Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department spends annually on language controls for nurses, midwives, dentists, dental care practitioners and pharmacy technicians.
Answered by Dan Poulter
There is no annual Departmental spend around language controls for nurses, midwives, dentists, dental care practitioners and pharmacy technicians, as it is for individual National Health Service employers to ensure that all healthcare professionals have a sufficient knowledge of the English language to be able to perform the roles for which they are employed.
Furthermore, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), General Dental Council (GDC), the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) as the independent regulators of these healthcare professionals, have powers to carry out language controls for all international professionals.
In addition, we are currently consulting on proposals to give powers to the NMC, GDC, GPhC and PSNI to enable them to introduce similar language controls for all European Economic Area nurses, midwives, dentists, dental care professionals, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department spent on iPhones in each year since 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department spent the following on iPhones in each of the financial years since 2010.
Financial Year | Numbers | Costs (Exclude VAT) |
2010-11 | Nil | Nil |
2011-12 | Nil | Nil |
2012-13 | 1 | £357.00 |
2013-14 | Nil | Nil |
2014-15 | 2 | £750.00 |
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many Instant Rewards of what value were given to his Department's officials in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department does not operate an ‘Instant Rewards’ scheme. The Department does, however, operate an in-year bonus scheme, which has strict criteria, approval processes and budgetary control.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on legal fees over prevention of release of information requested by Freedom of Information requests since 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 14 July 2014, Official Report, column 438W.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on how many occasions his Department has had requests for appointments by exception to the Senior Civil Service turned down by the Civil Service Commission since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Civil Service Commission publish details of appointments made by exception and approved by them in their annual reports and on their website. These reports are available in the Library.
It would not be appropriate to publish details of the requests turned down by the Commission as the numbers involved are small, and the individuals might be personally identified, directly or in combination with other published information.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many Freedom of Information requests his Department has declined to answer in full since 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Departmental Freedom of Information performance statistics have been published by the Ministry of Justice since 2010. These include the number of requests that were declined in full. They are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on how many occasions his Department has made appointments by exception since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Civil Service Commission publish details of appointments made by exception and approved by them in their annual reports and on their website. These reports are available in the Library.
It would not be appropriate to publish details of the requests turned down by the Commission as the numbers involved are small, and the individuals might be personally identified, directly or in combination with other published information.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on what occasions each Minister within his Department has taken domestic flights on official business since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The available information is as follows:
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
- 24 February 2014 – London to Aberdeen and return flight.
Former Minister of State (Mr Paul Burstow)
- 3 January 2012 – London to Newquay.
Minister of State (Norman Lamb)
- 25 February 2014 - London to Newquay.
- 26 February 2014 - Newquay to London.
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Dr Daniel Poulter)
- 10 April 2014 – London to Newquay.
To provide information for other former Ministers since 2010 would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department spent on legal fees in cases relating to the release of information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Figures taken from the Department's Business Management System categorised as spend on legal services from the Freedom of Information Team's central budget, show that £2,346.40 was spent in the 12 months between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014, and £22,627.71 in 2012-13. There was no spend in 2011-12, 2010-11 or 2009-10.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what professional development courses are made available to staff of his Department; and what the cost to the public purse is of each such course.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department provides a range of development courses for all staff via Civil Service Learning, the recognised supplier for all training. The options predominantly fall under the main categories of Core Skills, Leadership and Management, Working in the Civil Service and Talent, as well as a range of training across a number of professions e.g. statisticians, Human Resources etc.
Full details of all training activities and exercises engaged in by staff are not held centrally. Some activities are arranged individually or locally. For us to contact each member of the Department's local business teams to obtain such information would entail contacting a large number of staff and asking them to search for and retrieve such data. Therefore, while the Department does hold some information relevant to the hon. Member's request, extracting the totality of this data would require a significant amount of manual searching which would incur disproportionate costs.