Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they became aware of the farewell gathering for Kate Josephs in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Terms of Reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published on GOV.UK and deposited in the libraries of both Houses. The work will be concluded by the Second Permanent Secretary.
The Government does not comment on the specifics of an ongoing process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what powers they have under Freedom of Information legislation to check, in the process of responding to an FOI request, a minister's private email address to see whether they have used it for government business.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Government’s position on the operation of Freedom of Information legislation in respect of private email accounts is set out in the ‘Guidance to departments on use of private emails,’ published in 2013 as outlined below:
‘The Freedom of Information Act and searches for information
9. The FoI Act allows people to request information; it does not give the requestor any power to dictate where the department should search for that information. It is for the department to consider where the information might be and to take reasonable steps to find it. As set out above, it is expected that Government business should be recorded on government record systems. It will generally be reasonable to search only within those systems when a request has been received.
10. Departmental searches in response to requests for information are the responsibility of individual departments. The FOI Act itself provides no express legal authority for departments to search another person’s private emails or other records for the purpose of responding to a request made under that Act. In exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary to ascertain whether there is Government information in an individual’s possession that is not accessible to Government. This should be done by approaching the individual in question and the department should be entitled to rely on that person’s answer. There would be no requirement on the department to inform the requestor that the question had been asked, or (if Government information had been privately stored) where any information was found though, as now, if the Information Commissioner’s office is involved, departments may be asked to explain the nature and extent of the searches conducted in order to reply to a request.’
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) what the annual budget is for the running of the Clearing House for Freedom of Information requests, and (2) to give a breakdown of that budget.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Freedom of Information requests dealt with by the Clearing House have not been from those working for publications in each year since its inception.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the criteria for Freedom of Information requests to be passed to the Clearing House.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Freedom of Information requests have been dealt with by the Clearing House in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people work for the Clearing House for Freedom of Information requests.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they will announce the recommendations of the COVID-Status Certification Review.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
As set out in the ‘COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021,’ the Government will set out its conclusions on the COVID-status Certification Review in advance of Step 4 of the Roadmap, in order to inform the safe reopening of society and the economy.
An update on the Roadmap Reviews was published on 5 March and can be found here:
We will present interim findings from the COVID-status Certification Review to Parliament today.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many jobs have been lost in each parliamentary constituency in South Yorkshire in the current financial year to date.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.
Professor Sir Ian Diamond | National Statistician
The Lord Scriven
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
26 February 2021
Dear Lord Scriven,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many jobs have been lost in each parliamentary constituency in South Yorkshire in the current financial year to date (HL13503).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces labour market statistics for small areas from the Annual Population Survey (APS), which is a survey of people resident in households in the UK.
The APS cannot be used to measure the number of people who have lost their jobs, but instead can provide estimates of how the size of the workforce has changed over time. The survey provides level estimates for 12-month periods, based on interviews taking place throughout that time. Comparisons should only be made between non-overlapping survey periods.
Table 1 below shows the employment levels for the 12-month period ending September 2020, the latest available period, and the previous non-overlapping period for the 12-months ending September 2019, along with the net change between the two periods, for each parliamentary constituency in South Yorkshire.
Estimates from the APS are from a sample survey and as such are subject to a certain level of uncertainty.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
Table 1: Number of people in employment for the 12 month periods ending September 2019 and September 2020, and net change between the 2 periods, in Parliamentary Constituencies in South Yorkshire
|
| Thousands | ||
Parliamentary Constituency | Geocode | Oct 2018-Sep 2019 | Oct 2019-Sep 2020 | Net change |
Barnsley Central | E14000541 | 45 | 41 | -4 |
Barnsley East | E14000542 | 44 | 42 | -2 |
Don Valley | E14000667 | 46 | 47 | 1 |
Doncaster Central | E14000668 | 48 | 48 | 0 |
Doncaster North | E14000669 | 44 | 45 | 1 |
Penistone and Stocksbridge | E14000876 | 50 | 51 | 2 |
Rother Valley | E14000903 | 41 | 47 | 6 |
Rotherham | E14000904 | 41 | 40 | -1 |
Sheffield Central | E14000919 | 63 | 64 | 0 |
Sheffield South East | E14000920 | 41 | 45 | 4 |
Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough | E14000921 | 44 | 42 | -2 |
Sheffield, Hallam | E14000922 | 59 | 63 | 4 |
Sheffield, Heeley | E14000923 | 52 | 49 | -3 |
Wentworth and Dearne | E14001028 | 44 | 41 | -3 |
South Yorkshire | E11000003 | 662 | 665 | 4 |
Source: ONS
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why there has been no British Sign Language interpreter present at the daily COVID-19 briefings broadcast from Downing Street.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
It is vital that key information is accessible to all. Since the daily press briefings began, British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation has been available on the national broadcaster. The BBC provides BSL interpretation at the daily No10 press conference via its News channel, Youtube channel and iPlayer. This is available free to air.