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31 Jan 2008 : Column 568W—continued
Figures for both tables are taken from sample data, not necessarily in the same month each year.
Where no home address is listed for a male or female prisoner or young offender the committal court is used as a proxy address.
Democratic Engagement
Mr. Sharma: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what (a) terms of reference and (b) timescale he is proposing for a Speakers Conference on democratic engagement. [183169]
Mr. Wills: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister proposed in his speech to the National Council of Voluntary Organisations last year that a Speaker's Conference be established, to bring together the parties at Westminster to consider, against the backdrop of a decline in turnout, a number of electoral issues including the representation of women and ethnic minorities in the House of Commons. I hope to make an announcement on the way forward shortly.
Electoral Register
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what representations he has received on the report of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on voter registration in the UK. [183022]
Bridget Prentice: I have not received any representations. I am, however, aware of early day motion 754.
Judiciary: Complaints
Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many complaints about the judiciary were received by his Department and its predecessors in each of the last five years. [180907]
Mr. Straw: The Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) was established in April 2006 replacing its predecessor the Judicial Correspondence Unit (JCU). The OJC was created by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and handles complaints about the alleged personal misconduct of judicial office holders in accordance with the provisions of the Judicial Discipline (Prescribed Procedures) Regulations 2006.
Unlike the OJC, the statistics for the JCU do not distinguish between inquiries and complaints, nor do they include data on complaints against tribunal members or lay magistrates. In addition, complaints received by the JCU were recorded by calendar year, whereas complaints received by the OJC are recorded by financial year in order to tie in with the business planning and resource cycles. Direct comparison between JCU and OJC statistics are therefore not possible.
The first table details the number of complaints and inquiries received by the JCU for each year from 2002 to 2005. The second table details the number of complaints received by the OJC during financial year 2006-07.
| Complaints and inquiries received by the JCU | |
A further 246 complaints were received by the JCU between January and April 2006.
| Complaints received by the OJC | |
National Offender Management Service
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how prison and probation service property is defined; and what the value of that property is. [181939]
Mr. Hanson: Prison and Probation Service property is valued (and therefore defined) in line with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ and government accounting guidance. The net value of the prison and probation land and buildings (including private finance initiative premises and excluding construction work in progress) held on the NOMS asset register at the 31 March 2007 was £6,351 million.
National Offender Management Service: Accountancy
Mr. Gerrard:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what annual cost of depreciation is used for accounting purposes at the National Offender Management
Service (NOMS); what formula is used to calculate it; and whether depreciation is accounted for as a current cost in NOMS. [181938]
Mr. Hanson: The element of depreciation relating to NOMS for 2006-07 was £202.8 million. Land and buildings are valued at current value and other operational assets at open market value and depreciation is calculated on a straight line basis. Depreciation rates are based on asset lives which vary dependant upon the asset. The depreciation charge is included in NOMS’ resource expenditure, i.e. a current cost.
Offenders: Databases
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many individual offender records of individuals in prison or on probation were held on electronic databases in each of the last six years. [182108]
Mr. Hanson: All offenders in prison or under probation service supervision will be recorded on prison and probation administrative IT systems. The table shows (a) the prison population as at 30 June each year and (b) the number of offenders under probation service supervision in the community as at 31 December each year in England and Wales 2002-07:
| Probation supervision | |||
| Prison population | Court orders | Persons supervised under post-release | |
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Prison Accommodation
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many new prison places he plans to provide in 2008; in which prison each new place will be located; what type of structure each cell will be; what the life expectancy of each cell provided will be; and what the average cost of building each place is estimated to be; [178753]
(2) how many new prison places became operational in 2007; in which prison each place was located; what type of structure each cell was; what the life expectancy of each cell is; and what the average cost of building each place was. [178754]
Mr. Straw: New prison places delivered during 2007 as part of the Prison Capacity Programme are listed in the following table.
| Location | Places | Construction type | Lifetime (Years) |
The new places planned for 2008 are listed in the following table. The programme of delivery may be subject to change.
| Location | Places | Construction type | Lifetime (Years) |
| (1) Delivered in January 2008. | |||
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