there were to the consultation on implementation of the Carbon Reduction Commitment. [316027]
Joan Ruddock: The majority of respondents to the 2006 consultation agreed with the outline proposals for what has become the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.
The details of the proposed scheme were set out in the 2009 Consultation on the Draft Order to implement the scheme. There were 276 respondents who addressed 65 questions. Of the 8,179 responses 5,556 were positive; 2,254 indicated concern either with the proposed policy or the associated legal drafting; and 369 were registered as "don't know".
A full breakdown of responses to the March 2009 Consultation on the Draft Order to implement the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme was published on 7 October 2009 and is available on the DECC website:
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what his Department's policy is on the deletion of emails; and what mechanism is in place to ensure adherence to guidance issued to departments by the National Archives on electronic records management. [315681]
Joan Ruddock [holding answer 4 February 2010]: DECC was created in November 2008 from parts of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). Both Departments had in place their own policies and procedures for electronic records management, including email deletion, which my Department has largely adopted while we develop our own policies and procedures.
The policy for DECC staff who moved from BIS, and staff new to the Department, is for emails to be automatically deleted after 12 months. The policy for staff who moved from DEFRA is for emails to be kept with no automatic deletion, however at the point of joining DECC, the emails were subject to the DEFRA deletion policy of three years. I anticipate that from April 2010 the Department will be adopting a single policy for all, which will include emails being automatically deleted after 12 months.
The Department is implementing electronic records management based on a software product recommended by the National Archives. My officials continue to work with the National Archives to help us be consistent with their guidance.
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