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17 Dec 2007 : Column 978W—continued

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Police: False Alarms

Jessica Morden: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate her Department has made of the average cost per incident incurred by the police in attending false call-outs triggered by security alarms. [173621]

Mr. McNulty: No estimates have been made. The information for all police forces in England and Wales is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Police: Finance

Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was in each of the last 10 years to police in each police force area on (a) detecting illegal immigrants, (b) removing or deporting people from the UK, (c) translation and interpretation for immigration-related work and (d) other immigration-related work. [167715]

17 Dec 2007 : Column 979W

Mr. McNulty: The information for all police forces in England and Wales is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Decisions on the distribution of resources are matters for the chief officer and the police authority.

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the (a) overspend and (b) underspend was for each police authority in England and Wales in each year since 1996-97. [172867]

Mr. McNulty: Police authorities are legally required to set balanced budgets taking into account any use of reserves. Decisions on the distribution of resources are matters for the chief officer and the police authority.

Police: Hampshire

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) police constables, (b) police community support officers and (c) special constables were allocated to each local policing area in Hampshire in each year since 2005. [172312]

Mr. McNulty: Figures collected centrally relate to police officers (rather than police constables), police community support officers and special constables, and are shown in the following tables:

Number of police officers, police community support officers and special constables in post in Hampshire Basic Command Units (BCUs), 2005-07
Table A: Police Officers (Full-Time Equivalent)
	31 March 2005	31 March 2006	31 March 2007
Basingstoke and Dean(1)	206	210	n/a
Central Hampshire (before April 2006)(1)	216	211	n/a
Central Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	623
Havant(1)	223	225	n/a
Isle of Wight	194	203	209
New Forest(1)	217	221	n/a
North East Hampshire(1)	217	221	n/a
North and East Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	548
Portsmouth	404	410	421
Solent East(1)	275	278	n/a
Southampton	483	476	513
West Hants (before April 2006)(1)	271	269	n/a
West Hants (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	500

17 Dec 2007 : Column 980W

Table B: Police Community Support Officers (Full-Time Equivalent)
	30 June 2005( 2)	30 June 2006( 2)	31 March 2007
Basingstoke and Dean(1)	2	n/a	n/a
Central Hampshire (before April 2006) (1)	4	n/a	n/a
Central Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	4	62
Havant(1)	4	n/a	n/a
Isle of Wight	0	4	29
New Forest(1)	0	n/a	n/a
North East Hampshire(1)	4	n/a	n/a
North and East Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	9	48
Portsmouth	6	37	48
Solent East(1)	0	n/a	n/a
Southampton	6	5	58
West Hants (before April 2006)(1)	0	n/a	n/a
West Hants (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	0	51

Table C: Special Constables (Head Count)
	31 March 2005	31 March 2006	31 March 2007
Basingstoke and Dean(1)	39	44	n/a
Central Hampshire (before April 2006)(1)	50	48	n/a
Central Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	120
Havant(1)	26	29	n/a
Isle of Wight	24	29	27
New Forest(1)	27	29	n/a
North East Hampshire(1)	21	24	n/a
North and East Hampshire (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	120
Portsmouth	34	35	44
Solent East(1)	58	62	n/a
Southampton	45	45	48
West Hants (before April 2006)(1)	50	42	n/a
West Hants (after April 2006)(1)	n/a	n/a	80
(1) Basic Command Unit affected by boundary change in April 2006. (2) Figures taken from ad hoc collections for 30 June 2005 and 30 June 2006, which may not be consistent with the main National Statistics collections (in terms of definitions as well as the different dates). Note: Figures for Basic Command Units do not total to police force personnel totals, because Central Services (e.g. HQ staffing) are not included.

Police: Manpower

Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether numbers of officers employed by non-Home Office police constabularies are counted when calculating total police manpower levels; and how many such officers are employed in each force. [173125]

Mr. McNulty: The Home Office does not routinely collect data on non-Home Office police forces. However, information on officer, police staff and police community support officer numbers has been provided by the British Transport police on a voluntary basis since 2002-03 in view of that force’s high public profile. Although the data is published in the Home Office
17 Dec 2007 : Column 981W
Statistical Bulletin, “Police Service Strength”, the number of BTP officers is not included in the overall police officer numbers used by the Home Office. At the end of March 2007 BTP had 2,555 police officers.

Police: Recruitment

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of police officers recruited in each year since 1997 were graduates. [172856]

Mr. McNulty: The information requested is not collected centrally in the police personnel statistics series.

Police: Video Conferencing

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions a custody officer in a designated police station has used video conferencing or similar facilities to carry out oversight functions of a person detained at a non-designated police station under section 45A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; and if she will make a statement. [172854]

Mr. McNulty: The provisions of section 45A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 have not been commenced. This is being considered as part of the consultation process on the Review of PACE.

Prisoners: Deportation

Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many foreign national prisoners were deported or removed in each year from 2002 to 2006; and how many have been deported or removed in 2007. [163346]

Mr. Byrne: On 14 June the chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency wrote to the Home Affairs Committee to provide the most recent provisional information available on the deportation of foreign national prisoners. In this letter the chief executive reported that 2,784 foreign national prisoners were deported or removed in the financial year 2006-07.

Statistics on the deportation of foreign nationals were last published in 2002. Copies of this are available in the Library of the House.

Published information on persons removed as a result of deportation action has not been available from 2003 onwards due to data quality issues. The Border and Immigration Agency is putting in place new systems to improve its data collection systems for the future in this area.

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