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Written Answers to Questions

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Leader of the House

Written Questions: Government Responses

John Mason: To ask the Leader of the House when she plans to answer Question (a) 311222, (b) 311223, (c) 311224, (d) 311225 and (e) 311226, on public duty costs allowance, tabled on 12 January 2010. [322735]

Barbara Keeley: These five parliamentary questions were transferred to the Cabinet Office as I informed the Member in my letter of 14 January 2010.

International Development

Somalia: Overseas Aid

Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to the answer of 8 March 2010, Official Report, column 67W, on Somalia: overseas aid, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of arrangements for food supplies to be delivered and disbursed in the camps at Afgooye; and if he will make a statement. [322373]

Mr. Thomas: According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), current arrangements for distributing food aid to internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Afgooye corridor are inadequate. Between October and December 2009, IDPs in the Afgooye corridor received only half of the allocated food rations. Since the suspension of the United Nations World Food programme's (WFP) work in Afgooye in January, no food rations have been distributed.

On 10 March, the Secretary of State for International Development announced an additional £7.5 million to be channelled through UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and United Nations Humanitarian Response Fund (UN HRF) to help deliver emergency food for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children and provide lifesaving water supplies. UNICEF is already working in the Afgooye corridor, providing emergency nutrition to starving children and their mothers, and is considering expanding its remit. UN HRF and ICRC are exploring possibilities of providing food aid to the Afgooye Corridor.

Justice

Care Proceedings

David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the average time taken to complete care proceedings in the courts was in each local authority area in each year since 2003-04. [322412]

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Bridget Prentice: The following table shows the average number of weeks from the date of application to order made for care and supervision cases in England and Wales (where completed cases are counted by child for family proceedings courts and by orders made for County courts). Data are provided by court area, as a local authority area breakdown is unavailable. Data are presented by court type, from 2006-07; the earliest year for which data are available.

Average number of weeks from application to order for care and supervision cases in England and Wales, for orders made in each year
Court area	County court			Family proceedings court
	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Avon and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, and Gloucestershire	58	62	57	43	45	44
Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire	52	53	62	45	40	51
Birmingham, Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire	62	67	69	47	52	50
Black Country, Staffordshire and West Mercia	48	52	56	45	48	47
Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk	45	49	49	39	39	39
Cheshire and Merseyside	55	58	57	43	46	55
Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria	48	57	59	45	47	46
Cumbria and Lancashire	51	53	61	42	41	44
Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, and Wiltshire	50	58	54	45	42	44
Greater Manchester	55	57	59	43	42	40
Humber and South Yorkshire	41	45	46	38	36	39
Kent	53	61	67	45	45	50
Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire	51	54	55	42	41	42
London (Civil and Family)	56	66	65	51	53	49
Mid and West Wales	52	53	47	42	52	46
North and West Yorkshire	49	48	53	38	37	39
North Wales	62	51	58	45	31	38
Nottingham and Derbyshire	44	42	45	43	45	45
South East Wales	51	60	59	42	47	51
Surrey and Sussex	50	55	54	50	47	45
Thames Valley	47	51	55	41	39	44
England and Wales: Average number of weeks	52	56	57	44	45	46
England and Wales: Total number of care and supervision orders made(1)	4,161	3,923	3,636	3,730	3,746	3,596
(1) The figures for County courts count the number of care and supervision orders disposed in each year. Family proceedings courts figures count the number of children disposed. Notes: 1. The data are taken from the HMCS FamilyMan System and from the Case Tracker system. 2. The figures only cover cases where a care order or a supervision order was made. The figures do not include other care and supervision disposals (e.g. order refused, order of no order) and do not include other order types (e.g. emergency protection, secure accommodation). 3. The figures reflect the mean number of weeks from application to order. This means that the numbers of weeks taken for each order have been added up, and the total has then been divided by the number of orders.

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Children in Care: Child Trust Fund

Ruth Kelly: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what percentage of Child Trust Funds managed by the Official Solicitor or Accountant of Court on behalf of looked-after children have been re-allocated to a different provider following concerns about investment performance. [322393]

Bridget Prentice: 15.12 per cent. of Child Trust Funds (969) managed by the Official Solicitor have been reallocated to a different provider following concerns about investment performance. At the time of the review of providers, the Official Solicitor acted as the registered contact for 6,076 children's Funds. To date, the Official Solicitor manages 6,406 Funds.

Scotland

Departmental Surveys

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will place in the Library a copy of the benchmark results of the Civil Service People Survey for his Department. [322574]

Ann McKechin: The 2009 People Survey results are now available in the Library. Information about the survey will also be put on the Scotland Office website in due course.

Defence

Afghanistan and Iraq: Peacekeeping Operations

Mr. Gray: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel who were repatriated from Afghanistan and Iraq were seriously wounded and subsequently died in each year since the start of each conflict started in each of those countries. [322184]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Since operations began in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) up to 10 March 2010 (latest date for which data is available), a total of 17 UK armed forces personnel who were categorised as very seriously or seriously injured on operations have subsequently died following repatriation as a result of the injury sustained, as shown in the following table:

	Operation
	Iraq	Afghanistan	Total
All	8	9	17
2001	0	0	0
2002	0	0	0
2003	2	0	2
2004	0	0	0
2005	0	0	0
2006	1	1	2
2007	5	1	6
2008	0	0	0
2009	0	7	7
2010	0	0	0

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