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7 Mar 2007 : Column 2039W—continued
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 19 February 2007, Official Report, column 120W, on Oakhill secure training centre, how many hours on average young offenders spent out of their rooms in a 24-hour period in the latest period for which figures are available. [122839]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 23 February 2007]: During January 2007, trainees spent an average of 13 hours and 40 minutes out of their rooms.
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 19 February 2007, Official Report, column 120W, on Oakhill secure training centre, what the annual sickness rate amongst staff was in the last period for which figures are available. [122840]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 23 February 2007]: During 2006, the annual rate of sickness leave for operational staff was 9.6 per cent. and for non-operational staff, 7.0 per cent. These figures have been supplied by the Youth Justice Board and relate to employees of the contractor, G4S Justice Services. They do not include those employed by sub-contractors, for example providing health care or education services.
Mr. Lancaster:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 19 February 2007, Official Report, column 120W, on Oakhill secure training centre, how many staff were
in post in the last day of each month since January 2005; and what the proposed establishment level was on each date. [122842]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 23 February 2007]: The staff-in-post figures are set out in the following table. They have been supplied by the Youth Justice Board and relate to employees of the contractor, G4S Justice Services. They do not include those employed by sub-contractors, for example providing health care or education services. Establishment figures are commercially sensitive and cannot, therefore, be disclosed.
| Staff in post Oakhill secure training centre | |
| Month and year | Staff in post |
Passports
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) where he plans to situate his new passport application offices; and what the population is within 20 miles of each; [123630]
(2) how far away, in miles, from Grimsby the nearest passport application office will be following the planned opening of new offices. [123631]
Joan Ryan: The proposed locations for the 69 interview offices are included in the following list.
The passport interview network will provide an office within 15 minutes travelling time for just over half of the population of the UK and over 95 per cent. of the population will live within one hour's travelling of an office.
A small number of potential applicants, estimated to be less than 0.7 per cent. of first-time passport applicants (4,000 out of 600,000 per annum), live more than an hour's journey from an interview office. For this group we are putting in place secure video-conferencing links with the customer visiting a partner organisation, for example, local council premises. We currently plan to have remote interview facilities in 25 locations; however we are still consulting with regional stakeholders and are considering additional locations.
We have placed a document in the Library of the House of Commons setting out the planned network.
To provide an analysis of the population within a 20-mile radius of each of the 69 interview offices would incur a disproportionate cost. The interview office closest to Grimsby will be in Kingston-upon-Hull, a distance of approximately 33 miles.
Proposed locations for the 69 passport interview offices
Aberdeen
Dundee
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Inverness
Kilmarnock
Oban
Stirling
Wick
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Carlisle
Dumfries
Galashiels
Kendal
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Northallerton
Armagh
Belfast
Coleraine
Omagh
Blackburn
Liverpool
Manchester
Wrexham
Hull
Leeds
Scarborough
Sheffield
York
Aberystwyth
Bristol
Cheltenham
Newport
Swansea
Swindon
Birmingham
Derby
Leicester
Northampton
Shrewsbury
Stoke-on-Trent
Warwick
Boston
Bury St. Edmunds
Ipswich
Kings Lynn
Lincoln
Norwich
Peterborough
Barnstaple
Camborne
Exeter
Plymouth
St Austell
Yeovil
Andover
Bournemouth
Newport IOW
Oxford
Portsmouth
Reading
Chelmsford
Crawley
Dover
Hastings
London
Luton
Maidstone
Police Custody: Death
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received on a public inquiry into the death of Paul Day in custody; whether he has plans for further study of the issues arising from the death; and if he will make a statement. [124723]
Mr. Sutcliffe: I reiterate my condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Day, whom I met at the culmination of a process which included a series of internal investigations overseen by a panel on which sat the chief inspector of prisons and Mr. and Mrs. Day, an extensive coroner’s inquest, and a series of follow-up discussions between Mr. and Mrs. Day and the then deputy director general of the Prison Service.
Learning from Paul Day’s death has contributed to significant change in prison segregation units. I have no plans to commission further studies.
Pornography
Dan Norris: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further measures the Government plan to take to protect children and young people from pornographic material made available through file-sharing programmes. [125364]
Mr. Coaker:
All published material is subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959 (OPA). Under this Act, it is a criminal offence to publish any article which is considered to be obscene; that is, an article, which, in the view of the court, tends to ‘deprave and corrupt’ a person who is likely to see, hear or read it. This is a flexible test which has been shown to apply to material
at a lower threshold where children are likely to access it. The OPA applies equally to material published over the internet, including material made available through file-sharing programmes.
The Government, through the Home Secretary’s Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet, are also promoting the development of a BSI kitemark for computer safety software which will help parents and carers choose the most effective technical means of protecting children from unsuitable internet-based content and services, including those which prevent the use of file-sharing software. There is also to be new Safety Software Sub-Group of the Taskforce to encourage internet and software services to seek accreditation, encourage take-up of the software by parents, and to ensure a process for review and updating the standard if it proves effective.
Prison Service: Public Appointments
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the recent appointments to the deputy governor posts at (a) HM Prison Whitemoor and (b) HM Prison Pentonville; whether the appointments were considered alongside the investigation conducted by Mr. Ron Tasker into performance standards issues at HM Prison Wandsworth; who was responsible for authorising the managed moves; whether the appointments were made following open competitions; and if he will make a statement. [125303]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The process of new deputy governors being appointed to both prisons was managed, and was not as a result of open competition. Managed moves are used where it is in the business interests of the service to do so, including ensuring effective succession arrangements, and are fully in line with service policy. In these cases, the moves were approved by the relevant operational director. The appointments are unrelated to Mr. Tasker’s investigation.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what factors he took into account in appointing the former London Area Manager to a new role within HM Prison Service; from which Department’s budget within the organisation his role is financed; whether this appointment was advertised in accordance with HM Prison Service’s policies and procedures and awarded as a consequence of open competition; and if he will make a statement. [125304]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Mr. Keith Munns, who has retired, has been retained by the Deputy Director General of the Prison Service to support the completion of a report originally commissioned by Mr. Munns. Mr. Munns is currently working on a fee-paid, sessional basis, where no competition is required, and costs are met from the Deputy Director General’s budget. Given his experience, it is likely that Mr. Munns will be asked to undertake other, specific work on the same basis.
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