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Departmental Report

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was of the publication of the 2001 Departmental Report. [112813]

Mr. Blunkett: The total cost of the Home Office Annual Report 2001 was as follows:

	£
Cost of production	57,695,66
Cost of printed copies	22,842,00
Total cost	80,537,66

The information and material compiled is used for a variety of purposes and, in particular, is a key part of the Department's accountability to Parliament.

Departmental Underspending

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to reduce his Department's underspend in 2003–04 from that of 2002–03. [112767]

Mr. Blunkett: The Home Office works towards a balanced budget and to minimise the risk of overspending. The Home Office is currently estimating an underspend of £56 million against its resource Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL), and £37 million against its capital DEL in 2002–03. These

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are 0.5 per cent. and 3.3 per cent. of total provision respectively. Planned spending for 2003–04 is set out in the 2003 Departmental Report (Cm 5908).

Drug Addicts (Treatment)

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he is having with the Department of Health regarding GPs who refuse to treat drug addicts. [113753]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The Department of Health and the National Treatment Agency (NTA) are actively encouraging the engagement of GPs in drug treatment, through the development of training programmes and peer support.

To fund this work the Department of Health has made available £3 million to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to train GPs on the Management of Drug Misuse in Primary Care. This is a certificate programme and to date, 440 GPs have attended the training, including 40 prison doctors.

Peer support is provided through the Substance Misuse Management in General Practice network (SMMGP) which aims to develop, support and encourage the role of GPs and other primary care workers to work with problem drug users. They perform this task through face to face and telephone contact with GPs. A website and regular newsletter provide access to information.

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what support his Department is offering to drug addicts who (a) are serving and (b) have served custodial sentences for drug related crimes to help them beat addiction. [113747]

Paul Goggins: The Prison Service has a comprehensive framework in place to address the wide-ranging needs of drug-misusing prisoners:

detoxification in all local and remand prisons;


Counselling, Assessment, Referral, Advice and Throughcare (CARATs) in all prisons;


60 intensive treatment programmes;


voluntary drug testing available in all prisons.

The Prison Service is not directly responsible for the care of prisoners after release but in partnership with other agencies is seeking increasingly to improve continuity, so that gains made in prison will not be lost on release. The Government's 2002 Spending Review made significant additional provision for throughcare and aftercare links.

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to promote the availability of drug treatment services to offenders who have served custodial sentences for drug related crimes. [113745]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Offenders who have misused drugs need access to a wide range of support on leaving prison. This includes not only treatment for drug dependency but also access to other services such as housing and employment.

As part of the revised drug strategy, aftercare provisions are being improved to ensure that offenders, who have served custodial sentences, have relevant

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support services in place so that they can use drug treatment services effectively. Key to delivering that support are effective links between prisons and agencies in the community. Those links and flows of information are being improved—for example by building single points of contact in Drug Action Teams (DAT) in the 25 DAT areas with the highest levels of acquisitive crime.

Fraud Victims

Mr. Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the circumstances in which police issue lost property numbers rather than crime numbers to victims of fraud. [114298]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave on 12 May 2003, Official Report, column 72W. As explained there, since 2001 everyone who reports a theft to the police should be issued with a crime number and not a lost property number. This applies equally to reports of fraud where there is an alleged link to property such as a benefit book.

I would be happy to consider this matter further if my hon. Friend would provide me with further background to his concerns.

High-Risk Offenders

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he is having with the Minister for Housing and Planning regarding plans to increase the number of approved hostels for high-risk offenders following release from custody. [113748]

Paul Goggins: Although I have not had any such discussions, officials from the National Probation Directorate (NPD) are in regular contact with officials from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on housing matters, and on matters connected with the possible replacement of or building of new approved premises. We do not have any specific plans at this stage to build approved hostels specifically for high-risk offenders on post-release licence. However, NPD are currently developing an accommodation strategy, covering the needs of offenders under probation supervision. When the results of this are available, we will be able to make an assessment as to whether any new provision is needed to house ex-offenders, including high-risk offenders, and if so, what type of new provision is required, and in what areas it is required.

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the number of places available for high-risk offenders in approved hostels following release from custody in (a) Gloucestershire and (b) the UK; and what plans he has to increase the number of such hostels in each case. [113749]

Paul Goggins: There are currently 100 approved hostels in England and Wales, providing around 2,250 places. These approved premises cater broadly for three groups of residents—bailees, those on community orders with a condition of residence at the hostel, and post-release licencees. Because of the enhanced supervision that they offer, approved premises are primarily for those assessed as medium or high risk.

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Approved premises play a vital role in public protection by providing closer supervision for offenders in the community than other alternatives such as normal local authority housing.

The current approved hostel in Gloucester is quite small and in due course may need to be replaced or extended—but any plans to do this would need to be discussed with local agencies and community representatives before being taken forward.

More generally, the National Probation Directorate are currently developing an accommodation strategy, covering the needs of offenders under probation supervision. When the results of this are available, we will be able to make an assessment as to whether any new provision is needed to house ex-offenders, including high-risk offenders, and if so, what type of new provision is required, and in what areas it is required.

Prison Inspections

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recommendations HM Inspector of Prisons has made, since January 2001, which have been wholly or partly rejected by the Prison Service; what the reasons were for rejection; and if he will make a statement. [113857]

Paul Goggins: The information could be compiled only at disproportionate cost, as it would require examining approximately 140 reports and around 15,000 recommendations. The Prison Service accepts the vast majority of recommendations. Recommendations are sometimes rejected for security reasons, where insurmountable staff deployment issues arise or where the recommendation is inappropriate for the nature of the establishment's population.

Honours

Mr. Pope: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officials in his Department have received honours; and how many honours are held by his officials, broken down by category of honour. [111489]

Mr. Blunkett: The Home Office holds individual records of those members of staff, who have received awards for each honours list. Accurate statistics, however, are only available for the period from the new year honours list 1999 to the new year honours list 2003.

Since the new year honours list 1999, 88 members of the Home Department have received an honour. Of these 36 remain in the Department. One holds a CB (Companion of the Order of the Bath), Two hold CBEs (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), Eight hold OBEs (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) and 25 hold MBEs (Member of the Order of the British Empire). Any awards for staff before they joined the department or for achievements not related to official duties have not been included.

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