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91379

registered interest
date	10/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what compensation payments have been made to senior executives of Rotherham Borough Council leaving their posts since 2012.
tabling member constituency	East Worthing and Shoreham
tabling member printed	Tim Loughton
uin	209034
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/10/2014 answer text <p>The Department does not collate or hold this information. Local authorities are independent employers and it is for each council to make local, accountable decisions on the management of its workforce, including any payment made to staff leaving their employment. While Government has no involvement in these local decisions, we expect councils to be open and transparent about the decisions they make about the pay and rewards for staff, particularly senior staff. Under the Localism Act 2011, councils are required to prepare and publish an annual pay policy statement setting out their approach to pay matters, particularly senior pay. In our pay accountability guidance to accompany measures in the Localism Act, councils are asked to give full council the opportunity to vote on severance packages of £100,000 or more before they are rubber-stamped. It is unacceptable for information about compensation payments to be withheld from local taxpayers and we welcome the CLG Select Committee’s recent comments that councils should publish the rationale for, and amount of, any financial payment to a departing chief officer within a month of the decision so that the public can understand why such a payment has been made. Severance payments made to senior staff must already be disclosed in an authority’s annual Statement of Accounts and cannot be protected from disclosure by confidentiality agreements.<br><br>On 3 October, the Department further strengthened the public's ability to scrutinise councils by ensuring that they get the data they deserve through the local government transparency code. Part of that code is the requirement for councils to publish information on salaries for employees earning £50,000 or more, alongside a range of other pay and workforce information.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 15/10/2014 16:13:55 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	114 label Biography information for Tim Loughton

91251

registered interest
date	09/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what representations he has received from town councils regarding paragraph 7(2) of the draft Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014.
tabling member constituency	Torridge and West Devon
tabling member printed	Mr Geoffrey Cox
uin	208760
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/10/2014 answer text <p>A summary of the representations received can be found in the Explanatory Memorandum to the statutory instrument (SI 2014 No. 2095).</p><p> </p><p>Paragraph 7 of the statutory instrument relates to the recording of delegated decisions. Paragraph 8.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum explains the drafting and policy improvements we made to the draft text following feedback from local authorities, including representatives of town and parish councils.</p><p> </p><p>We have also published a plain English guide to the new rules, to help both the public and local councils, including a section for town and parish councils. This can be found online:</p><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-and-accountable-local-government-plain-english-guide" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-and-accountable-local-government-plain-english-guide</a></p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 09/10/2014 15:24:08 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	1508 label Biography information for Sir Geoffrey Cox

91252

registered interest
date	09/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Openness of Local Bodies Regulations 2014 on bureaucracy and the cost of services provided by town councils.
tabling member constituency	Torridge and West Devon
tabling member printed	Mr Geoffrey Cox
uin	208759
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/10/2014 answer text <p>Council meetings are public meetings, open to both the press and public. We have updated analogue access rules, originally introduced by Margaret Thatcher in a Private Members’ Bill in 1960, for a digital age.</p><p> </p><p>Legislation now allows for the press and public to report such meetings through digital and social media, including allowing the filming of council meetings.</p><p> </p><p>As the Explanatory Memorandum to the statutory instrument explains, we do not envisage any substantive cost or burden on local authorities from this. There is no new requirement for councils to film or audio record meetings; rather, legislation has been amended to allow the press and public to make their own reports of a public meeting, if they wish.</p><p> </p><p>These reforms will help bring greater awareness of the good work that councillors do for their local communities, and increase reporting and scrutiny of the local democratic process, ultimately saving taxpayers’ money by reducing waste and inefficiency.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 09/10/2014 15:16:30 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	1508 label Biography information for Sir Geoffrey Cox

90968

registered interest
date	08/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Electronic Government
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress the Permanent Secretary of his Department has made on his objective for delivery of information and transactional services to his Department's users by taking the Digital by Default approach.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	208589
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/09/2014 answer text <p>The Department is digital by default; publishing all documents online, except where there is a statutory duty to publish printed copies and when material is targeted at audiences known to have limited access to the internet, such as park home tenants.<br><br>Our transactional services are on target to reach 80% digital takeup by 2017.<br><br></p><p>85 percent of planning appeals in the calendar year to June 2014 were completed on line.</p><p> </p><p>100 percent of national infrastructure planning projects in the calendar year to June 2014 were completed on line.</p><p> </p><p>68 percent of planning applications through the planning portal were completed online in the calendar year to March 2014.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 24/09/2014 15:23:50 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins previous answer version 19656 answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

90817

registered interest
date	05/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Roads: Lighting
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will discuss with (a) the Royal Association for the Deaf and (b) the Royal National Institute for the Blind the consequences for people with disabilities of decisions by some local authorities to introduce policies of switching off street lights.
tabling member constituency	Colchester
tabling member printed	Sir Bob Russell
uin	208394
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/09/2014 answer text <p>I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 18 June 2014, <em>Official Report, </em>Column 632-633W.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins grouped question UIN 208395 question first answered 12/09/2014 13:13:41 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	35 label Biography information for Sir Bob Russell

90818

registered interest
date	05/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Roads: Lighting
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with local authorities who have introduced policies of switching off street lights to ascertain what the consequences of those decisions have been.
tabling member constituency	Colchester
tabling member printed	Sir Bob Russell
uin	208395
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/09/2014 answer text <p>I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 18 June 2014, <em>Official Report, </em>Column 632-633W.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins grouped question UIN 208394 question first answered 12/09/2014 13:13:41 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	35 label Biography information for Sir Bob Russell

90819

registered interest
date	05/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Written Questions
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of named day written questions were answered by his Department within the prescribed period in the (a) 2012-13 session, (b) 2013-14 session and (c) 2014-15 session to date.
tabling member constituency	Leeds Central
tabling member printed	Hilary Benn
uin	208443
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/09/2014 answer text <p>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 HC1046. The report covering statistics relating to performance during the 2013-14 session will be published very shortly by the Procedure Committee.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 11/09/2014 17:02:15 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins previous answer version 19366 answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	413 label Biography information for Hilary Benn

90619

registered interest
date	04/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Pay
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the (a) highest and (b) lowest full-time equivalent salary paid by (i) his Department and (ii) its public bodies was in (A) 2010-11, (B) 2011-12, (C) 2012-13, (D) 2013-14 and (E) 2014-15; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Harrow West
tabling member printed	Mr Gareth Thomas
uin	208303
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/10/2014 answer text <p>The attached table lists the information since 2009-10.</p><p> </p><p>All staff are paid at least the Living Wage, and the London Living Wage where appropriate.</p><p> </p><p>Staff costs for core DCLG have fallen from £216 million in 2009-10 to £95 million in 2013-14, a reduction of 56 per cent in cash terms and an annual saving of £121 million a year.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 09/10/2014 15:33:56 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins attachment 1 file name PQ-208303 Table.docx title Departmental Salary previous answer version 19174 answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	177 label Biography information for Gareth Thomas

90621

registered interest
date	04/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Energy
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to reduce energy costs in his Department; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Kemptown
tabling member printed	Simon Kirby
uin	208336
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/09/2014 answer text <p>The Department for Communities and Local Government has already made excellent progress in reducing its energy costs by £1.1 million per annum to 2013-14 since 2009-10, despite the cost of energy increasing during the same period.</p><p> </p><p>This has been achieved primarily through low and no cost measures energy efficiency measures, a reduction in size of the Department’s estate and a small number of capital investments. This has contributed to a reduction in associated greenhouse gas emissions of 51% during the same period.</p><p> </p><p>Plans to reduce energy costs further include continuing to refine Building (Energy) Management System programmes; conduct annual audits of all key plant and equipment to identify cost-effective options for asset replacement and enhancement; run staff awareness campaigns; monitor and target unexpected building energy profiles through automated meter reading devices across the estate; and estate rationalisation and co-location.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, the Department purchases its energy through the Crown Commercial Service frameworks which are let following extensive market competition and EU-wide tender processes to guarantee the best prices for energy. The bulk of central Government energy is aggregated under the Crown Commercial Service frameworks, which enable their Energy Team to engage directly with the energy markets to achieve best value and price for the taxpayer.</p> answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 11/09/2014 17:00:29 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	3929 label Biography information for Simon Kirby

90627

registered interest
date	04/09/2014
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Council Tax
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will estimate the number of local authorities that have held referendums on increasing council tax above the threshold set by his Department.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Kemptown
tabling member printed	Simon Kirby
uin	208146
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/09/2014 answer text No local authorities have so far held a council tax referendum since the provisions were introduced through the Localism Act 2011. answering member constituency Keighley answering member printed Kris Hopkins question first answered 11/09/2014 15:55:30 answering member 4043 label Biography information for Kris Hopkins
tabling member	3929 label Biography information for Simon Kirby