Standards for England

Mr. Stewart Jackson
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many (a) items of data and (b) performance indicators the Standards Board requires local authorities to submit to it.

Ms Rosie Winterton
In the course of each year the Standards Board requires local authority monitoring officers to complete and submit five online returns.

Four are quarterly returns used to collect information on local case handling and legal composition of the local standards committee to enable the Standards Board to fulfil its statutory responsibilities for regulating the conduct regime including, in the worst cases of the standards committee failing to carry out its functions in relation to the conduct of members in a reasonable manner, if necessary, suspending a council’s standards committee’s initial assessment functions and passing its functions to another authority.

The fifth return is an annual return enabling the Standards Board to disseminate information on best practice across local government.

Mr. Stewart Jackson
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will place in the Library copies of the branding and communications advice obtained by the Standards Board in relation to its decision to rebrand itself as Standards for England.

Ms Rosie Winterton
I am arranging with the chief executive of the Standards Board for England for a copy of the advice, commissioned by the Standards Board, to be placed in the Library of the House.

Mr. Stewart Jackson
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will bring forward proposals to abolish the Standards Board for England.

Ms Rosie Winterton
We have no plans to abolish the Standards Board for England.

Mr. Stewart Jackson
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with reference to the answer of 19 October 2009, Official Report, column 1321W, on Standards for England, whether ministerial approval was sought for the rebranding of Standards Board for England as Standards for England; and whether external organisations were contracted to provide services relating to that rebranding.

Ms Rosie Winterton
These are operational matters which the Standards Board may progress without ministerial approval.

An external organisation was contracted to provide services relating to the rebranding, at a cost within the delegated authority of the Standards Board.