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4 Dec 2007 : Column 1102W—continued

Crime: Firearms

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she expects to receive the report she has commissioned from the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, on gun and gang crime. [169484]

Mr. Coaker: We have received this report from the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and it is currently being considered by the ministerial taskforce for the tackling gangs action programme.

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which community projects have been identified to receive the £1 million of additional funding announced on 9 September to help combat gun and gang crime. [169486]

Mr. Coaker: The initial funding has been allocated to: (a) police led partnership initiatives in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London, including mediation and mentoring services; and (b) agencies involved in a day of action focused on operations to disrupt gang activity and the supply of illegal firearms and ammunition. Decisions on the allocation of the remaining funds should be made by Christmas, and this will include providing some funding to build the capacity of community groups to deliver effective interventions.

Departmental Correspondence

Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of inquiries received by her Department from the public were responded to within (a) one week, (b) 14 days, (c) 28 days, (d) two months and (e) three months in the last period for which figures are available; and in what percentage of cases it took (i) over three months and (ii) over one year to respond. [167369]

Mr. Byrne: The Home Office reports its ministerial correspondence performance annually to the Cabinet Office. The report publishes details for the Home Office and its agencies separately. Details for the calendar year 2006 were published by way of a written ministerial statement on 28 March 2007, Official Report, column 101WS, as follows:

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4 Dec 2007 : Column 1104W

Ministerial correspondence 2006
	Target for reply (working days)	Number of letters received	Percentage of replies within target
Home Office (non BIA correspondence)	15	9,583	93
Criminal Records Bureau	10	378	93
Border & Immigration Agency (BIA)(1)	20	41,534	78
Identity and Passport Service	10	679	68
(1 )Formerly immigration and nationality directorate (IND)

In the same year, performance on public letters in the Home Office was 94 per cent. replied to within the 20 working day target, while 93 per cent. of e-mails were similarly replied to.

Performance in 2006 across the periods requested is provided in the following table.

Percentage
	Number of cases received	Within 1 week	Within 14 days	Within 28 days	Within 2 months	Within 3 months	Over 3 months	Over 1 year
Home Office (excluding BIA)
MP's letters	9,588	30	78	98	99	100	0	0
Public letters	14,516	51	64	92	99	99	1	0
Public e-mails	14,330	54	67	91	98	99	1	0
Border and Immigration Agency (BIA)
MP's letters	41,534	10.90	29.50	78.10	94.40	97.20	100	n/a
Public letters	n/k	n/k	n/k	n/k	n/k	n/k	n/k	n/k
Public e-mails	190,813	100	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Identity and Passport Service HQ (IPS)
	Number of cases received	Dealt with within service level agreement target date (percentage)
MP letters	679	(1)68
Public letters	40,334	(1)99.1
Public e-mails	29,433	(2)95.8
(1) 10 working days. (2 )Two working days.

IPS records are not held in such a way as to be able to provide the information requested on correspondence dealt with within longer periods. Manual records would have to be checked and disproportionate costs would be incurred.

Criminal Records Bureau (CRB)
	Number of cases received	Dealt with within service level agreement target date (percentage)
MP letters	378	(1)93
Public letters	40,334	(1)99.1
Public e-mails	29,433	(2)95.8
(1) 10 working days. (2 )Two working days.

CRB records are not held in such a way as to be able to provide the information requested on correspondence dealt with within longer periods. Manual records would have to be checked and disproportionate costs would be incurred.

Driving Offences: Mobile Phones

Susan Kramer: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions there have been for using a handheld mobile telephone while driving since the offence was introduced, broken down by (a) year and (b) police authority. [169321]

Mr. Coaker: Driving while using a hand held mobile phone became a specific offence from 1 December 2003.

Available information on prosecutions from 2003 to 2005 is provided in the table. 2006 data will be available next year.

Offences are also dealt with by the offer of a fixed penalty. In 2003, there were 1,888 tickets paid, in 2004 there were 73,976 tickets paid and 126,768 tickets were paid in 2005.

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Fixed penalty notices issued( 1) and court proceedings( 2) at the magistrates courts for the offence of use of hand held mobile phone while driving( 3) by police force area, England and Wales, 2003-05
Number of offences
	2003		2004		2005
Police force area	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings( 2)	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings( 2)	Fixed penalty notices issued	Total court proceedings( 2)
Avon and Somerset	0	0	1,902	19	2,502	47
Bedfordshire	10	1	579	5	944	16
Cambridgeshire	0	0	219	7	1,347	19
Cheshire	0	0	2,689	2	2,891	15
Cleveland	13	0	1,066	4	1,955	7
Cumbria	13	0	528	24	1,021	41
Derbyshire	13	0	978	17	1,501	52
Devon and Cornwall	345	0	796	19	1,482	27
Dorset	0	0	521	0	657	3
Durham	0	0	504	1	963	2
Essex	0	0	2,431	28	4,369	64
Gloucestershire	147	0	632	1	1,208	4
Greater Manchester	0	0	8,166	73	12,904	154
Hampshire	54	0	2,032	18	4,078	40
Hertfordshire	0	0	2,526	6	3,923	70
Humberside	0	0	381	4	1,202	25
Kent	15	0	1,707	0	4,829	0
Lancashire	34	0	1,719	17	3,079	48
Leicestershire	17	0	759	12	254	28
Lincolnshire	7	0	1,529	9	2,514	15
London, City of	45	0	137	7	1,647	14
Merseyside	0	0	1,836	22	5,684	27
Metropolitan Police	681	0	13,581	203	18,035	658
Norfolk	17	0	887	20	904	21
Northamptonshire	1	0	297	0	971	0
Northumbria	56	0	1,271	32	2,409	22
North Yorkshire	5	0	720	18	1,289	35
Nottinghamshire	0	0	653	8	1,637	26
South Yorkshire	28	0	1,978	12	3,978	25
Staffordshire	12	0	264	11	2,346	21
Suffolk	42	0	978	7	1,707	22
Surrey	164	0	2,213	9	3,575	91
Sussex	0	0	546	1	1,105	2
Thames Valley	25	0	3,716	24	7,111	126
Warwickshire	0	0	621	7	918	17
West Mercia	0	0	2,200	17	5,246	59
West Midlands	144	0	3,864	61	5,065	109
West Yorkshire	0	0	2,368	11	4,272	47
Wiltshire	0	0	700	21	1,226	29
Dyfed Powys	0	0	363	13	628	16
Gwent	0	0	517	0	938	4
North Wales	0	0	999	3	424	17
South Wales	0	0	1,603	16	2,030	25
England and Wales	1,888	1	73,976	789	126,768	2,090
(1) Covers tickets paid where there is no further action. (2) Includes cases where a fixed penalty notice was originally issued but not paid and subsequently referred to court. (3) Offences under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, Regulations 110 (1), 110 (2) and 110 (3). Introduced 1 December 2003. Notes: 1. 0 = nil. 2. It is known that for some police force areas, the reporting of court proceedings in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete. 3. 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. Source: Fixed Penalty Notices Issued Collection and Court Proceedings Database, both held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (Ministry of Justice, M and SDC416-07)

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