Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of the staff required for the National Maritime Operation Centre in Fareham to reach full operational capacity by December 2015 had been appointed by 2 July 2015.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
As at 2 July 2015, 75 out of the full complement of 96 Coastguards (78%) had been appointed to roles at the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) in Fareham.
Recruitment for the NMOC and the wider National Network is phased incrementally to deliver the right number of Coastguards at the right point in the transition timetable. The new National Network progressively became operational from September 2014; transition will complete by the end of December 2015.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what metric his Department uses to assess the risk-assessed level of staffing at coastguard operations centres; and what assessment he has made of those risk-assessed staffing levels using this metric at each of the coastguard operations centres in the period from January 2015 to July 2015.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Her Majesty’s Coastguard has undertaken an in depth analysis of its historical incident data to develop suggested staffing levels for the National Network by time of day (day or night) and season (low, medium, high and peak). During the current transition period this level has also depended on the geographical scope of the National Network as areas previously managed by Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres migrate into it.
Between January and July 2015 the National Network was staffed at the suggested levels on 93% of occasions.
On occasions where staffing is below these levels the flexibility of the National Network allows for support to be made available to teams experiencing very high workloads from teams elsewhere in the network with spare capacity.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of staff at the National Maritime Operation Centre at Fareham had attained the qualification level required for the Centre to reach full operational capacity by December 2015 by 21 July 2015.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
As at 21 July 2015 61 out of the 75 Coastguards (81%) appointed to roles at the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) in Fareham had attained the qualification level required for the Centre to reach full operational capacity by December 2015.
Recruitment and training for the NMOC and wider National Network is phased incrementally to deliver the right number of Coastguards at the right point in the transition timetable. The new National Network progressively became operational from September 2014; transition will complete by the end of December 2015.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when his Department intends to announce the recipients of awards from the next round of funding for the Regional Air Connectivity Fund.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Regional Air Connectivity Fund was announced by the previous Government to support public service obligations (PSOs) and start-up aid. From this fund the Department for Transport has already provided financial support for PSOs between both Dundee - London Stansted and Newquay – London Gatwick. This has ensured that vital connectivity from our regions to the capital has not been lost. The Government will announce shortly how it plans to take forward future use of the fund.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the budget is for the next round of funding for the Regional Air Connectivity Fund; and for how long that funding round will last.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Regional Air Connectivity Fund was announced by the previous Government to support public service obligations (PSOs) and start-up aid. From this fund the Department for Transport has already provided financial support for PSOs between both Dundee - London Stansted and Newquay – London Gatwick. This has ensured that vital connectivity from our regions to the capital has not been lost. The Government will announce shortly how it plans to take forward future use of the fund.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when his Department will publish the shortlist of applications for the next round of funding for the Regional Air Connectivity Fund.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Regional Air Connectivity Fund was announced by the previous Government to support public service obligations (PSOs) and start-up aid. From this fund the Department for Transport has already provided financial support for PSOs between both Dundee - London Stansted and Newquay – London Gatwick. This has ensured that vital connectivity from our regions to the capital has not been lost. The Government will announce shortly how it plans to take forward future use of the fund.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of past awards from the Regional Air Connectivity Fund in establishing new routes; and what recent assessment he has made of whether such routes would remain viable if unsubsidised.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Regional Air Connectivity Fund has been used to provide financial support for two public service obligation (PSO) routes. Without this support it was assessed that both Dundee and Newquay airports would have lost their air connectivity to London.
As PSOs can only be used to support routes that are not commercially viable it is not expected that either route will be commercially viable within the period that they are eligible for funding.