Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much Government funding has been allocated to the Family Nurse Partnership in each year since that initiative was launched; and how many people worked in Family Nurse Partnerships in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Information on Government funding allocated to the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) to cover costs of the FNP National Unit and local sites between 2006-08 and 2012-13 is set out in the table below.
Year | £ million |
2006-081 | 6.00 |
2008-092 | 5.00 |
2009-102 | 10.30 |
2010-112 | 11.20 |
2011-122 | 12.07 |
2012-132 | 10.99 |
1 Funded by the Department for Children Schools and Families. This covers two financial years.
2 Funded by the Department of Health.
From 2013-14 only the costs of the national unit were funded centrally by the Government. Since then, FNP local sites have been funded by NHS England and local authorities and this information is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many non-executive directors of his Department who were in post before May 2015 have since left the Department's board; what the names and length of tenure of such directors were; and how many and what non-executive director appointments he has made since May 2010.
Answered by Jane Ellison
No Non-Executive Directors have left the Department’s board since May 2015.
Since May 2010 the following Non-Executive Directors have been appointed: Catherine Bell, Chris Pilling, David Heymann, Gerry Murphy, Mike Wheeler and Peter Sands.
Details of their appointment (including dates of appointments) can be found in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts each year which are available at the following links:
Annual Report and accounts 2010-11
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215448/dh_130154.pdf -
Annual Report and accounts 2011-12
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212977/23735_HC-66-DoH.pdf
Annual Report and accounts 2012-13
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229996/Annual_Report.pdf
Annual Report and accounts 2013-14
Details of how Non-Executive appointments are made can be found in the Code of Practice on Corporate Governance in Central Government Departments.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many recruitment and employment agencies his Department has used to source staff in each year since 2010-11.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department uses recruitment agencies to recruit some Senior Civil Servants (SCS). The Department has used the following number of recruitment agencies as shown in the table below to support the appointment process for Senior Civil Service roles in each year since 2010-11:
Financial Year | Number of Recruitment Agencies |
2010-11 | 2 |
2011-12 | 4 |
2012-13 | 2 |
2013-14 | 5 |
2014-15 to date | 3 |
Below SCS level, recruitment agencies are not used for the major parts of recruitment or for entire recruiting processes.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on (a) taxis, (b) first class train tickets and (c) business class air travel in each of the last five years.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department’s travel and expenses policy clearly states that taxis are an expensive form of publicly available transport and should only be considered if their use is cost effective and delivers a business benefit.
Taxis must not be used for journeys of more than five miles unless no other form of public transport is available. Only exceptionally should taxis be used for journeys between the Department’s London offices, or in Leeds when the Leeds Shuttle Bus is unavailable.
The combined total amount spent on taxi travel by all calendar years was £877,542 between 2009 and December 2014 and the total expenditure is comprised of management information through I-Expenses and Business Management System (BMS) as noted from the tables below.
The following table is as taken from I-Expenses:
Year | Taxi Expenditure |
2009 | £138,332 |
2010 | £122,035 |
2011 | £87,110 |
2012 | £73,213 |
2013 | £54,442 |
2014 | £44,390 |
Total | £519,522 |
The following information has been drawn from the Department’s Business Management System (BMS). BMS is a centralised database which was introduced in July 2008. It allows the Department to collect detail on the categorisation, purpose and value of orders and purchases.
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The Department’s travel policy states that all rail travel must be standard class regardless of grade unless there is a clear business need to travel first class. First class rail tickets will require senior civil servant approval.
The total amount spent on first class travel by calendar year was £5,570,735 between 2009 and up to December 2014 as noted in the following table.
Year | Total Spend |
2009 | £3,139,973 |
2010 | £1,967,616 |
2011 | £264,490 |
2012 | £95,727 |
2013 | £58,067 |
2014 | £44,862 |
Total | £5,570,735 |
For comparison, equivalent spend on first class trains from 2005 to 2008 was:
Year | Total Spend |
2005 | £2,935,301 |
2006 | £3,425,383 |
2007 | £3,450,536 |
2008 | £4,469,270 |
Total | £14,280,490 |
The Department books the following classes of flights; economy, premium economy, and business class. Economy class is the default booking and an approved business case is required to book business class. If a flight is upgraded free of charge to business class, a business case is not required, although the management information will record a business class flight was taken.
The total amount spent on business class flights by calendar year was £1,090,466 between 2009 and December 2014.
Year | Total Spend |
2009 | £552,342 |
2010 | £217,674 |
2011 | £161,198 |
2012 | £98,752 |
2013 | £38,050 |
2014 | £22,450 |
Total | £1,090,466 |
For comparison, equivalent spend on business class flights from 2005 to 2008 was:
Year | Total Spend |
2005 | £636,595 |
2006 | £483,724 |
2007 | £491,936 |
2008 | £596,350 |
Total | £2,208,605 |
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost of (a) fraud and (b) financial error in (i) his Department, (ii) its executive agencies and (iii) its non-departmental public bodies in each of the last five years.
Answered by Dan Poulter
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my Rt. hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), on 15 December 2014 to Question 217821.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on (a) consultants, (b) temporary staff and (c) contingent labour in each of the last five years; how many people have been so employed; what the length of contract of each such person was; and what equivalent civil service salary band each was on.
Answered by Dan Poulter
For each of the last five financial years 2009-10 to 2013-14, the overall amount of money spent by the Department of Health (DH) on consultants and contingent labour/ temporary agency staff is included in the tables below. Figures are from the Department of Health Annual report and Accounts.
Table 1: Total Core DH Consultancy spend by financial year | ||||||
| Cash (£ million) | Resource (£ million) | ||||
| 2009-10 | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | *2013-14 | 2013-14 |
Core Department | £108.3
| £9.797 | £2.920
| £5.472
| £4.985 | £0.588
|
Connecting for Health | £6.3
| £4.975 | £11.997 | £12.927 | N/A | N/A |
Table 2: Total Core DH Contingent Labour/Temporary/Agency worker spend by financial year | |||||
Resource (£ million) | |||||
| 2009-10 | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 |
Core Department | £88.942 | £89.614 | £36.886 | £44.049 | £39.991 |
Connecting for Health | £129.415 | £62.160 | £34.078 | £12.927 | N/A |
*Changes to core DH consultancy spend reporting from 2013-14 will now be based on the newly stated DH resource accruals position- which is £588,000. This is no longer comparable or on a like-for like basis against all former reported purchase orders in line with Crown Commercial Services (CCS) definitions in previous years 2009-10 to 2012-13 i.e the figures for the previous years in the table. We will however, continue to capture and report on CCS definitional spend (currently £4.985 million) as part of the DH family Workforce Management Information notification required to Cabinet Office and this is the like for like comparison figures for the previous years in the table.
Notes:
1. Figures for Contingent labour/Temporary Agency values are on a resource basis and are consistent with published accounts.
2. 2013-14 Connecting for Health spend is no longer reported as part of core DH reporting.
The Department does not directly employ consultants or contingent labour/temporary agency staff. It contracts for the delivery of consultancy and contingent labour services. Information on consultants and temporary staff numbers in the Department is however, published in the monthly “Information on the workforce of the Department of Health (DH) and its agencies” and is available on the .Gov website.
The Department‘s Business Management System may hold data on consultancy, contingent labour, and agency staff costs where it is stored centrally for a specific budget approval period. To work out contract length details and equivalent civil service pay rates for all years requested would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS staff have been made redundant and subsequently re-employed by NHS organisations on a (a) permanent and (b) fixed-term contract basis since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The number of National Health Service staff estimated to have been made redundant since May 2010 and subsequently, up until July 2014, re-employed by an NHS organisation on a permanent basis is 2,502 and a fixed term contract basis is 1,870.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what budget is being allocated to local authorities in the next five years to embed health visitor services in local areas.
Answered by Dan Poulter
From 1 October 2015, the Government intends that local authorities take over responsibility from NHS England for commissioning of public health services for children aged 0-5. This includes health visiting services and Family Nurse Partnership targeted services for teenage mothers. Local authorities will receive funding for these new responsibilities.
The Department is aiming to set out 0-5 funding allocations later in the year. Work is on-going to determine how much money will transfer and commissioning costs will be considered as part of the overall approach. Funding in future years will be calculated in the light of the Government’s next spending review.
Locally NHS England’s area teams and local authorities are working to develop plans, including timescales, for a smooth and effective transfer of the commissioning role. A programme of regional 0 to 5 years commissioning transfer events is underway, involving key stakeholders to enhance understanding of future working arrangements.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what budget is being made available to assist local authorities with commissioning public health services for children under five from April 2015.
Answered by Dan Poulter
From 1 October 2015, the Government intends that local authorities take over responsibility from NHS England for commissioning of public health services for children aged 0-5. This includes health visiting services and Family Nurse Partnership targeted services for teenage mothers. Local authorities will receive funding for these new responsibilities.
The Department is aiming to set out 0-5 funding allocations later in the year. Work is on-going to determine how much money will transfer and commissioning costs will be considered as part of the overall approach. Funding in future years will be calculated in the light of the Government’s next spending review.
Locally NHS England’s area teams and local authorities are working to develop plans, including timescales, for a smooth and effective transfer of the commissioning role. A programme of regional 0 to 5 years commissioning transfer events is underway, involving key stakeholders to enhance understanding of future working arrangements.