Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will estimate how many former service men and women were homeless in each of the last five years.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government has committed to preventing and reducing homelessness for everyone, including armed forces veterans. That is why we have supported the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which will reform England’s homelessness legislation and ensure that more people get the help they need to prevent a homelessness crisis in the first place.
In addition, our £50 million Homelessness Prevention Programme has supported 84 projects across 205 district and unitary local authorities to deliver an end-to-end approach to prevention and rough sleeping.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether any (a) external contractors and (b) consultancy companies engaged by his Department have charged more than the initial price agreed for their services since May 2010.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department's embedded processes, including three-way invoice matching via DCLG finance systems, prevent contractors being paid in excess of agreed contracted amounts for goods and services. Any payment made as a result of contract variation or permitted extension would be for additional or revised work only and still subject to full supporting contractual documentation.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the cost of travel within the UK was for his Department in each year since 2010; and how much of this was spent on (a) hire cars, (b) helicopter hire, (c) hotel accommodation and (d) subsistence.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Role of the Department
Reflecting our responsibilities for local government, housing, planning and communities across England, the work of the Department involves staff travelling to different parts of the country.
Improved procurement has reduced our average domestic hotel rate in the UK by 8% between 2009-10 and 2012-13. Moreover, domestic flights for longer journeys can avoid the need for paying for staff to stay in a hotel overnight.
Since 2011-12, the Department accepted responsibility for some new functions outside of London, including residual functions following the closure of the Government Offices for the Regions and then oversight of the European Regional Development Fund following the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies. As these business functions relate to work in areas outside of London and to the European Commission, this has therefore increased our travel spend compared to the base of 2010-11. However, this is far more than offset by the very significant savings to taxpayers of the abolition of these regional bodies.
Based on current estimates (which reflect accounting consequences from machinery of government changes) the DCLG Group is reducing its annual running costs by around 40% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. This equates to net savings of at least £532 million over this spending review period and includes savings of around £420 million from the closure of the Government Offices for the Regions.
In addition to this, I note that the Regional Development Agencies were spending in the region of £246 million a year on administration (as cited in 11 March 2009, Official Report, Column 592W).
Spending data
The tables below list spending on travel by financial year. Figures for 2009-10 are from July 2009, as this is when the department's current approved travel agent contract commenced; those figures are therefore only for three-quarters of the financial year, and the full year is likely to be proportionately higher.
Overseas Travel | Overseas Accommodation | Overseas Subsistence | Total | |
July 2009 - March 10 | £408,621 | £19,847 | £79,574 | £508,042 (part-year) |
2010-11 | £56,304 | £21,759 | £27,798 | £105,861 |
2011-12 | £69,463 | £21,204 | £19,946 | £110,613 |
2012-13 | £78,474 | £29,224 | £21,911 | £129,609 |
UK Travel | UK Accommodation | UK Subsistence | Total | |
July 2009 - March 10 | £621,028 | £309,260 | £174,888 | £1,105,176 (part-year) |
2010-11 | £434,467 | £199,563 | £81,315 | £715,345 |
2011-12 | £980,307 | £162,544 | £71,913 | £1,214,764 |
2012-13 | £1,030,710 | £166,149 | £74,424 | £1,271,283 |
Explanatory notes:
- Overseas subsistence costs can include accommodation, meals and travel tickets purchased locally.
- The costs of internal travel abroad are not routinely recorded in the form requested and this information could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.
- Data on cost per trip is not centrally held in the form requested.
- For car hire, the data from our finance systems do not separate out expenditure for domestic and international car hire and this could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
- For helicopter hire, our records show that the Department has incurred no expenditure on this since 2010-11.
- Figures contained in this answer may differ from previous answers to Parliamentary Questions, as the data extracts have been re-run and reflect ongoing accruals and data. Delays in billing or crediting transactions can sometimes have an effect on the spend data between the financial years.
Taken in the whole, we have reduced overall travel spending compared to the last Administration, and delivered substantive savings for taxpayers' from the abolition of regional government in England.