Independent Safeguarding Authority: Finance
Home Department
Written answers and statements, 29 October 2009
Jennifer Willott (Cardiff Central, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department has spent to date in (a) the establishment and (b) the operation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority in (i) total and (ii) by (A) staff, (B) information technology, (C) legal, (D) administrative and (E) other costs; and if he will make a statement.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South & Shoreditch, Labour)
The Home Office is responsible for the implementation of the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS), which includes the establishment and operation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). However, the Department of Health and Department for Children, Schools and Families are the policy leads and provide the funding for the scheme.
The ISA was formally vested in January 2008 and began operational work in March 2008. The costs of establishing the ISA prior to vesting are £9.87 million.
ISA expenditure for 2007-08 and for 2008-09 is set out in the following table.
Establishment cost includes the development of interim IT, a proportionate cost of the full solution at March 2009, and the cost of fitting out Stephenson House, the ISA head office. IT running cost represents the cost of supporting the interim solution. The expenditure figures do not include the costs of other bodies whose functions include, but are not exclusively, support for the establishment, operation and monitoring of the ISA. They do not include estimates of expenditure in the current year which are yet to be audited.
| ISA costs | ||
| £000 | ||
| 2007-08 | 2008-09 | |
| (a) Establishment cost | 9,870 | 3,926 |
| (b) Running costs: | ||
| A) Staff | 83 | 5,721 |
| B) IT | 0 | 284 |
| C) Legal | 0 | 142 |
| D) Administrative | 12 | 1,493 |
| E) Other costs | 63 | 845 |
| 158 | 8,485 | |