House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 24 July 2006 (pt 0054)

24 July 2006 : Column 940W—continued

Information Commissioner

Mr. Heald: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs when she plans to make an announcement on the budget for the Information Commissioner's Office. [88294]

Ms Harman: I have no plans to make an announcement on the budget for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The Commissioner's budget is derived from two sources. His data protection work is funded by notification fees payable under the Data Protection Act 1998. His freedom of information work is funded by grant in aid. On 18 April 2006, Baroness Ashton announced to the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee that an additional £550,000 in funding would be provided to the ICO. This means that the total grant in aid for the ICO for 2006-07 is £5,550,000.

Legal Aid

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Consitutional Affairs how much in legal aid has been provided to Mr. Nabeel Sami Fathallah; and if she will make a statement.[67393]

Vera Baird: I am not able to disclose this information. The Department can only disclose legal aid details where individuals have received legal aid in connection with litigation, and where that litigation has ceased.

Magistrates

Sarah Teather: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many magistrates there are in courts in each London borough, broken down by (a) age, (b) ethnicity and (c) sex. [87713]

Ms Harman: Magistrates are assigned to 28 Local Justice Areas in London. The following table provides a breakdown of the average age, ethnicity and gender of magistrates for each area, as of 20 July 2006.

			Ethnicity			Gender
Local justice area	Total	Average age	White	BME	Unknown	Female	Male
Barking and Dagenham	88	56	71	17	⁽¹⁾—	42	46
Barnet	111	57	93	17	⁽¹⁾—	69	42
Bexley	105	57	93	10	⁽¹⁾—	49	56
Brent	142	57	98	44	⁽¹⁾—	82	60
Bromley	110	57	100	9	⁽¹⁾—	53	57
Camden and Islington	79	56	63	14	⁽¹⁾—	46	33
City of London	136	55	111	25	⁽¹⁾—	75	61
City of Westminster	108	56	90	18	⁽¹⁾—	63	45
Croydon	175	55	143	31	⁽¹⁾—	83	92
Ealing	133	55	95	37	⁽¹⁾—	72	61
Enfield	111	55	85	25	⁽¹⁾—	56	55
Greenwich and Lewisham	71	56	55	14	⁽¹⁾—	45	26
Hackney and Tower Hamlets	62	54	47	15	⁽¹⁾—	30	32
Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea	56	54	43	10	⁽¹⁾—	33	23
Haringey	158	57	135	22	⁽¹⁾—	93	65
Harrow Gore	96	57	76	19	⁽¹⁾—	52	44
Havering	87	57	80	6	⁽¹⁾—	35	52
Hillingdon	115	57	92	20	⁽¹⁾—	57	58
Hounslow	141	55	92	43	6	60	81
Kingston-Upon-Thames	84	56	77	⁽¹⁾—	⁽¹⁾—	49	35
Lambeth and Southwark	72	55	60	11	⁽¹⁾—	44	28
Merton	101	55	88	12	⁽¹⁾—	60	41
Newham	112	54	70	41	⁽¹⁾—	52	60
Redbridge	112	54	80	32	⁽¹⁾—	62	50
Richmond-Upon-Thames	85	58	82	⁽¹⁾—	⁽¹⁾—	49	36
Sutton	91	58	84	5	⁽¹⁾—	41	50
Waltham Forest	106	55	74	32	⁽¹⁾—	48	58
Wandsworth	65	56	49	10	6	38	27
Grand total	2,912	56	2,326	546	40	1,538	1,374
⁽¹⁾ Figures less than five are not quoted following established government statistics guidelines for protecting the confidentiality of data subjects.

24 July 2006 : Column 941W

Sarah Teather: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs what steps her Department is taking to encourage magistrates from ethnic minority backgrounds; and if she will make a statement. [87717]

Ms Harman: We have put in place a range of measures to attract magistrates from ethnic minority backgrounds including:

informative publicity material about the magistracy to encourage applications from all sections of local communities and to raise awareness among employers;

a new Working Group of the main employer organisations and the Trade Union Congress has been set up to seek their active support in encouraging employees to join the magistracy;

funding of the Magistrates Shadowing Scheme run by Operation Black Vote to enable people from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups to shadow magistrates in order to gain valuable insight into the roles and responsibilities of a magistrate, and encourage applications.

Progress has been made in increasing diversity among magistrates.

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