Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of officials of his Department working on decentralisation and growth are based in London.
Answered by Mark Francois
Decentralisation and growth are cross-governmental issues, supported by officials in all relevant departments.
The Cities and Local Growth Unit is a joint BIS-DCLG team that supports areas in developing and agreeing devolution deals with the Government. It currently has approximately 140 officials working on a range of devolution and growth agendas, with just over 60 of these officials in six local teams based across the country.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many (a) full-time equivalent civil servants work in his Department and (b) civil servants work full-time on the Northern Powerhouse agenda.
Answered by Mark Francois
There are currently 1651 full time equivalent civil servants working in the Department for Communities and Local Government.
The Northern Powerhouse is a key ambition of this Government which requires input from officials across DCLG and other Government Departments, across a wide range of policy areas. This enables bottom-up ownership of the Northern Powerhouse agenda by Northern areas to ensure the North can influence, direct and benefit from the Northern Powerhouse, including through Devolution Deals.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the publication Decentralisation: An account of progress, published in December 2012, what progress his Department has made on proposals to deliver on annual decentralisation statement.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Since December 2012 considerable progress has been made on the decentralisation of powers to cities and regions, including the evolving work of negotiating City Deals, Growth Deals and now Devolution Deals with places across the country. The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act sets out in legislation the requirement for the Government to produce an Annual Report on devolution; the first such report is currently being drafted and will be laid before both Houses of Parliament later this year pursuant to the legislation.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of his Department's core policy civil servants are based in London.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Department has 91.8% of its core policy civil servants based in London.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of senior civil servants in his Department are based in London.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
97.6% of the Department's senior civil servants are based in London.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of employees in his Department has (a) taken the CESG Certified Cyber-Security Training Course and (b) received other relevant cyber-security training.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Technical cyber-security services are provided to the Department by the Department for Education under a shared services agreement. All Information Asset Owners in the Department have undertaken the Information Asset Owner module of the cross government Responsible for Information Training, which includes cyber-security training.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress he has made on the Pub Loan Fund; and when he expects that fund to be accessible to community groups.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
Good progress is being made on the development of the pubs loan fund. We hope to be in a position to make a more formal announcement shortly with communities being able to access the support later in the Spring.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when his Department plans to publish its response to its consultation on the use of restrictive covenants for pubs which closed in September 2011.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
We intend to publish the Government response to the consultation on whether the use of restrictive covenants in the pubs sector was having a negative impact upon communities and will do so in due course.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many civil servants in his Department are in the redeployment pool.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
A redeployment pool is one of the steps DCLG would take if staff were at the risk of redundancy. DCLG is currently not in a redundancy situation, therefore, we do not have a redeployment pool or staff in it.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2015 to Question 10866, when he plans to publish the job titles and pay grades of appointments to extended ministerial offices.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given by my rt. Hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock) to PQ17505 answered on 30 November 2015.