Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure Border Control facilities have back-up plans in place in case of IT (a) systems failures and (b) service provider outages.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Our Border IT systems have a range of measures in place to ensure they can continue to run critical services in the event of any major service issues. This includes critical incident, crisis and business continuity plans depending on the nature of the issue and what is impacted. It would not be appropriate to document the specific detail of those measures.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) operating system and (b) version of that operating system is used at (i) Sevington inland border facility and (ii) other border control posts.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Our Border IT systems have a range of measures in place to ensure they can continue to run critical services in the event of any major service issues. This includes critical incident, crisis and business continuity plans depending on the nature of the issue and what is impacted. It would not be appropriate to document the specific detail of those measures.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the IT system at Sevington inland border facility was last updated.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Our Border IT systems have a range of measures in place to ensure they can continue to run critical services in the event of any major service issues. This includes critical incident, crisis and business continuity plans depending on the nature of the issue and what is impacted. It would not be appropriate to document the specific detail of those measures.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure Border Control IT systems operate with full functionality.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Our Border IT systems have a range of measures in place to ensure they can continue to run critical services in the event of any major service issues. This includes critical incident, crisis and business continuity plans depending on the nature of the issue and what is impacted. It would not be appropriate to document the specific detail of those measures.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to allow (a) local authorities and (b) schools to change the dates on which they receive the Dedicated Schools Grant.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department provides dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations to local authorities on a financial year basis, from April to March. That is in line with the financial reporting cycle for all local authorities’ funding streams.
The department has previously consulted on the appetite for changing the funding year for maintained schools, from a financial year to an academic year basis. The responses to the consultation at that time were mixed. One disadvantage, noted by a number of respondents, was that it would lead to increased administrative burdens, since the funding cycle would then differ from the financial reporting cycle which would need to remain on a financial year basis for local authorities.
The consultation is detailed here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/completing-our-reforms-to-the-nff/supporting_documents/Fair%20Funding%20For%20All%20Consultation.pdf.
The consultation response is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/624ac1168fa8f527729bfb14/Completing_the_reforms_to_the_National_Funding_Formula_-_government_consultation_response_.pdf.
The government remains committed to keeping the school funding system under review to ensure it continues to be fair and responsive to the needs of all schools.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has considered reforming allocation of the Dedicated Schools Grant to be in line with the academic year.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department provides dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations to local authorities on a financial year basis, from April to March. That is in line with the financial reporting cycle for all local authorities’ funding streams.
The department has previously consulted on the appetite for changing the funding year for maintained schools, from a financial year to an academic year basis. The responses to the consultation at that time were mixed. One disadvantage, noted by a number of respondents, was that it would lead to increased administrative burdens, since the funding cycle would then differ from the financial reporting cycle which would need to remain on a financial year basis for local authorities.
The consultation is detailed here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/completing-our-reforms-to-the-nff/supporting_documents/Fair%20Funding%20For%20All%20Consultation.pdf.
The consultation response is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/624ac1168fa8f527729bfb14/Completing_the_reforms_to_the_National_Funding_Formula_-_government_consultation_response_.pdf.
The government remains committed to keeping the school funding system under review to ensure it continues to be fair and responsive to the needs of all schools.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of aligning the Dedicated Schools Grant with the financial year has on schools' ability to plan budgets for the academic year.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department provides dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations to local authorities on a financial year basis, from April to March. That is in line with the financial reporting cycle for all local authorities’ funding streams.
The department has previously consulted on the appetite for changing the funding year for maintained schools, from a financial year to an academic year basis. The responses to the consultation at that time were mixed. One disadvantage, noted by a number of respondents, was that it would lead to increased administrative burdens, since the funding cycle would then differ from the financial reporting cycle which would need to remain on a financial year basis for local authorities.
The consultation is detailed here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/completing-our-reforms-to-the-nff/supporting_documents/Fair%20Funding%20For%20All%20Consultation.pdf.
The consultation response is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/624ac1168fa8f527729bfb14/Completing_the_reforms_to_the_National_Funding_Formula_-_government_consultation_response_.pdf.
The government remains committed to keeping the school funding system under review to ensure it continues to be fair and responsive to the needs of all schools.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding her Department has provided for (a) biosecurity and (b) food importation public awareness campaigns in each of the last 10 calendar years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Marketing and campaign activity is based on need and in-year circumstances. The vast majority of communications is delivered through no-cost communications channels owned by the department (such as outreach to partner organisations, webinars or content posted to Defra social media channels) and earned communications (such as media coverage).
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, What steps his Department is taking to support businesses to create well-paid jobs.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Through our modern industrial strategy, we’re backing businesses to create well-paid jobs across the UK. We’re investing in skills through apprenticeships, technical colleges and regional training programmes to help every area grow. Our global partnerships are delivering real results - the recent US State Visit will create over 15,000 jobs, our renewed India partnership nearly 7,000 and the Regional Investment Summit has unlocked £10 billion and 1,000 new jobs driving prosperity nationwide.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of legislating to ensure that the (a) historic and (b) cultural value of heritage metal is considered in prosecutions for metal theft.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government recognises the distress and disruption that heritage theft can cause to local communities.
That is why the sentencing guidelines on theft were amended in 2016 to highlight that where theft is of heritage assets or causes disruption to infrastructure, this should be taken into account when assessing the level of harm caused.