Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many people have received the British Empire Medal since 2012; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
Since the British Empire Medal was reintroduced in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2012, 1,505 people have been awarded the medal.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many British honours were awarded to Commonwealth nations in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
The following British honours were awarded to Commonwealth citizens: New Year 2012 – 9; Birthday 2012 – 12; New Year 2013 – 16; Birthday 2013 – 24; New Year 2014 – 9; Birthday 2014 – 8. These numbers may include dual nationals.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the capacity of his Department's buildings for the micro-generation of renewable energy; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
In my Department's main building, 70 Whitehall, heat recovery in the plant rooms is used for domestic hot water and a bore hole provides cooling in summer.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to insulate his Departmental estate in order to improve energy efficiency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on Thursday 4 December 2014 to PQ UIN216834.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to insulate his departmental estate in order to improve energy efficiency; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
In 70 Whitehall external walls and roof spaces are insulated; all new pipework has thermal insulation; and, windows on the east and west elevations having secondary glazing. The building also benefits from heat recovery in the plant rooms to heat some hot water and a bore hole that draws water from an aquifer to provide sustainable free cooling in summer.
Cabinet Office also incorporates lighting control mechanisms via presence detection and daylight sensors into its core buildings.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to reduce water (a) usage and (b) bills in his Department; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
The Cabinet Office is committed to reducing the water consumption of its buildings. To date, my department has reduced its water consumption by 17.9% since 2009. Government is rationalising its estate, reducing the total number of properties, intensified occupation in remaining buildings and consequently reduced water usage and bills across the department.
Within the reduced estate, the Cabinet Office has introduced water reduction measures. These include motion-activated taps; removing unnecessary storage tanks and headers; and, installing additional metering and real time data to assist in monitoring of consumption to detect irregular usage patterns that could possibly be leakage.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to reduce water (a) usage and (b) bills in his Office; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
The Cabinet Office is committed to reducing the water consumption of its buildings. To date, my department has reduced its water consumption by 17.9% since 2009. Government is rationalising its estate, reducing the total number of properties, intensified occupation in remaining buildings and consequently reduced water usage and bills across the department.
Within the reduced estate, the Cabinet Office has introduced water reduction measures. These include motion-activated taps; removing unnecessary storage tanks and headers; and, installing additional metering and real time data to assist in monitoring of consumption to detect irregular usage patterns that could possibly be leakage.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure its services are available online; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
Progress against the delivery of my department's Digital Strategy, which sets out plans to become ‘digital by default’ in line with the Government Digital Strategy, is due to be published in December.
One of the 25 'exemplar' major government service that are being redesigned and rebuilt to be simpler, clearer and faster to use was the Cabinet Office's Register to Vote service. This went live in June this year in England and Wales followed by Scotland in September. More than 2.2m people have registered to vote using this digital service, with an overall satisfaction rate of over 90%. Further details are published on gov.uk/transformation.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how often his Department reviews its processes regarding the logging of emails, letters and other correspondence received; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Maude of Horsham
My Department aims to respond to all correspondence within 15 working days. Business processes are regularly reviewed to ensure we meet this target.
Guidance on handling correspondence from Members of Parliament, Peers, MEPs and Members of devolved Administrations will be updated in due course.