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Criminal Records Bureau

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what methods counter-signatories will be required to use (a) to obtain fingerprints from applicants and (b) to authenticate documents provided by applicants as set out in his consultation on new draft regulations for the Criminal Records Bureau. [156059]

Ms Blears: The draft regulations, issued for consultation on 1 December 2003, would require Registered Bodies, or their agents, to authenticate the identity of a Disclosure applicant by examining a combination of official or other documents (for example passports, driving licences and utility bills) which will help confirm the applicant's name, date of birth and current address. Counter signatories, or those carrying out identity checking on their behalf, should be alert for signs of tampering. The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has issued guidelines which identify suspicious signs to be on the lookout for when examining the documents commonly presented by applicants.

The draft regulations would not require counter signatories to obtain fingerprints from applicants. We have separately consulted on the Independent Review Team's proposal that applicants for the most sensitive positions should be required to submit their fingerprints with their Disclosure application. We are currently analysing over 2,000 responses to this consultation.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how the Criminal Records Bureau (a) check and (b) authenticate with the issuing bodies identity documents submitted with applications. [156060]

Ms Blears: Since the inception of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) Registered Bodies have checked the identity of applicants for Disclosures. Being closer to direct contact with applicants than the CRB they are best placed to do so. We have proposed, in the consultation paper we issued in December, that Registered Bodies be made explicitly responsible for validating the identity of those for whom they seek Disclosures. The CRB has issued guidance to Registered Bodies to help them identify common official documents that may have been forged or tampered with.

The CRB continues to check that Registered Bodies, or their agents, have undertaken the necessary checks to verify the identity of applicants. Where evidence of such

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checks is not recorded on the Disclosure application form they are rejected by the Bureau. In addition, as part of the proposed periodic audit of Registered Bodies, CRB staff will be checking to see that Registered Bodies properly discharge their responsibilities in this area. Furthermore, as part of their anti-fraud measures the CRB checks a sample of applications against lists maintained by the UK Passport Services and DVLA of fraudulently obtained passports and driving licences.

Domestic Violence

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many domestic violence incidents were reported in the last 12 months, broken down by (a) police authority area, (b) local authority area and (c) basic command unit; and how many and what percentage of these incidents resulted in prosecution. [156243]

Ms Blears: Domestic violence is not separately identified in the recorded crime statistics collected by the Home Office nor in the statistics of court proceedings, because the circumstances of the offences are not collected. While the number of incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales are measured by the British Crime Survey (BCS), figures are not available by police force area or at more local levels.

In the 2002–03 BCS there were an estimated 501,000 incidents of domestic violence in England and Wales as a whole, 35 per cent. of which were reported to the police. This is from the main face-to-face part of the survey and shows a decrease of 38 per cent. since 1997.

Football Supporters

Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether legislation to prevent football supporters from leaving the UK to attend matches abroad applies to (a) players and (b) officials. [157608]

Ms Blears [holding answer 1 March 2004]: The provisions of the Football Spectators Act 1989 (as amended by the Football (Disorder Act 2000) apply to all residents of England and Wales. No senior player or official is currently subject to a football banning order.

Gun Crime

Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the performance of Government-funded community groups working to combat gun crime. [149786]

Caroline Flint: The Government are, in this financial year, providing £1.5 million specifically to support community action to help tackle gun crime. This is in addition to other funding, including through the Street Crime Initiative, to support community-based programmes that will help to tackle gun crime.

This work is on-going, but we will take stock, at an appropriate time, of the outcomes of the projects supported in order to inform future community-based action in this area. We will be developing a dedicated website to support those working to tackle gun crime, where we can provide information about existing programmes and spread examples of good practice.

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Katharine Gun

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had in the last 12 months with the (a) Secretary of State for Defence, (b) Department for Constitutional Affairs, (c) Prime Minister and (d) Attorney General over the Katharine Gun case. [158096]

Mr. Blunkett: I had no discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence, or the Department for Constitutional Affairs, or the Prime Minister on this matter.

I had no discussions with the Attorney-General. However, I was copied in on the "Shawcross Exercise", the process of which the Solicitor-General has already outlined to the House on 26 February 2004, Official Report, column 428.

National Asylum Support Service

Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the full independent review into the National Asylum Support Service; and for what reason it has not yet been published. [152425]

Beverley Hughes: Because of the level of public interest in the review and the recommendation from the Home Affairs Committee Ministers are currently considering the matter.

Offender Assessments

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offenders have undergone an OASys assessment in the last 12 months; and what the average cost per assessment was. [155961]

Paul Goggins: On 9 January 2004, the latest date for which figures from both services are available, the Prison Service OASys IT system held assessments on some 1,400 offenders while the National Probation Service OASys IT system held assessments on some 63,800 offenders. Figures are not held centrally on use of the paper-based OASys system that pre-dated the computerised system in the National Probation Service.

Reliable unit costs are not yet available. The Prison Service and National Probation Service expect to have figures towards the end of this year when implementation of OASys IT in the two Services is further advanced.

Parliamentary Questions

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to reply to the oral Question of the hon. Member for the Vale of York (ref 155764), not reached on 23 February, on the number of acceptable behaviour contracts issued. [156873]

Ms Blears: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 23 February 2004, Official Report, column 222W.

Police

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police were allocated to front line duties in Hampshire in each year since 1997. [157096]

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Ms Blears: Information on front line policing is not available. We are, as part of the Police Performance Assessment Framework, collecting data from forces so that we can publish a baseline estimate of front line policing for all forces. This will be a valuable tool to drive up the amount of time spent on front line duties.

Published data are in the form of total police strength by police force area.

Number of police officers⁽⁵⁵⁾ in Hampshire, 1997–2003

As at 31 March	Police officers(56)
1997	3,452
1998	3,490
1999	3,473
2000	3,419
2001	3,438
2002	3,480
2003	(57)3,668

⁽⁵⁵⁾ Full time equivalents.

⁽⁵⁶⁾ Excludes officers seconded to NCS, NCIS and Central Services.

⁽⁵⁷⁾ Comparable strength.

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the police retirement age is; what plans he has to increase this; what estimate he has made of the cost savings that would accrue if the retirement age was lifted to 65; and if he will make a statement. [156593]

Ms Blears: There is no fixed retirement age for the police. Under the Police Pensions Regulations officers with at least 25 years' service may retire with an immediate pension from age 50. Officers may also retire with an immediate pension, irrespective of age, after 30 years' service, when they will have accrued maximum benefits. This means that an officer who joined at age 18½—the earliest age at which it is possible to start as a police officer—is entitled to retire at age 48½ a with a full pension. Otherwise officers become eligible to retire with an immediate pension on reaching their compulsory retirement age, which ranges from 55 to 60 depending on the rank and force of the officer concerned. Officers with less than 25 years' service who leave the police with deferred benefits will receive their pension at age 60.

The Government are currently considering options for the modernisation of police pensions to make them more flexible and affordable for future entrants. We have launched a UK-wide consultation exercise on proposals for a new police pension scheme, to be introduced by April 2006. One of the key features of our proposals is the introduction of a minimum pension age of 55 for new entrants and the raising of the deferred pension age from 60 to 65 in line with the proposed rise in the normal pension age in other public service schemes.

Information is not available on the level of savings that would be involved if the police retirement age were to be raised to 65 for all officers. If such a calculation were carried out it is arguable that the cost implications

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for operational effectiveness should also be taken into account. The Department of Work and Pensions Green Paper of December 2002, in proposing a normal public service pension age of 65, recognised that services like the police and the armed forces had specific needs which made a lower pension age appropriate for their members.

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