Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Digital communications infrastructure strategy, published on 18 March 2015, which Department will be responsible for operational management of public sector spectrum; and how the release target will be reset.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Details of how the central management of spectrum used by the public sector might best be achieved areunder discussion between Departments. The release target will be reset in the light of the Government's manifesto commitment to release more spectrum from public sector use to allow greater private sector access.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Digital communications infrastructure strategy, published on 18 March 2015, how much public sector spectrum has been released since 2010.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
62 MHz of spectrum has been already released. Ofcom expects to auction up to 190 MHz of additional spectrum at 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz in this financial year (2015/16).
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what information he holds on how the BBC will enforce payment of the licence fee by people watching iPlayer.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
We are seeking views on the practicalities of enforcement of modernising the licence fee in order to cover public service broadcast catch-up TV as part of BBC Charter Review public consultation published on Thursday 16 July.
The current TV Licence Fee enforcement regime, which includes live or nearly live broadcast television content on any electronic device including via iPlayer, has been reviewed independently. The report has been published and is available via this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445212/166926_Perry_Review_Text-L-PB.pdf
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of members of national sports governing bodies are women.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Sport England does not hold the demographic data for national sports governing body members. However, the organisation Women in Sport collects data regarding the executive board members of national sports governing bodies and the proportion who are female in their regular report ‘Trophy Women’. When the first report was published in 2009, 20% of board members across NGBs were female and one quarter of NGBs had no women in their board positions. The most recent figures shown an improvement – in 2014 27% of board members across NGBs are female and the number of NGBs with no women in board positions has reduced to 3.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to HM Treasury's press release, Chancellor announces £4.5 billion of measures to bring down debt, published on 4 June 2015, what amount of the £30 million additional savings from his Department will consist of (a) underspends within the DCMS group, (b) reduction in core budget and (c) reductions in funding to arms-length bodies.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Of the £30m of in-year savings announced by the Chancellor: a) £24m related to underspends across the Group; b) there was a £1.5m reduction to core budgets; and, c) a £4.5m reduction in funding to arm's length bodies.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he plans to take in response to Ofcom's Third Review of Public Sector Broadcasting, published in July 2015.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
We welcome publication of Ofcom's review and statement on Public Service Broadcasting. We will be considering the evidence and recommendations alongside the Charter Review process and in light of responses to our consultation on balance of payments and electronic programme guides.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether any of the funding for rollout of superfast broadband top sliced from the television licence fee has been retained for phase 3 of the rollout programme.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Decisions on any investment in the rollout of superfast broadband beyond 95% will be taken as part of the forthcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what work the Ministerial Advisory Group on Women and Sport has undertaken since its inception.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The Women and Sport Advisory Board was convened under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government, to bring together experts from across a number of sectors (sport, the media, commercial) in order to formulate practical solutions for making progress on women’s involvement in sport. The Board's term ended in March 2015, culminating in a final report- link as follows
[ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sports-minister-urges-sector-to-keep-up-momentum-on-women-in-sport ]. The recommendations from this will feed into the new Sport Strategy due to be published later this year.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department's innovation fund was funded from the BBC's funding for broadband.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The funding for the innovation fund which was created in order to explore ways to take superfast broadband to hardest to reach places was allocated by the Exchequer, not from the BBC’s funding for broadband.
Asked by: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much his Department has spent on producing and maintaining dcmsblog.uk in each of the last five years; and how many unique visitors that blog has received in each such year.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Department spent £5,550 on redesigning and rebuilding its blog platform in 2014. The blog is hosted on a shared platform and does not incur any additional on-going hosting and maintenance costs. All blog content and production is carried out in-house, which is managed jointly across the communications team with no additional spend.
The breakdown below provides numbers of users to the DCMS blog since 28 July 2011. There is no data available before this date.
These figures show that during 2012 and 2013 the DCMS blog played a key role in supporting a number of high-profile campaigns, including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, resulting in a higher volume of blogs posted during this time which is reflected in a higher return in traffic. These figures also demonstrate how the blog is consistently meeting its objective to introduce a higher percentage of new audiences to our policies, the sectors we support and the voice of the people who champion them.
· 2015 (to 17 July 2015): 6,984 users, of which 82.4% were new visitors and 17.6% were returning visitors
· 2014: 13,063 users, of which 82.6% were new visitors and 17.4% were returning
· 2013: 26,152 users of which 77.5% were new visitors and 22.5% were returning
· 2012: 38,575 users of which 74.8% were new visitors and 25.2% were returning
· 2011 (from 28 July): 9,667 of which 79.3% were new visitors and 20.7% were returning
Since the DCMS blog was launched in 2010, the Department has gone on to establish itself on a wider range of free social media channels targeted to its audiences and the evolving social media landscape.