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29 Jan 2008 : Column 295W—continued
There are delays due to high volumes with some legacy cases although every effort is being made to
identify urgent cases and deal with them as a priority. We have provided additional resources to the court team in December and again in January and expect the backlog of legacy applications to have been cleared by the end of February.
It is impossible at this stage to give an average time for completing an application as the new structure has not been in place for 21 weeks—our main target for issuing directions. We will of course be able to provide fuller information later in the year when we have the data to work with.
Departmental Accountancy
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what items of his Department’s (a) revenue and (b) expenditure are uprated using (i) the consumer prices index, (ii) the retail prices index and (iii) other measures of inflation. [179946]
Maria Eagle: The Ministry of Justice has a limited number of revenue raising contracts, negotiated within its ‘Wider Markets’ initiative, to make appropriate use of public assets. These contracts have been negotiated with suitable commercial provisions, which may include indexation in some cases. For reasons of commercial confidentiality, it is not possible to disclose the terms of the contracts.
The Ministry of Justice has a wide range of expenditure contracts for goods and services.
Where commercially appropriate, indexation is negotiated when the contract is awarded. This generally applies where contracts are over a longer time scale, provide a consistent or repeated service or commodity, or a service with a significant manpower element.
Departmental Recycling
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what weight of paper his Department recycled in each of the last five years. [179454]
Bridget Prentice: The Ministry of Justice was established in May 2007 and has so far recycled approximately 30,000 kgs of white paper, 95,000 kgs of mixed paper and 11,000 kgs of cardboard. This is the approximate equivalent of 6,260 trees.
Departmental Reorganisation
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he will publish the review of Ministry of Justice structures. [182111]
Mr. Straw: I refer the hon. Member to my written ministerial statement which I have made today.
Driving Offences: Convictions
Mr. Bone: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent representations he has received on sentencing policy on the offence of causing death by careless driving. [182658]
Mr. Hanson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor has not received any representations specifically on sentencing policy on the offence of causing death by careless driving. We have, however, received letters from MPs, road safety campaigners and members of the public on the draft sentencing guideline published on 9 January by the Sentencing Guideline Council (SGC). The guideline covers two existing offences of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink or drugs, plus two new offences (yet to be implemented) of causing death by careless driving and causing death by driving when unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured.
The guidelines are currently subject to consultation with the Government, the Justice Select Committee and other interested parties. We are considering the guidelines carefully and will respond in due course. The consultation period ends in March and should lead to publication of a definitive guideline later in the year.
Electoral System
Mr. Sharma: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether the issues raised in the recently published review of electoral systems will form a part of the Governance of Britain consultation process. [182617]
Mr. Wills: The purpose of the review was to consider the experience of new voting systems introduced in the United Kingdom since 1997, to contribute to the existing knowledge of voting systems in the United Kingdom. As set out in the written ministerial statement on 24 January 2008, Official Report, column 61WS, the Government consider that at this point, it would be premature to discuss reforms to the electoral system for the Commons while the voting system for a reformed and substantially or fully elected House of Lords is still to be determined. Good progress is being made on the cross-party talks on Lords reform and the Government intend to publish a White Paper in the first part of 2008 reflecting the outcome of these discussions.
Fines: Surcharges
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much money accrued via the victim surcharge introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has been (a) used directly or indirectly for the purposes of victim support and (b) has remained with the Treasury; and if he will make a statement. [182347]
Maria Eagle: At the end of November 2007, some £1.5 million had been raised from the collection of the victims surcharge since its introduction on 1 April 2007. All the money is being used to support victims of crime and witnesses. None is being passed to the Treasury. Details of how the money is being used were given in my answers of 4 December 2007, Official Report, column 1190W, to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), and 26 November 2007, Official Report, column 96W, to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
Incapacity Benefit: Appeals
Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 18 December 2007, Official Report, column 1422W, on incapacity benefits, how many appeals lodged against the Incapacity Benefit Personal Capability Assessment were upheld in each year between 2000 and 2006. [181957]
Bridget Prentice: From April 2000 until March 2006 308, 691 appeals were lodged against an incapacity benefit personal capability assessment. Of those lodged, 123,192 decisions were upheld.
| April to March each year | Lodged | Upheld |
Members: Correspondence
Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he expects to reply to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford's letter of 3 December 2007 on a constituent, reference: 182611/3702. [181956]
Mr. Straw: I wrote to the hon. Member on 28 January 2008. I apologise for the delay.
National Offender Management Information System
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what assessment he has made of the likely consequences of not rolling out C-NOMIS to the Probation Service; [182110]
(2) what assessment he has made of the implications of any decision not to roll-out C-NOMIS to the Probation Service. [182204]
Mr. Hanson: In its work to analyse the different options available going forward, the Strategic Review requested to consider the affordability of the NOMIS Programme, actively considered and assessed the implications of not rolling out C-NOMIS to probation areas.
Work is under way on the newly revised and deliverable NOMIS Programme announced after the completion of the review, to asses the way forward for probation case management systems, and where necessary, replace those that are most at risk. In addition, to improve the sharing of information between prisons and probation, and to further support the successful implementation of the Offender Management Model and public protection, work has started on both the OASys project to improve the current separate risk assessment systems and to re-develop them as a single national system, and the Data Share project to allow access to core case information between prison and probation areas.
I expect the programme to meet the objectives that were set following the Strategic Review to:
Enable improved business continuity by replacing ailing legacy case management and offender assessment applications in public prisons and probation;
Enable more efficient and effective operational management of offenders;
Support offender management processes and thereby reduce reoffending and enhance public protection;
Provide supplier neutral information to support Commissioners; and
Provide improved management information to enable improved performance.
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the estimated maximum capacity of the C-NOMIS system will be in each of the next 10 years. [182117]
Mr. Hanson: There is no maximum capacity in C-NOMIS. While the programme has estimated a total of 5 million records will be added to C-NOMIS in the next 10 years, this will be kept under constant review to allow officials to ensure that there will always be sufficient capacity in C-NOMIS to ensure the successful running of the system.
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what has been the cost of the C-NOMIS project to date; and what the estimated cost is of national implementation of C-NOMIS. [182203]
Mr. Hanson: The total expenditure on the NOMIS programme, of which C-NOMIS forms the very major part, to the end of December 2007 is estimated at £179 million. The estimated lifetime cost of the NOMIS programme to 2019-20 before VAT, cost of capital and depreciation is £513 million.
Financial and business benefit from work completed on C-NOMIS is preserved. Nearly all of the expenditure attributable to C-NOMIS is relevant to its future use in HMPS as ‘Prison NOMIS’. The other projects in the programme will continue to derive benefit from the investment and work to date.
National Offender Management Service
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the planned budget is in 2010-11 for (a) the central administration, (b) probation element and (c) prisons of the National Offender Management Service. [182909]
Mr. Hanson: The allocation of planned budgets for 2010-11 between these three areas has not yet been decided.
National Probation Service for England and Wales: ICT
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of the efficiency of existing legacy IT systems used by the Probation Service; and if he will make a statement. [182115]
Mr. Hanson:
Working within the terms of reference of the C-NOMIS Strategic Review, an assessment of the seven NFS legacy case management systems in use in the 42 probation areas was completed in September
2007. This identified a small number of areas where existing case management systems are failing and in urgent need of replacement, and a range of issues associated with CRAMS (the system in use in most probation areas) including obsolete software and hardware, and compliance with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act.
A plan of works is in place to implement Delius, a system already used in some areas, where required as an urgent replacement during 2008-09, and to upgrade or replace CRAMS during 2009-10.
Open Prisons
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many prisoners convicted for (a) robbery and (b) grievous bodily harm were transferred to open prisons in 2007; [182339]
(2) how many prisoners convicted for (a) a violent offence and (b) actual bodily harm were transferred to open prisons in 2007; [182404]
(3) how many prisoners were detained in open prisons in England and Wales on the most recent date for which figures are available, broken down by prison establishment. [182421]
Mr. Hanson: Information on the transfer of prisoners within the prison estate of establishments within England and Wales is not held centrally and to collect it would require extensive manual inspection of records.
The number of prisoners detained in open prisons in England and Wales at the end of November 2007, the latest date for which figures are available, can be found in the following table:
| Prison | Number of prisoners |
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
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