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LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

Cycle Loans

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the cost in 2001–02 is of her Department's (a) interest-free loans for cycles and cycling equipment and (b) cycle mileage rates. [14925]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The Department has, so far this financial year, paid a total of £1,132.50 to six members of staff in respect of cycle loans. The pedal cycle allowance in the Lord Chancellor's Department (including the Court Service and the Public Guardianship Office) is currently 12p per mile.

Touch Screen Kiosk Service

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the cost in 2001–02 is of the touch screen kiosk service to be implemented in Shropshire. [14981]

Mr. Wills: The kiosk in Telford, Shropshire—which provides information about the Court Service—is a partnership venture between the courts, the local council, the library and the university of Wolverhampton. The equipment is provided by the council's IT supplier and the content supplied by the Court Service's in-house web publishing team. There is therefore no additional cost to the Court Service.

E-mails

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the cost in 2001–02 is of the facility which enables e-mail applications to be made to Preston county court. [14980]

Mr. Wills: The cost of the Preston e-mail application service in 2001–02 is nominal as the initial outlay for equipment and installation was met in 2000–01. In 2000–01 the costs were £72,495, of which £65,243 were the costs of the computers and the e-mail connection; the balance related to various project related costs.

The on-going running costs of this project include line charges for the e-mail modem, and staff and project management costs which are included in the court's overall running costs. The e-mail service allows the court to process applications by solicitors more efficiently than the paper based service, and therefore is delivering some efficiency savings, although these have yet to be quantified.

Video Conferencing

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the cost is in 2001–02 of

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the video conferencing project linking the Royal Courts of Justice with (a) Leeds Combined Court Centre and (b) Cardiff county court. [15029]

Mr. Wills: The cost of the project in 2001–02 of the video conferencing project linking the Royal Courts of Justice with Leeds Combined Court Centre and Cardiff county court is nominal, as the initial outlay for equipment and installation was met in 2000. The cost of line rental for ISDN lines for the three sites is £3,700 annually. The call costs are met by the party who requested the conference.

Online Claims Issues

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the cost in 2001–02 of the pilot scheme is for the online issue of claims. [14978]

Mr. Wills: The pilot project Money Claims Online is part of the Court Service's wider Courts and Tribunals Modernisation Programme. The one-off project costs are:

£1,841,000 for design and development;


£206,170 for project costs


making a total of £2,047,170.

A yearly service charge of £885,000, will also apply.

The project has been delivered by the Court Service's existing PFI supplier, EDS Ltd., and links into existing systems for case management and document production at the Court Service's Bulk Centre in Northampton. Operational staffing costs to support the pilot project are approximately £48,000.

Electronic issue of claims (by computer media exchange) has functioned at the Bulk Centre for some years, with considerable efficiency gains for the Court Service. This pilot project aims to widen the scope for inclusion to all claims issuers. It will also contribute to the Government's plan for all services to be available electronically by 2005.

Public Service Agreements

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on progress in meeting the Public Service Agreement target for 2002 for the proportion of service delivery transactions provided to the public electronically. [14987]

Mr. Wills: The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in 1998 required the Lord Chancellor to set a target by 31 March 1999 for an increase in the proportion of service delivery transactions provided to the public electronically. We published our initial e-business strategy in November 2000 and set an annual target that was the equivalent to the government-wide target for electronic service delivery at that time. The CSR target was that 25 per cent. of service delivery transactions should be capable of being delivered electronically by 2002.

After the conclusion of Spending Review 2000, the original electronic delivery target was updated and published in July 2000 as part of the LCD Service Delivery Agreement (SDA), containing specific Electronic Government SDA targets.

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The departmental e-business strategy was updated this summer. We have a full programme of e-business projects for achieving the government's target that by 2005 all appropriate services should be available electronically. Our programme envisages that around 50 per cent. of services will be available electronically by 2002 and currently we are on course to achieve that.

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on progress in achieving the Land Registry's Public Service Agreement target of a 6 per cent. return on capital employed. [14891]

Mr. Wills: The Land Registry is a separate Government Department that became an executive agency in 1990. On 1 April 1993, it achieved trading fund status.

The Land Registry's key financial performance target since becoming a trading fund has been to achieve a ministerially agreed percentage return on average capital employed in each financial year. Since 1999–2000, that target has been set at 6 per cent. and in 1999–2000 the Department achieved 12 per cent.

The Land Registry expects to meet the annual 6 per cent. target for 2001–02.

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the Public Service Agreement target was in 2000–01 for the number of lay magistrates (a) appointed and (b) recommended for appointment against estimated need; and if it was met. [14983]

Mr. Wills: There is no public service agreement target on judicial appointments. However, there is a service delivery objective of ensuring that 95 per cent. of the target number of lay magistrates are in post by 2003. The national strategy for the recruitment of lay magistrates should help to achieve that objective.

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will make a statement on progress towards meeting the Public Service Agreement target for the improvement of the rights of dependants by 31 March 2002. [15004]

Ms Rosie Winterton: An interdepartmental working group identified four possible measures to go into a basket of indicators on which targets were to be set by 31 March 2001. The measures proposed for the basket were:

the number of prisons which, in accordance with Prison Service standard audit requirements, have sufficient staff to ensure that all prisoners receive information about legal aid on reception and know who can assist them with legal aid applications.;


ensure that by 31 March 2002 a percentage of people in police stations requesting the service of a duty solicitor receive the service within a specified time;


The number of substantial complaints under the Police Act 1996 per [1,000] people detained (BVPI 140); and


The incidence and nature of successful challenges under Articles 5 and 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 in respect of criminal cases.


Two targets were set:

98 per cent. of prisons to have sufficient staff to ensure that all prisoners receive information about legal services on reception and know who can assist with their applications for public funding; and

90 per cent. of people in police stations requesting the services of a duty solicitor receive the service within 45 minutes.

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It was not possible to set meaningful targets for the other two measures. There was insufficient data available to set a target on the Human Rights Act; and there have been difficulties in setting an overall national target for the police complaints measure due to inconsistent targets set at local level.

The Prison Service target has already been met, achieving 98 per cent. The data for the Duty Solicitor target from the Legal Services Commission will not become available until soon after 31 March 2002, so there will be a short delay in reporting on that target.

The Working Group is currently seeking to identify other measures to go into the basket of indicators.

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