§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action local highway authorities can take to apply for the Dealing with Disadvantage funding which has not yet been allocated. [134740]
§ Mr. Jamieson£16 million of the money identified for Dealing with Disadvantage is available for grants to local authorities. £11.7 million has been allocated to Greater Manchester and Lancashire. Four further authorities have been invited to submit bids for grant 337W funding. These are Bradford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Sandwell, which are the next four non-Greater Manchester and Lancashire authorities on the ranked list of places for road safety problems associated with disadvantage. Invitations to bid have been made on the basis of need.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many people are funded out of the Dealing with Disadvantage grant; and what cost benefit analysis has been carried out in relation to the expenditure. [134741]
§ Mr. JamiesonNo specific numbers of staff have been identified for the Grants that are the subject of the Special Grant Report. The Neighbourhood Road Safety Team, which is being hosted by Greater Manchester Police, will have eight members of staff.
All grant allocations have been scrutinised for relevance to the identified problems and the likelihood of success. Because some of the work is generic, such as road safety education, it is not possible to attribute directly what savings may arise, so cost-benefit analysis is not appropriate in this case.
The Government wish to learn from the experience of this initiative and so a monitoring and evaluation contract is presently out to tender and this will provide lessons for future policy development and delivery.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport which highway authorities have received a share of the funds allocated for highway improvements under the Dealing with Disadvantage programme; and how much was paid to each one. [134742]
§ Mr. JamiesonThe 10 authorities that received allocations for improvements to the highway are:
£ Blackburn with Darwen 120,000 Blackpool 1,256,000 Bolton 425,000 Bury 250,000 Manchester 838,000 Oldham 195,000 Rochdale 230,000 Salford 300,000 Tameside 780,000 Wigan 563,000 In addition, £500,000 was allocated to Tameside to develop and deploy their "Watchman" anti-speeding initiative across all 10 authorities.
£1,000,000 remains unallocated for further developments.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the most recent road safety record in respect of each a the local highway authorities to be allocated a Dealing with Disadvantage grant; and what specific improvements he expects to result from the award of such grants. [134743]
§ Mr. JamiesonThe 2002 casualty figures in the 10 authorities are as follows.
338W
Local authority (District) Fatal Serious KSI Slight Total All casualties 2002 Blackburn with Darwen 3 80 83 701 784 Blackpool 10 94 104 762 866 Bolton 12 85 97 1,461 1558 Bury 8 53 61 968 1,029 Manchester 15 252 267 3,493 3,760 Oldham 4 57 61 959 1,020 Rochdale 11 84 95 1,180 1,275 Salford 7 80 87 1,169 1,256 Tameside 4 85 89 864 953 Wigan 9 123 132 1,595 1,727 Child pedestrian casualties—2002 Blackburn with Darwen 0 11 11 74 85 Blackpool 0 19 19 64 83 Bolton 1 9 10 133 143 Bury 0 13 13 70 83 Manchester 1 39 40 170 210 Oldham 0 16 16 104 120 Rochdale 0 15 15 89 104 Salford 1 13 14 60 74 Tameside 0 17 17 88 105 Wigan 0 25 25 127 152 Our objective is to narrow the gap between disadvantaged areas and the rest of the country by reducing casualties in deprived areas at a faster rate than for the country as a whole.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate of the unit cost of staff he has used in determining grants for support staff to individual local authorities for delivering Dealing with Disadvantage projects. [134744]
§ Mr. JamiesonThe allocation for staff is a nominal sum in recognition of the additional administrative burden being placed on the authorities. In partnering agreements, the authorities will have to demonstrate how the staff costs have been incurred in furtherance of the Dealing with Disadvantage work.