Tag: Lord Ouseley

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures exist, or are planned, to ensure that audit and accountancy firms accused of devising unlawful tax-avoidance schemes are investigated and censured, where appropriate.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

In the March 2015 Budget, the Government challenged the accountancy and tax professional bodies to improve how they deal with their members who promote tax-avoidance schemes.

The professional bodies have responded positively to this challenge and are working with HM Revenue and Customs to agree a new standard with which their members will need to adhere to.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-04-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what provision they plan to make to meet the shortfall of residential care home places for elderly people in the light of home closures and increased demand for social care.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Adult social care is largely delivered by a market of independent providers. As in any market, there is inevitable change which will give rise to local fluctuations in capacity. We are not aware of any systemic shortfall of residential care home places.

Under the Care Act (2014), local authorities have duties to shape their local market to ensure there is adequate provision of good quality, appropriate services to meet the changing needs of their local population, including for people who do not get state-funding.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-09-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the cost of bed-blocking in NHS hospitals in each of the past three years and what plans they have to invest in social care services to reduce those costs.

Lord Prior of Brampton

To date, the Department has made no formal estimate of the costs of delayed discharge to the National Health Service. However, the Department and NHS Improvement are working together to implement Lord Carter’s recommendations on hospital productivity. As part of this, the two organisations are working with providers to develop a richer dataset around all aspects of the patient pathway, including estimates of the cost of delayed discharge.

At the same time, the Department continues to work closely with the NHS and local government to help local areas improve transfers out of hospital, share best practice, and reduce unnecessary delays. We are funding the NHS’s own plan for the future with £10 billion and we are giving local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion of new support for adult social care by 2019/20.

Since April 2015, the Government’s £5.3 billion Better Care Fund has provided much needed investment in better integrated care through locally developed plans and by putting resources where the local NHS and social services think they are needed. Alongside this we are working with local areas to improve the transfer of patients back into the communities.

In 2016-17, there is a new Better Care Fund requirement on local areas to develop a clear, focused action plan for managing delays, including locally agreed targets. The requirement is designed to reduce delays across the health and care system.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to tackle the shortage of skilled workers in the construction industry, and what assessment they have made of the implications of that shortage for their housing and infrastructure programmes.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Government is undertaking a range of activities to support skills in the infrastructure and home building sectors. These include the reform of the apprenticeship system, the new apprenticeship levy, and the National Colleges Programme – which includes the National College for High Speed Rail. From April 2015 all government procurers of construction and infrastructure projects over £10 million are to include measures in pre-qualification and contract delivery to encourage skills development.

The Construction Leadership Council and Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) have separately undertaken work to encourage more people into the construction sector, including the launch of the GO-Construct website and work with the National Careers Service and Construction Ambassadors for schools. The CITB has also been working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions, the Armed Forces resettlement service and Local Enterprise Partnerships to encourage experienced individuals into the sector. In total, £42 million was invested by CITB, supporting 18,500 construction apprentices in 2015.

In addition, the Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy, produced under the oversight of Terry Morgan, Chair of Crossrail, will set out further actions to be taken specifically to ensure the supply of skills to deliver transport infrastructure.

Assessments of demand for construction skills include the National Infrastructure Plan for Skills, which estimates that 250,000 construction and 150,000 engineering construction workers will be required to meet demand in the infrastructure sector by 2020. The CITB estimate that 224,000 new construction jobs are set to be created in the UK over the next five years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-04-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in the light of NASUWT’s finding that 74 per cent of teachers are seriously considering leaving the profession in the next two years; and what assessment they have made of the implications of that finding for the education system.

Lord Nash

As the Secretary of State for Education outlined in her speech at the NASUWT conference on 26 March 2016, we want to see unions do everything they can to build morale, promote the teaching profession and tell people what a rewarding job teaching is. Approximately 90% of all teachers continue in the profession following their first year of teaching and this has been the case since 1996; and over 70% of those who qualified in 2009 were still in teaching five years later. Given the proportion of teachers leaving has remained stable over the last 20 years, we would not expect the proportion of teachers leaving the profession to increase to the levels reported by this survey.

We recognise that it is vital for schools to be able to retain good teachers. That is why we have made policy interventions in the areas teachers tell us matter most such as reducing unnecessary workload. We have recently published reports, addressing the three biggest issues emerging from the Workload Challenge – ineffective marking, use of planning and resources and data management. The reports set out clear principles about what should happen in schools, and make recommendations to be taken at every level in the school system.

We have accepted all the recommendations and will encourage the dissemination of the principles and messages clearly set out, to help enable the culture change the reports refer to.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-10-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen on 16 September (HL1556), how many young people participated in the National Citizen Service programmes during (1) 2014, and (2) 2015; how those participants were recruited; and how much expenditure was incurred in each year.

Lord Ashton of Hyde

In 2014, 57,789 young people took part in NCS throughout England. The number of young people who took part in the programme in 2015 will be released as part of the independent evaluation of the 2015 programme in due course.

Information on annual NCS expenditure can be found in the published NCS Trust accounts, which are available online through Companies House.

All recruitment is the responsibility of the NCS Trust, the independent organisation which delivers NCS. Recruitment is carried out through the NCS supply chain which includes more than 200 delivery organisations. NCS recruitment primarily takes place in schools, but young people can also sign up through the NCS website.

A range of other local channels support NCS recruitment, including partnerships with local authorities, youth groups, community and voluntary organisations, as well as NCS graduates.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-11-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Report Is Britain fairer?, particularly with regard to the employment and earnings prospects of young people aged 16 to 24.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is an independent body, and its report “Is Britain Fairer?” covers a five-year period spanning the Labour and Coalition governments. We welcome the positive areas of progress and note the key challenges to which it refers. The information in the report will be used by the EHRC to help develop its next strategic plan, covering the period 2016-19.

Giving young people the skills that businesses need is important. That is why our work to ensure 3 million apprenticeship starts in England over this Parliament is crucial.

According to London Economics, the lifetime benefits associated with the acquisition of Apprenticeships at Level 2 and 3 are very significant, standing at between £48,000 and £74,000 for Level 2 and between £77,000 and £117,000 for Level 3 Apprenticeships.

The latest data shows that 89% of apprentices are satisfied with their apprenticeship; 85% of apprentices said their ability to do the job had improved, and 83% of apprentices said their career prospects had improved.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to respond to the Institute of Race Relations’ recent analysis Prevent and the Children’s Rights Convention in which the new duties placed on schools to prevent children being drawn into terrorism have been tested against the key articles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Lord Bates

The Prevent duty is foremost about safeguarding vulnerable people – including children – from the dangers of radicalisation. We expect front line professionals, including teachers, to apply the duty in a proportionate manner.

To support schools in understanding their responsibilities in relation to the duty, we published statutory guidance in March last year which set out what is expected of them. In June last year, the Department for Education issued practical advice for schools which complemented the statutory guidance. Last month a website called ‘Educate Against Hate’ was launched specifically for schools and parents, which provides advice and support on how to identify and respond to concerns about radicalisation. We are also rolling out a training programme to equip all teachers with an awareness of radicalisation and an understanding of what they can do to ensure that children and young people are safeguarded from its risks.

It is important that when they have genuine concerns, people refer an individual to Channel, our voluntary programme to counter radicalisation, with the benefits that brings. A referral to Channel will be gauged in a way that defines an appropriate response.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-04-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they are liaising with local public service providers to ensure that all incoming refugees as part of the refugee resettlement policy are appropriately assisted within local community cohesion programmes.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Government and the Local Government Association continue to work closely with individual local authorities who are volunteering to take refugees.

Local authorities are required to provide refugees they resettle with a 12 month support package tailored to their individual needs which includes; accommodation, casework support and integration assistance, medical and social care needs and English language tuition. The first 12 months of a refugee’s resettlement costs will be funded by central government from the Overseas Development Aid budget.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-10-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether additional resources allocated for mental health services are ring-fenced in order to prevent any of those resources being used for alternative services in order to offset any NHS spending constraints.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England is responsible for allocating funding resources for health services including mental health. The Government has committed to an additional £1 billion by 2020/21 to support the implementation of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. This is in addition to the £1.4 billion over five years to improve children and young people’s mental health announced in 2014/15. We are holding NHS England to account through the NHS Mandate to ensure this investment delivers improvements in mental health.

We will continue to work with NHS England and other arm’s length bodies to monitor and track progress against the mental health commitments of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and Future in Mind.