Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Sure Start centres and children's centres there were in (a) Leeds and (b) Leeds Central constituency on 1 January in each year since the introduction of those centres.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Leeds local authority began designating children’s centres in 2003 and reached 58 designated children’s centres by the end of 2009. Since then, the number of main children’s centres has reduced by 4 (though they have ceased to be children’s centres, the sites have remained open as additional sites). [1]
There have been no further changes to this arrangement since November 2012 and as of 1 January 2015 there were 54 main children’s centres and 4 additional sites in Leeds local authority.
[1] Additional sites are places open to families and children providing children's centre services as part of a network. They were formerly children's centres in their own right and, while they no longer meet the statutory definition of a children’s centre, they remain open offering access to some of the early childhood services on behalf of another children's centre.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of named day written questions were answered by her Department within the prescribed period in the (a) 2012-13 session, (b) 2013-14 session and (c) 2014-15 session to date.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is as follows:
Session | Proportion of named day parliamentary questions answered on time |
2012-13 | 17%[1] |
2013-14 | 87% |
2014-15 (4 June 2014 – 5 September 2014) | 83% |
Departmental performance information for ordinary and named day parliamentary questions is collated by the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons and submitted to the Procedure Committee. This is published on a sessional basis by the committee, and includes evidence regarding departmental performance. The monitoring report relating to the 2012-13 session was published on 13 February 2014 as HC 1046. The report covering statistics relating to performance during the 2013-14 session will be published very shortly by the Procedure Committee.
[1] The Department’s system for handling written parliamentary questions failed during the 2010-12 session. This led to a collapse in performance and a loss of some data.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason it is not possible for telephone callers to be put through to the Education Funding Agency.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Most enquiries for the Education Funding Agency received by the Department for Education's national helpline are about financial matters or invoice queries which are best handled by email. Callers are provided with the appropriate email address. For other enquiries, the national helpline operator contacts the Academies Enquiry Service on the caller's behalf, or puts them through to that service. If the caller wishes to speak to a named individual in the Department, the operator makes contact with the individual (or, in the case of senior managers, with their PA) and transfers the call if appropriate.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the empty property business rates for the vacant properties recorded on the e-PIMS database owned by (a) his Department and (b) any executive agencies or non-departmental public bodies of his Department in the current financial year.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Since May 2010 the Department for Education has reduced the size of its estate from 30 properties, at a cost of circa £51 million per annum, to 11 properties costing circa £34 million per annum. This is a saving of circa £17 million per annum. The Department is planning to further reduce the size of the estate to 6 properties. This will achieve further annual savings to the Department of circa £2.5 million. The Department also plans to vacate Sanctuary Buildings at lease expiry in 2017.
The Department for Education, including the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), has the following vacant properties recorded on the e-PIMS property database.
Number of properties | Business Rates 13-14 | |
Department for Education | 3 | £79,010.25 |
Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service | 1 | £9,222.00 |
The Department for Education properties are legacy Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) properties which became the Department's responsibility following the closure of the TEC in the early 2000s. The Department had successfully sub-let a number of facilities, although over the last three years some of the sub-tenants have operated lease break options and the properties are again vacant.
These properties are advertised on the Government Property Unit's e-PIMS property database for use by other Government Departments and we are also marketing these facilities to the private sector, via letting agents, to secure new sub-tenants in order to mitigate costs, including business rates. The Department has offered all vacant properties listed above to the Government business incubator initiative and for free schools.