Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health on the adequacy of the level of dementia training for homecare workers.
Answered by Marcus Jones
By 2020, this government expects social care providers to provide appropriate training on dementia to all relevant staff, and over 100,000 social care workers have already received such training.
Since April 2015, newly appointed health care assistants and social care support workers receive training through the implementation of the Care Certificate.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect on the solar power industry of the proposed 2017 business rate rise for organisations investing in rooftop solar power for their own consumption.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Business rates are based on valuations from the Valuation Office Agency and we do not intervene in their independent assessments. We have proposed a £3.4 billion transitional relief scheme to ensure that no ratepayer is unfairly penalised by the 2017 revaluation.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many (a) homes and (b) affordable homes have been completed under the Get Britain Building scheme to date; and what estimate he has made of the number of new jobs created by that scheme.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The total number of homes completed under the Get Britain Building programme from its launch in November 2011 to September 2015 is 9,761. Of these, 1400 are affordable homes.
Government does not collect data concerning the number of jobs created by the Get Britain Building programme.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much his Department spent on the purchase of televisions in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department for Communities and Local Government has not purchased any televisions in 2013 and 2014. To place this in context, the Department in the last Parliament under the previous Administration spent £22,527 on four flat-screen televisions, equivalent to £5,632 per television (as outlined in the answers of 1 September 2009, Official Report, column 1832W and 16 December 2009, Official Report, column 1265W.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many officials in his Department, of each grade, have remained at that grade since 2010 but received a pay rise; and how much of a rise each such person at each such grade has received.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The information requested has been placed in the Library of the House. The figures reflect the historic regime of contractual binding pay progression; we intend to end this by December 2014 and replace it with a fairer system which allows greater control over future pay awards.
More broadly, our departmental audited annual accounts for the core Department show that staff costs fell from £216 million in 2009-10 to £95 million in 2013-14, a reduction of 56% in cash terms, or a saving of £121 million a year.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many mobile telephones, BlackBerrys and laptops were lost by his Department in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The following items were reported lost during 2013 and during 2014 to date:
Item | 2013 | 2014 to date |
Mobile Telephones | 0 | 0 |
BlackBerrys | 5 | 3 |
Laptops | 1 | 0 |
All departmental IT is fully security encrypted.
The departmental security unit records and investigates each reported loss from the Department. If appropriate, the police are invited to undertake further enquiries.
Any BlackBerry reported as lost is immediately and remotely deactivated and the contents deleted. The user account on any laptop reported as lost is immediately and remotely locked.
There has been no data loss or compromise as a result of these losses.