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Victim Support Budget
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the budget allocation for victim support in each year since 1995 per head of population in England. [103346]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
Home Office grant to Victim Support is provided to deliver services to victims of crime and witnesses across England and Wales. An estimate of the grant allocation to Victim Support per head of population in England and Wales, since 1995, is given in the table.
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| Year | Total grant (£ million) | Population of England and Wales (1) | Grant per head of population (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995-96 | 10.8 | 51,820,000 | 0.21 |
| 1996-97 | 11.7 | 52,010,000 | 0.22 |
| 1997-98 | 12.7 | 52,211,000 | 0.24 |
| 1998-99 | 12.7 | 52,428,000 | 0.24 |
| 1999-2000 | 17.3 | 52,428,000 | 0.33 |
(1) Source of population data: Population Trends (autumn 1999), published by the Office for National Statistics
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what budget has been allocated to victim support each year since 1995 per police authority. [103315]
Mr. Charles Clarke: Home Office grant to Victim Support is allocated by the Local Funding Panel, a sub-committee of the organisation's National Council. Victim Support advise that they are unable, at present, to provide a breakdown of grant allocation by police authority area.
Domestic Violence
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will record separately the incidence of sexual assault in cases of domestic assault. [103312]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
Information on the number of domestic assaults is not recorded centrally, as the statistical systems do not record the relationship between
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the victim and assailant. Improvements to these systems are in hand. This will, in due course, allow better estimates of domestic assault and may allow different components of a main offence to be classified.
The 1996 British Crime Survey collected information on the prevalence of domestic violence via a computerised self-completion questionnaire. Sexual assault was one component.
Twenty-three per cent. of women aged 16 to 59 reported that they had experienced domestic assault at some time in their lives. Among the women who had been assaulted the percentage who had been forced to have sex at the last assault was eight per cent.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional Metropolitan Police officers will be on duty on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day; and if he will make a statement. [103327]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that approximately 11,800 police officers will be on duty on New Year's Eve and approximately 10,300 on New Year's Day. Comparable information for last year was not collected centrally.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the estimated additional cost to police forces for policing duties during the millennium celebrations; what additional funding has been allocated to police forces for the millennium period; and if he will make a statement. [103326]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
The police service in England and Wales has estimated that the costs of policing the millennium celebrations could be £33 million out of total annual expenditure of over £7 billion. Police authorities are expected to meet this one-off additional expenditure item from within existing budgets and contingency reserves. Police budgets will increase on average by 3.1 per cent. this year. Police authorities will be able to increase their spending power by achieving the 2 per cent. efficiency target that has been set. In cash terms, this represents efficiency gains of around £140 million.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what changes have been made since May 1997 to reduce the amount of administrative work undertaken by police officers; and if he will make a statement; [103325]
Mr. Charles Clarke:
The deployment of police officers is the operational responsibility of Chief Constables. Information on the tasks undertaken by police officers during the course of their working day is not held centrally.
For measures to reduce administrative burdens I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on 6 December 1999, Official Report, column 377W.
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Mr. Simon Hughes:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the funding which will be required in order to remove overcrowding in prisons over the next three years; and if he will make a statement. [103335]
Mr. Boateng:
It is estimated that to avoid overcrowding would require an additional 6,000 places. If provided through new privately financed prisons the annual cost would be around £195 million.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list those Prison Service establishments which are overcrowded and the level of overcrowding in each case; and if he will make a statement. [103334]
Mr. Boateng:
Prison Service establishments which are overcrowded and the level of overcrowding are listed in the table, based on the definition of overcrowding as being the number of prisoners above the in-use certified normal accommodation (CNA) of the establishment. In-use CNA is the baseline CNA minus places temporarily unavailable, such as damaged cells or those being refurbished. The data are for the month of November and are provisional.
(2) what is the estimated proportion of a police officer's working day which is spent on administrative duties; and if he will make a statement. [103324]
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Projected Prison Population
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the Prison Service projections for the level of the prison population in each of the next five years; what is his estimate of the consequence for the level of prison service funding of the projections; and if he will make a statement. [103336]
Mr. Boateng: New short-term prison population projections as at October 1999, and revised long-term projections have been prepared by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. A summary is included in the September prison population brief available on the Home Office website http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm.
The projections for the next five years are given in the table.
| Variants | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | Central | Upper | |
| 1999-2000 | 65,200 | 65,300 | 65,400 |
| 2000-01 | 66,800 | 68,100 | 68,900 |
| 2001-02 | 68,200 | 70,100 | 71,900 |
| 2002-03 | 68,500 | 70,800 | 73,000 |
| 2003-04 | 68,600 | 71,300 | 74,000 |
| 2004-05 | 68,900 | 71,900 | 75,600 |
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