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Convictions (Disclosure)

Mrs. Ann Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to be able to publish a White Paper on the disclosure of convictions for those seeking access to children; and if he will make a statement. [25226]

Mr. Maclean: We expect to publish a White Paper setting out proposals for new arrangements for the disclosure of information from criminal records for employment and related purposes within the next few months.

Police Force

Ms Janet Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects his target of 5,000 additional police officers to be achieved. [25137]

Mr. Maclean: The Government are providing an additional £180 million in funding to allow an extra 5,000 police officers to be recruited over the three-year period

17 Apr 1996 : Column: 515

from April 1996 to March 1999. It is for chief officers of police and police authorities to determine the number of police officers in each force.

Onley Prison

Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place in the Library a copy of the operational guidelines and specifications issued to the tenderers for Onley. [25201]

Mr. Maclean: Copies of the design and build specification and supporting schedules, the operational specification and supporting schedules and an administrative paper which outlines proposed rules for the secure training centre at Onley were placed in the Library on 8 March.

Mr. Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when tenders were invited for the proposed secure training centre site at Onley; and which firms have (a) applied and (b) been invited to tender. [25196]

Mr. Maclean: Expressions of interest to design, build, manage and finance the third new secure training centre to be located at Onley, Northamptonshire, were invited on 9 August 1995. The following 11 companies or consortia expressed an interest:

Esmor-Keir
Group 4/Tarmac
JarmanCare Ltd.
Secure Care Services Ltd.
Castle Homes/Taylor Woodrow
Premier Prisons Ltd.
Team Rehabilitation Services
Henry Boot/STC Ltd.
UKCC/Wimpey/Impreglio
Tilbury Douglas/Bobby Ross Group
Bristol Management Centre.

Of these, the first four companies or consortia listed were invited to bid on 4 March.

Domestic Violence

Mr. Steinberg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of all assaults recorded by the police were domestic violence offences in each year since 1985. [24870]

Mr. Maclean: It is not possible to separately identify offences of domestic violence within the regular recorded crime series collected centrally by the Home Office.

Mr. Steinberg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many refuges for women escaping domestic violence have been notified to his Department.[24897]

Mr. Maclean: The availability of emergency shelter for those fleeing domestic violence is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. I understand that the latest information available from the Womens' Aid Federation shows that there are 418 refuges in England and 45 in Wales.

17 Apr 1996 : Column: 516

Special Constables

Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the average number of hours worked per week by special constables; [24940]

(2) what is the average number of hours worked per week by special constables in each constabulary; [24946]

(3) what is the average number of hours of training received by special constables. [24947]

Mr. Maclean: This information is not available centrally.

Ms Janet Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will make a statement on the funding provided by his Department for the training of special constables; [24896]

(2) if he will list by police force area the cost of the special constabulary, (a) in total and (b) as a percentage of the budget for each force. [24888]

Mr. Maclean: Specials are not paid but they must be recruited, trained, equipped and organised. They also receive allowances and reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses. Each special constabulary is funded through the police grant for the force with which it is associated. It is for the chief officers to decide the level of funding to devote to their special constables and the proportion of those funds to commit to training purposes. Funds are occasionally augmented by support from sponsors.

Costs for specials are not identified separately by most forces and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. It is estimated that in their first year of service special constables cost about £1,400 and thereafter the annual cost is in the region of £500, although there are variations between forces.

The Government have found an additional £10 million to encourage chief officers to recruit more specials and to improve their conditions of service, administration and training. It will help to meet the cost of implementing the most urgent recommendations of the Home Office special constabulary working group, whose report is due to be published this summer. The working group has recommended that forces do more to identify separately special constabulary costs.

Most of the new fund is being offered on a challenge funding basis: forces must compete for the money through a bidding process, and those which secure tangible offers of support from other sources are favoured. But some £250,000 of the fund has been earmarked for a training package for those special constables who have been promoted into supervisory grades.

Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the number of special constables currently employed (a) in total and (b) in each constabulary; [24944]

(2) what is the number of special constables recruited in each year since 1992-93; [24942]

(3) how many special constables recruited in (a) 1992-93, (b) 1993-94, (c) 1994-95 and (d) 1995-96 have since resigned from service. [24941]

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Mr. Maclean: Special constables are not employed but are volunteers. The total number of special constables in post on 20 March was 19,834. This figure is broken down by police force area in the table.

The number of special constables recruited in the calendar years 1992 and 1993 were 5,450 and 5,479 respectively. Thereafter, numbers have been recorded on a financial year basis. In 1994-95, 4,564 specials were recruited, and a further 2,150 were recruited between April and September 1995. Figures are not yet available for the second half of 1995-96.

Those forces which keep records about resignations do not specifically include information about when each special concerned was recruited. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most specials resign after at least two years, which is longer than the national average for those involved in volunteering, and that they will have offered their services to the force for at least four hours every week.

Force	Number of specials
Avon and Somerset	685
Bedfordshire	187
Cambridgeshire	280
Cheshire	279
City of London	77
Cleveland	185
Cumbria	207
Derbyshire	419
Devon and Cornwall	1,097
Dorset	254
Durham	183
Dyfed Powys	301
Essex	622
Gloucestershire	329
Greater Manchester	721
Gwent	139
Hampshire	503
Hertfordshire	310
Humberside	385
Kent	557
Lancashire	548
Leicestershire	364
Lincolnshire	306
Merseyside	368
Metropolitan	1,758
Norfolk	319
Northamptonshire	300
Northumbria	477
North Wales	345
North Yorkshire	371
Nottinghamshire	554
South Wales	467
South Yorkshire	373
Staffordshire	705
Suffolk	415
Surrey	249
Sussex	518
Thames Valley	765
Warwickshire	341
West Mercia	603
West Midlands	944
West Yorkshire	783
Wiltshire	241

Female Homicide Victims

Mr. Steinberg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of female homicide

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victims were killed by present or former partners in each year since 1985. [24916]

Mr. Maclean: The information requested is contained in the following table:

Percentage of female homicide victims killed by their spouse, cohabitant or former spouse or cohabitant, England and Wales(5)

Year	Per cent.
1985	39
1986	43
1987	34
1988	36
1989	43
1990	39
1991	38
1992	38
1993	34
1994	30

(5) As at 4 August 1995.

Figures for 1995 are not yet available.

Court Appearances (Polices Officers)

Mr. Chris Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact of the procedures introduced under section 48 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in respect of the time spent by police officers making unnecessary court appearances; and if he will make a statement. [24887]

Mr. Maclean: It was in order to reduce the waste of time and money which results from "cracked" trials--when defendants who intend to plead guilty delay doing so until the day of the trial--that the practice of giving discounts for early guilty pleas was put on a statutory basis in section 48 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

The latest figures from the Lord Chancellor's Department show that the proportion of cases in which the plea was changed to guilty on the date of trial fell by five percentage points between the last quarter of 1994 and the last quarter of 1995. Although it is uncertain to what extent section 48 contributed to this fall, any decrease in the incidence of cracked trials saves the time of the police and of other witnesses, as well as saving court time.

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