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21 Nov 2007 : Column 976W—continued
Contractors are incentivised to staff according to the needs of the court's business, and are not paid when court rooms are not staffed.
A performance penalty is applied when court rooms are not staffed but should have been, and were contracted to be staffed.
Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many persons are employed by the contractor Serco to deal with movement of prisoners in cases involving (a) the magistrates courts and (b) the Crown courts in the Greater London area. [166194]
Maria Eagle: Serco utilises its staff throughout its contract area, which covers London and the south- east. The number of staff dealing with the movement of prisoners to magistrates and Crown courts in the Greater London area is therefore variable, depending on which courts are sitting and the number of cases listed for appearance.
Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the annual cost of his Department’s contract with Serco has been for the movement of prisoners in the Greater London area in each year since its inception. [166195]
Maria Eagle: The Greater London area is included as part of a wider geographical contract for the London and South East area and financial data is not routinely recorded to show what was spent moving prisoners within the Greater London area. Additionally, the provisions of the contract include services other than transportation of prisoners.
Details of the cost of the full service in London and South East are only available on a full year’s basis from 1 April 2005.
| £ million | |
Prisons: Crimes of Violence
Fiona Mactaggart:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what arrangements there are for faith and
ethnicity monitoring among prisoners who are victims of assault. [165996]
Maria Eagle: The Prison Service Local Inmate Database System (LIDS) and its planned replacement C-NOMIS allow recording of both the religion and ethnicity of prisoners. The Incident Reporting System (IRS), used for recording assaults, routinely incorporates ethnicity information of any prisoners involved whether as assailants, fighters or victims. IRS does not routinely include religion of prisoners, but there are sampling techniques of that typically capture more than 70 per cent. of prisoner involvements to analyse faith aspects of assaults when required.
Prisons: Education
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what steps his Department is taking to ensure that reductions in the prisons budget do not affect the level of education provision in prisons; and if he will make a statement. [165834]
Maria Eagle: The budget for education provision in prisons is held by the Learning and Skills Council and is not affected by reductions in the Prison Service budget. The Prison Service is aware of the need to ensure that the delivery of programmes for offenders to help reduce reoffending, including vocational skills for employment and other prison regimes associated with delivery of learning, is fully considered when operational savings are reviewed in the light of reduced prison funding.
Prosecutions: Driving Offences
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prosecutions there have been of uninsured drivers (a) in total and (b) in each police force area in each of the last 10 years; and what the average penalty was. [165682]
Maria Eagle: Available information from 1997 to 2005 (latest available) is provided in the following tables. 2006 data will be available next year.
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