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4 Nov 2002 : Column 99W—continued
Asylum Applications (Northern Ireland)
Mr. Peter Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons claimed asylum during each of the last three years in Northern Ireland. [78506]
Beverley Hughes: No statistics are kept of the numbers of asylum applicants in Northern Ireland, or any other geographic region in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Peter Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what resources are available to the Immigration Service in dealing with asylum applications made on entry to Northern Ireland from Eire. [78728]
Beverley Hughes: Any person seeking asylum in Northern Ireland is directed to the UK Immigration Service staff at Belfast International airport, where arrangements are then made for their screening and interview in the same way as a person seeking asylum elsewhere in the UK.
The Belfast office currently has 11.5 staff, part of whose duties is to screen new asylum applicants identified in Northern Ireland.
Asylum Centres
Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria are being used in assessing the suitability of contractors for operating the proposed new centres for asylum seekers; and who will decide on the award of contracts. [78549]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: Tender documents for the design, build and operation of accommodation centres have not yet been issued to potential contractors.
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In due course, the criteria to be used in evaluating bids will involve project management; legal and financial responses; design and construction; and delivery of services and maintenance. Home Office Ministers will make decisions to award contracts.
Asylum Seekers
Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made for a full year of the cost of the withdrawal of the work concession to asylum seekers in (a) added benefit and (b) payments to detainees; and what he estimates to be the net difference in the costs to each removal centre of employing contract and agency labour in place of detainees working in cleaning and kitchens. [78484]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: We do not have figures on the additional costs, if any, of providing support to asylum seekers who can no longer seek permission to work. Internal management Information indicates that during the financial year 2001–02 we made initial decisions on the vast majority of new substantive applications within the initial six months. The number who might have been able to benefit from the concession is therefore much reduced.
The percentage of new substantive cases in 2001–02 which were decided within six months will be available from 29 November 2002 on the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate website at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1 .html
The work concession for asylum seekers did not extend to asylum seekers in detention.
Immigration detainees held in Immigration Service removal centres have never been required to work nor are they expected to assist in the running of the centres.
Following their redesignation earlier this year as removal centres, the Prison Service detention facilities at Dover, Haslar and Lindholme ceased to operate under Prison Rules. As a consequence, detainees no longer had the opportunity to undertake paid employment in the centres and the practice of relying on such work for the provision of certain ancillary services came to an end. Work formerly undertaken by detainees at these centres has been contracted out or transferred to agency staff. For this year this has resulted in a net additional cost of #1.09 million. This will be met from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's budget.
Asylum Support
Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) local authorities, (b) private sector contractors and (c) voluntary sector contractors are providing accommodation and support services for asylum seekers; and what the financial value is of tenders awarded to each sector. [78544]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: The information is as follows:
| Contracts | Grant agreements | |
|---|---|---|
| Private sector | 11 | — |
| Local authorities | 11 | — |
| Voluntary sector | — | 6 |
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Information on the financial value of contracts is not available in the form requested.
Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what geographical areas are covered in each region in the regional breakdown used by NASS; and what powers and responsibilities have been delegated to the individual regions. [78545]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: The areas covered by each region are as follows:
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National Asylum Support Service (NASS) is planning to increase the number of its staff in each major region. It is expected that the regional infrastructure will be in place by the end of the current financial year. Under the regionalisation programme work related to investigations, outreach and housing contract management will be delegated, with the expectation that aspects of operations work will follow at a later date. Actual locations of individual offices within regions are still being finalised.
Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many private contractors providing accommodation or support for asylum seekers have been dropped since 1997 because of dissatisfaction with their performance. [78546]
Beverley Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: The National Asylum Support Service (NASS) became operational on 3 April 2000. Since that date NASS has not terminated any contracts with private sector contractors providing accommodation or support asylum seekers.
Chechens (Deportation)
Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will postpone the deportation of Chechens to Russia. [78526]
Simon Hughes [holding answer 31 October 2002]: The Home Office, in conjunction with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, closely monitors the situation in the Russian Federation, and in particular, the conflict in Chechnya. We are aware that the Russian authorities have intensified their security operations in the wake of the terrorist incident in Moscow, but the impact of this remains unclear thus far. Our deportation policy, however, is kept under constant review.
Correspondence
Mr. Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the letter to him dated 3 September from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Tabasum Raja and Asif Kamal. [78044]
Mr. Blunkett: I wrote to my right hon. Friend on 30 October 2002.
Criminal Records Bureau
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the Criminal Records Bureau delivers an effective service to its customers. [77742]
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Mr. Blunkett: The Government is committed to the delivery of an effective service for undertaking pre-employment criminal record checks for people working with children and vulnerable adults. The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has not so far been able to provide a satisfactory service.
A number of steps have already been taken to improve the CRB's performance. In May an initial service improvement plan was put in place. As a result the number of disclosures issued by the CRB has increased from an average of 24,500 per week in August to an average of 39,500 per week in the three weeks ending 26 October. The CRB has now issued 541,000 disclosures.
In addition, in September I announced the appointment of an independent team, led by Patrick Carter, to take a fundamental look at the strategy and operations of the CRB and its private-sector partner, Capita. The team will be looking to identify the longer-term changes in the way the CRB operates to ensure that it can meet the demand both for the standard and enhanced disclosures already in place and the basic disclosures to be introduced in due course.
I expect the independent team to report to me with their conclusions and recommendations by the end of the year. It is likely, however, to require a period of months before any system changes necessary to deliver the required step change in the CRB's output can be fully implemented. In the meantime it is expected that there will be a gradual improvement in performance through the ongoing service improvement plan.
In the interim, we need to take steps to ensure that the demand for disclosures is in line with the CRB's current ability to process the applications. I have therefore agreed with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Health, and for Education and Skills a number of measures to defer the existing or proposed requirement on certain occupations or office holders to obtain a CRB disclosure.
Persons caring for children and vulnerable adults will, as now, continue to be subject to rigorous pre-employment checks, including confirming previous employment history and taking up references, to ensure their suitability for the position in question. All those occupations which were subject to a criminal record check prior to the advent of the CRB will continue to be subject to such a check.
The details of the measures are set out as follows:
- Care Homes
- The care homes regulations (relating to care homes for adults) currently require CRB checks for existing staff—that is, those employed to work in a care home immediately before 1 April 2002—to be completed by 31 March 2003. The Government will be amending the regulations to extend this time limit. Existing care home staff will now be required to obtain a CRB check during the course of 2004. New care homes staff will continue to be required to have CRB checks, as will registered providers and managers of care homes.
- Nurses agencies and domiciliary care agencies
- Nurses supplied by nurses agencies, and staff supplied by domiciliary care agencies, will not be required to have CRB checks for the time being. The Department of Health will still be going ahead with the introduction of the nurses agency and domiciliary care agency regulations to come into effect in February 2003, but
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- without the requirement for CRB checks. Staff will be required to provide a statement that they have no criminal convictions, or to provide a statement of any criminal convictions that they do have.
- The CRB check requirements will however, apply to registered providers and managers of nurses agencies and domiciliary care agencies.
- Some nurses agencies are already having to comply with requirements for CRB checks, which stem from the care homes regulations and the private and voluntary health care regulations which are already in place. These require checks to be made before temporary staff can be placed in those settings. These requirements have been in place since April 2002, and are not being removed.
- Other Department of Health regulations
- There will be no change to other regulations under the Care Standards Act 2000. Furthermore, none of these measures affect the requirements of those working with children to have a Protection of Children Act list check and the checks required by the Children's Homes Regulations and the Fostering Services Regulations.
- It is planned that regulations on residential family centres and adoption agencies will come into effect, with CRB check requirements, in February and April 2003 respectively.
- In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has agreed to postpone the implementation of the Protection of Vulnerable Adults list provided for the Care Standards Act.
- All these arrangements are designed to avoid having regulations in place which cannot be complied with by providers. The Government recognises the importance of criminal records checks but at the same time providers must not be prevented from operating. Care homes have to be able to continue to employ existing staff, and we believe that domiciliary care agencies and nurses agencies should not be prevented from being able to place staff because they have not obtained checks.
- The regulations and national minimum standards, even with the CRB check requirements, will still be a significant factor in driving up standards and protecting service users. Among other things, they will cover the way the organisation is run, recruitment procedures, staffing arrangements, user feedback, information for service users, all of which are part of a system to protect vulnerable people.
- School Governors
- School governors will not be required to have CRB checks for the time being. The Department for Education and Skills will still be going ahead with the introduction of the School Governance (Constitution) regulations to come into effect in April 2003, but without the requirement for CRB checks.
- The Government remains committed to introducing CRB checks in these areas at the earliest possible opportunity.
- The Home Office, in conjunction with the Department of Health for Education and Skills, will be issuing detailed guidance to Registered Bodies about the implications of the above measures. The three Departments will continue to work with their partners and the CRB as the situation develops.
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