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Police Communications
Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action his Department has taken in light of the report by the Trade and Industry Committee on testing of the police communications radio system. [60529]
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Mr. John Denham: Prior to the Trade and Industry Committee report on Mobile Phone Masts the Home Office had asked the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) to assess the health and safety aspects of the TETRA technology used by Airwave. The NRPB report concluded that it is unlikely that the unique features of TETRA pose a hazard to health. The Home Office has nonetheless set up a comprehensive research programme to ensure that any residual health and safety covers that has been revised by forces and users are addressed.
Offender Assessment System
Mr. Allen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the total costs have been of introducing the Offender Assessment System for the prison and probation service; what estimates he has made of the time required for prison and probation officers to carry out assessments under the OASYS; how his Department proposes to monitor the effectiveness of the OASYS; and if he will make a statement. [62267]
Mr. Hilary Benn: The Offender Assessment System (OASys) has not been fully introduced into the Prison and Probation services. The National Probation Service has started implementation of paper-based Offender assessments, while the Prison Service is intending to roll out on a computer-based system from April 2003.
The combined development costs for OASys from 1999–2002 are approximately £883,000. The cost to the National Probation Service of implementing the paper-based system for the financial year was approximately £173,000.
It has been estimated that on average it will take, on paper, 210 minutes for a Probation Officer and, electronically, 315 minutes for a Prison Officer to complete an initial OASys assessment.
OASys effectiveness will be monitored through comprehensive Management Information Systems developed by each service and when OASys is bedded in, performance targets for both services will be defined and monitored. The OASys Central Research Unit will continue to carry out investigations into the validity and reliability of the OASys system as well as the effectiveness of interventions designed and implemented across the Services. In addition, independent evaluation will be carried out or managed by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.
Price Standards
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information the Standards Unit has requested from (a) police forces and (b) basic command units within police forces; and if he will make a statement. [61179]
Mr. John Denham [holding answer 13 June 2002]: Following discussions between the Home Office, including the Police Standards Unit (PSU), and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the police service have provided data on recorded crime and detections at force and Basic Command Unit (BCU) level on a monthly basis from 1 April this year. To serve as a basis for comparison of performance against previous
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periods and the monitoring of trends, the Police Standards Unit has also asked that forces submit backdated monthly data for 2000–01 and 2001–02.
PSU have also contributed to the work of the Home Office's Street Crime Action Team (SCAT). As part of their monitoring role, SCAT require weekly performance indication from BCUs in 10 urban forces on levels of robbery, snatch theft, car-jacking and criminal firearms offences.
PSU have of course been in contact with a wide range of forces and BCUs over the past year as part of its overall programme of work.
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Prisons
Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the key performance targets are for training in each prison, broken down by category; and to what extent those targets have been met in the last 12 months for which information is available. [62379]
Mr. Hilary Benn: Prisons agree an annual target for the average number of hours per week that prisoners should spend in purposeful activity. This includes activities aimed at reducing crime such as work, education and resettlement. Targets are not set separately for each component part of the measure.
The 2001–02 targets for each prison, with actual performance analysed by broad heading are given in the table. Figures are subject to rounding.
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Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the total annual budget was in each of the last five years, for the inspection of Her Majesty's prisons. [62368]
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many inspections were carried out in each of Her Majesty's prisons in each of the last five years. [62290]
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff were employed by or seconded to the Inspectorate of Her Majesty's prisons in each of the last five years. [62289]
Mr. Hilary Benn: The number of staff employed by or seconded to HM Inspectorate of Prisons since 1997–98 is as follows:
| 1997–98 | 27 |
| 1998–99 | 24 |
| 1999–2000 | 24 |
| 2000–01 | 26 |
| 2001–02 | 26 |
Because of re-organisation within the Department it is not possible to dis-aggregate the budget for the inspectorate before 1999–00. The budget for that and succeeding years was:
| £ | |
|---|---|
| 1999–2000 | 773,000 |
| 2000–01 | 896,000 |
| 2001–02 | 1,260,000 |
Details of prison inspections carried out between 1997–98 and 2001–02 per prison establishment are set out in the attached table. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, prisons are not normally inspected more than once a year.
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