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25 Feb 2010 : Column 686W—continued
Public Expenditure
Adam Afriyie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 9 February 2010, Official Report, columns 932-3W, on the strategic investment fund, whether the £100 million of new funding was raised through borrowing; and from which budgets the £100 million from departmental re-prioritisation was drawn. [318429]
Mr. Timms: The £100 million from the Exchequer for the Strategic Investment Fund is funded through an additional spending allocation in 2010-11. The Government's forecast for borrowing in 2010-11 derives from forecasts of net expenditure less net receipts in that year. The £100 million not funded by the Exchequer will be funded equally from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Transport's 2010-11 Budgets.
Welfare Tax Credits: Overpayments
Mr. Duncan Smith: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to amend the definition of hardship used by HM Revenue and Customs when considering debt recovery; and whether he plans to align that definition with the definition used by the Department of Work and Pensions. [317303]
Mr. Timms: Neither HM Revenue and Customs nor the Department for Work and Pensions have specific definitions of "hardship" in connection with debt recovery. When considering debt recovery, decisions are made based on the specific facts of each case and against the statutory framework within which each Department operates.
Children, Schools and Families
Children: Day Care
Alan Keen: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many childcare places have been created in Feltham and Heston constituency since 1997. [316682]
Dawn Primarolo: Information on the number of childcare places is not available for parliamentary constituencies.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many (a) free nursery and (b) pre-school places were available for children aged (i) three and (ii) four years old in (A) Essex and (B) Castle Point in each year since 1997. [318091]
Dawn Primarolo: Table 1 shows the number of part-time equivalent places filled by three and four-year-olds in Essex local authority from 1997 to 2009. Table 2 shows the number of part-time equivalent places filled by three and four-year-olds in Castle Point constituency from 2004 to 2009.
The Department publishes information on the part-time equivalent number of free early education places filled by three and four-year-olds in maintained, private, voluntary and independent providers. Information on the number of pre-school places is not separately available. Part-time equivalent places are derived by counting children taking up 12 and a half hours per week as one place, 10 hours per week as 0.8 places, seven and a half hours per week as 0.6 places, five hours per week as 0.4 places and two and a half hours per week as 0.2 places. Data at parliamentary constituency level are not available prior to 2004.
| Table 1: Part-time equivalent number of free early education places( 1,2,3) filled by three and four-year-olds( 4) | ||
| Local authority: Essex | ||
| Position in January each year | Three-year-olds | Four-year-olds |
| (1) A place is equal to 12.5 hours (five sessions) and can be filled by more than one child. (2) Figures are rounded to the nearest 100. (3) Prior to 2004, information on early education places was derived from returns made by local authorities as part of the Nursery Education Grant (NEG) data collection exercise. From 2004 onwards, information has been derived from Early Years Census and School Census data. (4) Age of all children taken at 31 December in the previous calendar year. Source: NEG, Early Years Census and School Census | ||
| Table 2: Part-time equivalent number of free early education places( 1,2,3) filled by three and four-year-olds( 4) | ||
| Parliamentary constituency: Castle Point | ||
| Position in January each year | Three-year-olds | Four-year-olds |
| (1) A place is equal to 12.5 hours (five sessions) and can be filled by more than one child. (2) Figures are rounded to the nearest 10. (3) Prior to 2004, information on early education places was derived from returns made by local authorities as part of the Nursery Education Grant (NEG) data collection exercise. These data were collected at local authority level, therefore, data for this parliamentary constituency are not available prior to 2004. (4) Age of all children taken at 31 December in the previous calendar year. Source: Early Years Census and School Census | ||
The latest figures on early education places for three and four-year-olds in England were published in Statistical First Release (SFR) 11/2009 "Provision for children under five years of age in England: January 2009", available on my Department's website:
Children: Poverty
Hazel Blears: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what initiatives his Department and its predecessors have taken to tackle child poverty in Salford since 1997. [313322]
Dawn Primarolo: Since coming to office in 1997 the Government have developed a number of initiatives, both nationally and locally, to tackle child poverty. Salford has built on these national policies and developed their own local strategy to drive their child poverty agenda forward. My Department and Salford's local strategies have provided and strengthened family support through universal targeted specialist approaches including:
the Common Assessment Framework;
Children's Centres and Family Intervention Projects to maximise family and parenting support; and
the "Think Family" Pathfinder which encourages family and community learning.
In addition to these initiatives, Salford is benefiting from the new multi-service assertive Outreach Teams and Children's Centres which together are able to provide parents with a range of services.
Children's Centres, in particular, disseminate up-to-date information on job vacancies, education, training and volunteering, and often act as the first "port of call" for those seeking specialist financial advice. Children's Centres provide a liaison point with Job Centre Plus to offer parents information on employment and skills and co-ordinate community-based learning and training. Their work is underpinned and further enhanced by the introduction of 35 community workers and teams of lone parent advisers, who are also located within the centres.
Salford is also part of the Manchester's co-ordinated support for separating parents pilot, one of the eight child poverty pilots being undertaken nationally.
Children: Social Services
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what the cost has been of each common area assessment of children's services. [307578]
Dawn Primarolo: 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 Library.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 10 February 2010:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for response.
In line with the Education and Inspections Act 2006 Ofsted is charged with providing an annual performance rating for children's services for each local authority area. The children's services rating is a wide-ranging and robust assessment of the outcomes for children and young people that is strongly based on the evidence from Ofsted inspections of early years provision, schools including special schools and Pupil Referral Units, colleges, fostering and adoption services, children's homes, safeguarding and looked after children services inspections.
In addition, as one of the partner inspectorates, Ofsted has contributed to both the organisational and area assessments which together make up the Comprehensive Area Assessment of local areas, The children's services rating is a significant factor in the organisational assessment overall score for each council. For Ofsted and local authority children's services the Comprehensive Area Assessment replaces the annual performance assessment and the joint area review programmes.
The Comprehensive Area Assessment was introduced in April 2009. Consequently costs are provisional and have been estimated for 12 months. Full audited costs will be available from the end of June. Taking into account the time contributed to this work by Her Majesty's Inspectors, data analysts, management and administrative staff, the estimated cost of Ofsted's contribution to the 2009 CAA is £18,829 per local authority. Please note that this estimate does not include any allocation of corporate overhead.
A copy of this reply has been sent to Vernon Coaker MP, Minister of State for Schools and Learners, and will be placed in the library of both Houses.
Children's Centres: East Sussex
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) how many children's centres there were in (a) Lewes constituency and (b) East Sussex in each year since 1997; [308453]
(2) how many children attended (a) Sure Start facilities and (b) children's centres in Lewes constituency in the last 12 months for which information is available; and how much such facilities cost in that period. [308462]
Dawn Primarolo: The following table details how many designated Sure Start children's centres there were in (a) Lewes constituency and (b) East Sussex local authority in each year since 2004 (there were none previous to this).
| Table 1: Designated Sure Start children's centres | ||
| Lewes constituency | East Sussex | |
In East Sussex local authority, there are 35 designated Sure Start children's centres which have a combined reach area of over 24,000 children under five and their families. Of these, six are in Lewes constituency and have a reach area of over 5,000 children under five and their families.
Reach area defines those children and families with the opportunity to access Sure Start children's centres. Figures for the number of people actually using children's centres are not collected centrally.
In 2008-09, East Sussex local authority spent £4,119,141 on children's centres revenue funding; £4,189,109 on Sure Start local programmes; and £446,448 on children's centres capital funding. This is the latest 12-month period for which spend figures are available.
The Department allocates funding to local authorities for Sure Start children's centres, and its predecessor Sure Start local programmes, through the Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare Grant. It is for local authorities to determine how to allocate the funding between individual centres. The Department does not collect information on how much is allocated and spent at individual centre level.
The allocations for Children's Centres for East Sussex for 2008-09 to 2010-11 are shown in Table 2.
| Table 2: Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare grant allocations for East Sussex local authority | |||||
| Revenue | Capital | ||||
| Main Revenue Block | SSLP Block | Main Capital Block | |||
| Children's centres | Total main revenue | Sure Start local programmes | Children's Centres | Total Main Capital | |
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