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Mr. McNulty: The available data for the total number of police officers in Gloucestershire and England are given in the tables. The closest available data to cover officers on the streets and in neighbourhood teams are in terms of officers primarily employed within the function foot/car/beat patrol. These data for Gloucestershire and England are also given in the tables.

Police officer strength in Gloucestershire as at 31 March 1997 and 31 March 2006 (FTE)( 1)
	1997	2006
Foot/Car/Beat Patrol(2)	(4)n/a	456
Total strength(3)	1,133	1,303
(1) Full-Time Equivalent figures rounded to the nearest whole number. This figure includes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. (2) Staff with multiple responsibilities (or designations) are recorded under their primary role or function. The deployment of police officers is an operational matter for individual Chief Constables. (3) Overall force totals including those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. The data in the function breakdown is from unpublished sources and therefore totals may not match totals found in the published data. (4) Data for 1996-97 are not available.

Police officer strength in England as at 31 March 1997 and 31 March 2006 (FTE)( 1)
	1997	2006
Foot/Car/Beat Patrol(2)	(4)n/a	55,291
Total strength(3)	118,453	133,925
(1.)Full-Time Equivalent figures rounded to the nearest whole number. This figure includes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. (2) Staff with multiple responsibilities (or designations) are recorded under their primary role or function. The deployment of police officers is an operational matter for individual Chief Constables. (3) Overall force totals including those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. The data in the function breakdown is from unpublished sources and therefore totals may not match totals found in the published data. (4) Data for 1996-97 are not available.

Prisons

Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what circumstances police cells in West Yorkshire would be used to house prisoners to relieve prison overcrowding. [100968]

Mr. Sutcliffe: In the event of increasing prisoner population pressures in the West Yorkshire area, West Yorkshire police would be asked whether accommodation was available for use under Operation Safeguard to relieve prison overcrowding.

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many investigations into officers’ conduct were undertaken at (a) HMP Wymott and (b) HMP Garth in each of the last three years; [101923]

(2) what the average number of investigations into prison officers’ conduct per prison in England and Wales was in each of the last three years. [101924]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The average number of investigations registered into the conduct of officers, which include Senior Officer and Principal Officer, for all prisons in England and Wales is set out in the following table:

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The average number of investigations registered into the conduct of officers
As at 17 November to 16 November each year:	Wymott	Garth	Average England and Wales( 1)
2003-04	13	3	12
2004-05	12	4	12
2005-06	9	8	10
(1 )To nearest whole number

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the effects of the work-life balance arrangements for prison officers. [101928]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The Prison Service has had a work-life balance policy in place since April 2003. This policy is open to all staff regardless of grade or rank, their working location or their status as parents.

This policy has not been assessed since its implementation, although the Prison Service staff survey tracks perceptions about work-life balance issues.

Dr. Tony Wright: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many allegations against prison staff have been made by prisoners since the offence of making a false and malicious allegation was abolished; and how many such allegations have been upheld in this period. [102372]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Details on allegations against staff by prisoners are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Rape Claims

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what strategy he has for dealing with false rape claims. [101662]

Mr. Coaker: Allegations of rape are a matter for the police to investigate in accordance with their internal guidance. Each case must be treated on its own individual merits and investigated thoroughly. It is then for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to decide whether or not to charge and then prosecute if the case fulfils both the evidential and public interest test as set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

There is no evidence to suggest that rates of false allegations for rape are especially high, but where there is evidence that a complaint is false, the police and CPS should consider whether the person who made the allegation should be charged with wasting police time or perverting the course of justice.

Road Safety

Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions were made of drivers using mobile phones while driving in the most recent period for which figures are available, broken down by police authority area. [102452]

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Mr. McNulty: Available information taken from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform for the year 2004 (latest available) is given in the table. As the majority of ‘use of hand-held mobile phone while driving’ offences are dealt with by the issue of a fixed penalty notice these are also included.

2005 data will be available in 2007.

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Fixed penalty notices issued and total court proceedings for the offence of use of hand-held mobile phone while driving( 1) by police force area, England and Wales, 2004
Number of offences
Police force area	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings( 2)	Total dealt with
Avon and Somerset	1,902	19	1,921
Bedfordshire	579	5	584
Cambridgeshire	219	7	226
Cheshire	2,689	2	2,691
Cleveland	1,066	4	1,070
Cumbria	528	24	552
Derbyshire	978	17	995
Devon and Cornwall	796	19	815
Dorset	521	(3)—	521
Durham	504	1	505
Essex	2,431	28	2,459
Gloucestershire	632	1	633
Greater Manchester	8,166	73	8,239
Hampshire	2,032	18	2,050
Hertfordshire	2,526	6	2,532
Humberside	381	4	385
Kent	1,707	(3)—	1,707
Lancashire	1,719	17	1,736
Leicestershire	759	12	771
Lincolnshire	1,529	9	1,538
London, City of	137	7	144
Merseyside	1,836	22	1,858
Metropolitan Police	13,581	203	13,784
Norfolk	887	20	907
Northamptonshire	297	(3)—	297
Northumbria	1,271	32	1,303
North Yorkshire	720	18	738
Nottinghamshire	653	8	661
South Yorkshire	1,978	12	1,990
Staffordshire	264	11	275
Suffolk	978	7	985
Surrey	2,213	9	2,222
Sussex	546	1	547
Thames Valley	3,716	24	3,740
Warwickshire	621	7	628
West Mercia	2,200	17	2,217
West Midlands	3,864	61	3,925
West Yorkshire	2,368	11	2,379
Wiltshire	700	21	721
Dyfed Powys	363	13	376
Gwent	517	(3)—	517
North Wales	999	3	1,002
South Wales	1,603	16	1,619
England and Wales	73,976	789	74,765
(1) Offences under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, Regulations 110 (1), 110 (2) and 110 (3). (2) Includes cases where fixed penalty notices were originally issued but not paid and subsequently referred to court. (3) Nil prosecutions. Note: Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

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