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| Pension Credit Clearance Times | |||||
| Average Actual Clearance Time National Target—15 Days | |||||
| Motherwell | Seaham | Stockport | Swansea | Warrington | |
Police: Race and Gender
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government what expertise exists in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to inspect workforce issues from a race and gender perspective; and what account is taken of the views of stakeholders and interest groups representing black and minority ethnic and women's equality interests. [HL2108]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): The workforce productivity inspection in the Police Service “Working for the Public” will be conducted by HMIC in 2010. During 2009 HMIC will be designing the methodology for this major inspection. Stakeholders will be consulted, and staff with the appropriate skills and background will be recruited.
Police: Training
Question
Asked by Lord Harris of Haringey
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps are being taken to ensure that the training and skills of police officers working as part of (a) the British Transport Police, (b) the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, and (c) the Ministry of Defence Police are consistent with those of other police forces. [HL2103]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): Training is available to these non-Home Office police forces via the National Policing Improvement Agency. However, there are no specific mandatory training programmes.
Private Finance Initiative
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government which hospitals have been constructed under the private finance initiative, or its successor schemes, in the past ten years; on what dates the construction of each such hospital started and completed; what was the total cost of each; and what are the current annual interest payments due to the financiers. [HL2194]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): Information on the capital value and estimated revenue payments for the lifetime of each completed private finance initiative (PFI) scheme together with the start on site and opening dates has been placed in the Library.
The revenue payments are the annual payments made by National Health Service trusts to their private sector partners. This is to cover the cost of the funding raised by the contractors on the project (known as senior debt) in terms of financing charges and repayment of principal, building maintenance, lifecycle costs and, in many cases, non-clinical support services such as cleaning, laundry, catering, portering and security. On an annualised basis, the cost of the funding, comprising finance charges and principal in varying proportions, accounts for approximately 50 per cent of the annual payment for a scheme including non-clinical services.
PFI schemes are normally funded by two types of senior debt finance; traditional fixed rate project finance (a bank loan) and index linked bonds, priced by reference to bank and gilts rates respectively. Each source of debt finance has its relative merits and their prices move in relation to each other depending on market conditions. Decisions on the preferred source are made as part of the value for money calculation by the trust and its private sector partner at the time of preparing
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The overall financing charges therefore vary from scheme to scheme and depend on several factors. Information on financing charges is contained in the FBC for each scheme, which must be made publicly available following its approval. The financing charges are modelled for each year of the term of the loan in the financial models which are contained in the FBC and are fixed for the public sector, but these may differ from the actual charges incurred in any year by the private sector (the risk sits with the senior debt provider and contractors). The information on the actual finance charges paid in any one year for all PFI schemes which have opened could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Public Bodies
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government which Members of the House of Lords are appointees to the non-departmental public bodies listed under “Ministry of Defence” in annex A to the report of the Cabinet Office entitled Public Bodies 2008; and what was their appointment and individual remuneration. [HL1887]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): Information on board membership and remuneration is published in individual bodies' annual reports and accounts.
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