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115W
Written Answers
26 OCTOBER 2009
Written Answers
116W
Broadband: Sussex
Mr. Soames: To ask the Minister of State,
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what
steps his Department is taking to increase access to
broadband coverage in (a) Mid Sussex constituency
and (b) West Sussex. [295686]
Mr. Timms: We have recently set up the Network
Design and Procurement Company as we pledged to do
in the Digital Britain Report. The Company will be
responsible for procuring the upgrade and replacement
works to deliver the Universal Service Commitment
(USC) for 2Mbps to virtually every community by 2012
and, in due course, the administration of the Next
Generation Fund outlined in the Digital Britain White
Paper.
On take up of broadband and Digital Inclusion the
Government have also appointed Martha Lane Fox as
our Digital Inclusion Champion. Her role will be to
find ways of helping people without previous experience
of computers to develop the skills needed to make use
of the internet in order to take advantage of the benefits
it offers.
Business: Government Assistance
Lorely Burt: To ask the Minister of State,
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how
many applications have been (a) received and (b)
granted for funding from the £100 million Government
support scheme made available for small and mediumsized
enterprises in Budget 2009 to improve their
energy efficiency. [295081]
Joan Ruddock: I have been asked to reply.
After applying the Barnett formula, £83.9 million of
the £100 million funding announced at Budget 2009
was allocated to the Carbon Trust by DECC for loans
to SMEs in England in 2009-10 and 2010-11.
The Carbon Trust informs me that they have received
746 applications for this funding, of which 623 have
been approved. This amounts to £18.1 million in loan
commitments in England since April, more than double
the volume of loans offered at this point in the last
financial year.
Business: Leeds
Greg Mulholland: To ask the Minister of State,
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how
many businesses in Leeds North West have gone into
administration in each year since 1997. [294254]
Ian Lucas: Statistics covering administrations are not
currently available at sub-national level within England
and Wales.
Correspondence
Lynne Jones: To ask the Minister of State,
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for
what reason the letter sent from Lord Davies of
Abersoch to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly
Oak dated 12 October 2009, ref JB/148761, was printed
on only one side of paper; if he will make it his
Department’s policy to use two-sided printing for its
correspondence; and whether he has made an estimate
of the potential effects on his Department’s level of
paper use consequent on the implementation of such a
policy. [294771]
Mr. McFadden: The vast majority of printers in use
on the BIS estate are provided by our IT supplier as
part of overall desktop services and the main infrastructure
contract covering this provision has been in place for 10
years. Many of the printers supplied to the Department
will be ‘user configurable’, as is the choice of which
particular printer to use.
The Department is very conscious of the fact that the
‘cost of print’ offers many opportunities for efficiencies,
both in the level of paper used and the corresponding
cost of toners used. Aside from cost, there are also
carbon footprint issues that can be addressed and the
Department is fully committed to seeking efficiencies in
both. As such, we already have a commitment to make
more efficient use of printers. Staff are encouraged to
use the double-sided printing option wherever possible
and not to use colour printers as their default printer
when colour is not required. Similarly, we encourage all
staff to make better use of the Department’s internal
reprographics services where this is appropriate to ensure
that both printing and copying are undertaken in the
most efficient way.
Going forward, the Department will be looking at
options to audit our overall cost of print, ways in which
printers are deployed across the estate, and the types
that are used, so that we are better able to mandate
particular usage.
Departmental Internet
Justine Greening: To ask the Minister of State,
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what
estimate his Department has made of the cost of
maintaining and updating its Twitter account; and how
many staff are responsible for updating the account.
[292050]
Mr. McFadden: The estimated costs of staff time in
maintaining and updating the @bisgovuk Twitter account
are £3,175 a year. The task is the shared responsibility
of the Department’s Digital Communications team as
part of their overall range of duties and the total effort
is estimated as half an hour per day. No staff are
assigned to Twitter work specifically.
Digital Technology: Finance
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Minister of State, Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills what progress has
been made towards establishment of an independently
produced guiding technical arbitration on the cost of
900 spectrum refarming paid for by an industry fund.
[293758]
Ian Lucas [holding answer 16 October 2009]: This
work is now complete. The Independent Spectrum Broker
has submitted his final report and this will be published
as part of a consultation on a Direction to the independent
regulator, Ofcom, shortly.