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Question

Asked by Lord Tebbit

Lord Patel of Bradford: Recruitment into the Civil Service is based on the principle of selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. Recruitment to the wider public sector is not subject to regulation by the Civil Service Commissioners.

Cybercrime

Questions

Asked by Baroness Warsi

Lord Patel of Bradford: Her Majesty’s Government have a wide ranging set of measures in place to protect the United Kingdom from all forms of electronic attack including cyber-terrorism and cyber crime.



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These measures include:

CPNI: Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, provides advice on electronic or cyber protective security measures to the businesses and organisations that comprise the UK's critical national infrastructure, including public utilities companies and banks.CESG: part of GCHQ, provides government departments with advice and guidance on how to protect against, detect and mitigate various types of cyber attack. It runs the Computer Emergency Response Team, GovCertUK, which provides warnings, alerts and assistance in resolving serious IT incidents for the public sector.All government departments have access to the Government Secure Intranet (GSi), which securely connects around 200 government departments and agencies.The Government’s Data Handling Review, published in June 2008, mandated a number of minimum data security measures for HMG such as penetration testing of government IT systems.Strengthening the Computer Misuse Act to reflect the seriousness of offences and updating legislation to take account of technological advances.Establishing three units that tackle crime on the internet: the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP); SOCA, deals with organised e-crime affecting the private and public sectors; and the recently set-up Police Central e-crime Unit.Sponsoring Get Safe Online, a joint public and private sector initiative to raise awareness of internet safety among the general public and small businesses

The Cabinet Office is currently leading a cross-departmental project to develop the UK’s approach to cyber security, including ways to improve the security of key systems.

Data Protection

Question

Asked by Lord Pearson of Rannoch

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): Directives 2006/24/EC (Data Retention) and 2002/58/EC (Privacy and Electronic Communications) concern data processing and data retention in the electronic communications sector and the elimination of obstacles to the internal market for electronic communications, and were therefore made on a first pillar basis established by the 1992 Maastricht treaty. The legal basis of 2006/24/EC (Data Retention) was upheld in the recent European Court of Justice case (C-301/06 Ireland v Parliament). It was the opinion of the European Court of Justice that all the normal tests for using Article 95 were met.

It is important to note the 2006 directive covers the retention of communications data and not access to it. In particular, recital 25 of the Data Retention directive

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specifically states that law enforcement access to this retained data falls outside the scope of Community law and such access is therefore covered by UK legislation.

Defra: Staff

Question

Asked by Lord Taylor of Holbeach

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change & Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Shared Services Directorate provides back office services to a number of customers within the Defra network. As many staff provide services to more than one customer it is only possible to provide an estimate of the resource (based on volumes of transactions) providing back office function to the Animal Health Agency. This estimate for 2008/09 of 45.7 FTE (full-time equivalent) staff includes those in support areas such as business planning and communications, in addition to those in operational roles.

Government Departments: Databases

Question

Asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Lord Patel of Bradford: Each government department is responsible for the management of its own databases. The information requested is not held centrally and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.

Government Departments: Vacancies

Question

Asked by Baroness Warsi

Lord Patel of Bradford: Civil Service vacancies are advertised widely, including on the Civil Service website. Information on the total number of jobs currently advertised is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.



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Government: IT Contracts

Question

Asked by Lord Patten

The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Davidson of Glen Clova): The Scotland Office was established on 1 July 1999. It shares an information technology system (SCOTS) with the Scottish Executive, who are responsible for the development, administration and maintenance of the system; consequently, the office does not directly enter into any IT contracts.

Health: Alzheimer’s Disease

Questions

Asked by Lord Bradley

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): Information on the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester, in each of the last five years, is not available in the format requested.

The national Quality and Outcomes Framework provides the number of people recorded on practice disease registers with a diagnosis of dementia, but does not distinguish between Alzheimer's disease and other possible forms of dementia. According to the publication Revisions to the General Medical Services Contract 2006/07, a copy of which has already been placed in the Library, Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50 to 75 per cent of cases of dementia, thus giving a crude indication of the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester.

The register count is only available for the last two releases of the framework, covering the periods 2006-07 and 2007-08. It also includes only those practices that have chosen to participate in the framework, as participation currently operates on a voluntary basis. Information is not available for all of the areas requested, as some are not health areas. Where this occurs, information has been supplied for the health areas that best fit those requested.



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The available information is shown in the following table.

The number of people recorded on practice disease registers with a diagnosis of dementia in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester—2006-07 to 2007-08

2006-07

2007-08

North-west

31,746.

32,621

Greater Manchester Primary Care Trusts

10,943

11,126

Manchester Primary Care Trust

1,787

1,762

Source: National Quality of Outcomes Framework.Notes:1. Greater Manchester Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) include the following:Ashton, Leigh & Wigan PCT Bolton PCTBury PCTHeywood, Middleton and Rochdale PCT Manchester PCTOldham PCTSalford PCTStockport PCTTameside & Glossop PCT Trafford PCT2. The national Quality and Outcomes Framework was introduced in April 2004, as part of the new general medical services contract. Participation by practices in the framework is voluntary, though participation rates are very high—with most personal medical services practices also taking part. The above information was derived from the quality management analysis system—a national system developed by NHS Connecting for Health.3. The quality management analysis system captures the number of patients on the various disease registers for each practice. The number of patients on the clinical registers can be used to calculate measures of disease prevalence, expressing the number of patients on each register as a percentage of the number of patients on practices’ lists. The above figures are just the number of patients on the disease register for dementia.

Internet: Deep Packet Inspection

Question

Asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

Lord Patel of Bradford: As the national technical authority for information assurance, CESG conducts research in a number of fields to ensure the relevance and quality of advice, guidance and services provided to Her Majesty’s Government. To this end, CESG has conducted technical evaluations of Deep Packet Inspection technologies. For reasons of commercial confidentiality it would not be appropriate to discuss the results of those evaluations in any detail.

Iraq: Gay People

Question

Asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno



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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): The UK Border Agency looks to return to Iraq individuals from there who have no right to remain in the UK, including those who, if they have claimed international protection, have been found by the asylum decision-making and independent appeals system not to need such protection.

National DNA Database

Question

Asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): The legal provisions governing the taking and retention of DNA samples and fingerprints for the national DNA database (NDNAD) and the national fingerprint database (IDENT1) are set out in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), as amended by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They provide that both DNA and fingerprints may be taken from a person arrested for a recordable offence and retained indefinitely, including for persons who are not convicted of a crime.

Policy on the retention of DNA and fingerprint records is being reviewed in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of S and Marper. The Government are considering their response to the judgment in conjunction with the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. A White Paper will be published later this year which will contain proposals on how we intend to implement the judgment.

In relation to the removal of records, under the provisions in PACE, the decision on whether to agree to a request from an individual to have their DNA profile, fingerprints and associated records removed from police databases lies with the chief officer of the force which took the DNA sample and fingerprint records.

In January 2006, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) issued guidance to chief officers on the consideration of applications for the removal of DNA samples, fingerprint records and Police National Computer records taken by forces in England and Wales. The ACPO guidelines make it clear that it is expected that DNA profiles and fingerprints which have been taken lawfully will be removed in exceptional cases only.

NHS: Foundation Trusts

Question

Asked by Lord Greaves



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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): The Secretary of State supported East Lancashire Hospitals National Health Service Trust’s application to become an NHS foundation trust in September 2008. Monitor (the statutory name of which is the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts), is now assessing the trust's application. Guidance on Monitor’s assessment process is set out in the document Applying for NHS Foundation Trust Status—Guide for Applicants (Monitor and the Department of Health, November 2008). A copy of this document has been placed in the Library.

Pakistan

Question

Asked by The Earl of Sandwich

Lord Tunnicliffe: The number of people displaced by conflict and insecurity from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), including Swat, has increased substantially during the last eight months. At the end of March 2009 the total number of internally displaced people registered in NWFP (including those from the FATA) was 547,000 (86,000 individuals in 11 formal camps and a further 461,000 outside camps).

The Department for International Development has so far committed £12 million (£6 million each to the UN—in support of the humanitarian plan—and the International Committee for the Red Cross for the internally displaced). Our funds are being used to support urgent humanitarian interventions in shelter, social protection, water and sanitation, food and health sectors.

Pensions

Questions

Asked by Lord Laird

Lord Patel of Bradford: I refer the noble Lord to the reply I gave him on Thursday 19 March 2009, Official Report, col. WA82.

The departments responsible for the other four largest public sector pension schemes are as follows:

National Health Service Pension Scheme—Department of Health;
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