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5 Mar 2007 : Column 1748W—continued

Police: Standards

Mr. Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish the tackling of business and retail crime as a key performance indicator for the police. [124543]

Mr. Coaker: There are no plans to make tackling business and retail crime an additional key performance indicator for the police. In general, as part of the overall drive to reduce bureaucracy in the police service, the Home Office is committed to reducing the number of performance indicators applied to them.

It is open to individual Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships to develop their own strategies based on any particular local crime problems they have identified in their audits.

Prison Accommodation

Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his most recent estimate is of the average time taken to complete a prison cell sharing risk assessment; and if he will make a statement. [124751]

Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 5 March 2007]: In the most recent evaluation of the cell sharing risk assessment, the average time taken to complete sections one and two of the form varied by type of establishment. Officers at male local and female prisons took around six minutes to complete these sections: at young offenders institutes the average was around eight minutes.

Prison Service: Standards

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many service level agreements for the Prison Service include a requirement to report on progress six months after the commencement of the agreement; and if he will make a statement. [124941]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Two establishments, Bullingdon and Wandsworth prison, were specifically required to submit reports on progress six months after the commencement of their service level agreements.

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to ensure that those responsible for the investigation of professional standards issues within HM Prison Service are not influenced by those responsible for managed moves and career progression within the organisation as part of their investigations; and if he will make a statement. [125302]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Section 3.B of Prison Service Order 1300—Investigations states:

“Investigators must have no significant conflicts of interest with the matter or persons under investigation. Should such conflicts arise within the course of an investigation the matter must be immediately referred to the Commissioning Authority.”

This is a mandatory requirement and commissioning authorities must ensure that this requirement is met.

Prison Service: Unfair Dismissal

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff in HM Prison Service were found to have been unfairly dismissed in each of the last five years; what the cost to the public purse was for (a) legal services and (b) compensation in consequence of such dismissals; and if he will make a statement. [124653]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Information is not held centrally to answer the question to the level of detail required and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Prisoners: Day Release

Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many crimes were committed in each of the last five years by prisoners on day release. [123788]

5 Mar 2007 : Column 1749W

Mr. Sutcliffe: The information requested is not held centrally. In order to answer the question it would be necessary to interrogate the individual records held at prisons of all prisoners who were released on licence in the last five years and to cross reference that with the police national computer records. This could be done only at disproportionate costs.

Prisons: Informers

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison informants (a) self-harmed and (b) committed suicide (i) whilst detained in prison and (ii) after leaving prison in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [124392]

Mr. Sutcliffe: It is not Prison Service policy to confirm or deny details on the use of covert human intelligence sources.

In any event, information about self-harm and deaths amongst prisoners or people released from prison is not collated centrally in the requested format and could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.

Prisons: Management

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanisms exist in HM Prison Service to ensure that good practice is disseminated from employment issues arising from (a) employment tribunals and (b) civil service appeal boards to ensure that (i) management failings and (ii) costs to the public purse are not repeated; and if he will make a statement. [124386]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The public sector Prison Service has quarterly meetings with Treasury Solicitors and Home Office Legal Advisors Branch, which include a review of learning from employment tribunals and civil service appeal boards. Learning points, together with examples of good practice, are then disseminated through updates on the Prison Service’s guidance websites, which are available to all staff via the intranet system; and weekly communications to the HR—human resources—community.

5 Mar 2007 : Column 1750W

Prisons: Ministers of Religion

Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which imams served as prison chaplains in each year since 2001. [125381]

Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 5 March 2007]: There is no central record that holds this information. It would also not be appropriate to provide the names of those filling this role.

Probation: Vacancies

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vacancies for (a) probation officers and (b) probation service officers there were for each probation area on the latest date for which figures are available. [123189]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Not all probation areas in the national probation service operate a set establishment against which vacant posts can be measured. As a more representative alternative, probation areas are required to report regularly on the number of active vacancies they have. An active vacancy is one which a probation area is actively trying to fill through a recruitment process.

Figures for 31 March 2006 show that there were a total of 8,262.50 full-time equivalent probation officers in post in England and Wales. On the same date, there were 227.70 full-time equivalent vacancies that were actively being recruited to. Therefore active vacancies accounted for 2.68 per cent. of the total posts available at that time.

Additionally, the national probation service employs 6,544.28 full-time equivalent probation service officers, who also deliver front-line services to offenders. At this time, there were 347.30 full-time equivalent vacancies, equating to 5.04 per cent. of the total posts available.

The figures presented in the table show active vacancies for each area, in terms of full-time equivalent value, for the probation officer and probation service officer grades at the close of Quarter four 05/06 (1 January to 31 March 2006). We are not able to provide a breakdown for the Greater Manchester or West Midlands probation areas as they are currently unable to provide data on active vacancies. We are also not able to provide vacancy figures for Merseyside probation area as they are not actively recruiting.

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5 Mar 2007 : Column 1752W

Probation Officer and Probation Service officers vacancies, as at 31 March 2006
Area	Vacancies (all grades)	PO vacancies	PO vacancies (as a percentage of total PO posts( 1) )	PSO vacancies	PSO vacancies (as a percentage of total PSO posts( 1) )
Avon and Somerset	20.00	6.50	3.07	6.10	3.12
Bedfordshire	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Cambridgeshire	10.42	5.60	5.64	4.60	5.27
Cheshire	5.56	0.00	0.00	2.50	1.95
Cumbria	9.69	1.00	1.30	4.00	9.60
Derbyshire	11.50	1.50	1.08	4.00	3.52
Devon and Cornwall	9.10	3.40	1.72	1.00	0.68
Dorset	5.80	3.00	3.41	0.30	0.39
Durham	15.00	15.00	10.96	0.00	0.00
Dyfed Powys	18.58	3.70	5.61	4.48	8.23
Essex	12.10	2.00	1.26	4.60	2.65
Gloucestershire	8.00	4.00	5.97	1.00	2.28
Greater Manchester(2)	n/k	n/k	—	n/k	—
Gwent	19.00	0.00	0.00	7.00	6.86
Hampshire	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Hertfordshire	21.32	10.10	10.58	7.22	8.04
Humberside	17.00	7.00	3.57	3.60	2.20
Kent	11.02	3.00	1.54	4.02	2.26
Lancashire	9.00	0.00	0.00	6.00	3.84
Leicestershire	16.50	5.00	2.94	5.50	2.68
Lincolnshire	5.00	4.00	4.70	0.00	0.00
London	486.50	64.50	5.70	224.00	18.88
Merseyside(3)	n/k	n/k	—	n/k	—
Norfolk	2.00	0.00	0.00	2.00	1.51
North Wales	5.40	1.00	0.92	2.40	2.87
North Yorkshire	11.20	2.50	2.56	5.50	10.81
Northamptonshire	19.10	9.00	8.36	0.00	0.00
Northumbria	7.00	0.00	0.00	4.00	2.17
Nottinghamshire	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
South Wales	10.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
South Yorkshire	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Staffordshire	30.10	11.50	6.24	6.50	6.95
Suffolk	8.44	2.90	2.87	4.54	5.62
Surrey	19.10	3.60	4.11	3.80	3.54
Sussex	5.70	1.00	0.59	1.20	0.91
Teesside	45.31	26.00	16.62	0.00	0.00
Thames Valley	41.00	15.00	6.22	8.00	3.32
Warwickshire	7.18	0.00	0.00	2.44	4.92
West Mercia	15.00	0.90	0.53	5.10	4.14
West Midlands(2)	n/k	n/k	—	—	—
West Yorkshire	10.00	1.00	0.24	7.00	2.48
Wiltshire	29.70	14.00	16.43	4.90	9.25
NPS	977.32	227.70	2.68	347.30	5.04
(1) Total PO and PSO posts are ‘staff in post’ plus the number of active vacancies. (2) Greater Manchester and West Midlands probation areas are unable to provide data on active vacancies. (3) Merseyside probation area are not actively recruiting.

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