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22 Feb 2008 : Column 1085W—continued

Police: Expenditure

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost of employing police officers was as a percentage of the total budget for each police force in England for each year since 1990. [176041]

Mr. McNulty: Data on the cost of employing police officers on a force by force basis going back to 1990 is not held centrally. Projected spend on police salaries, including overtime, national insurance contributions and employer’s pension contributions, in 2007-08, accounts for some 80 per cent. of overall projected gross police service revenue expenditure (including police staff, and based on Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy data).

Police: Finance

Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what advice her Department will give to police authorities on allocation of the surplus from the budget set aside to meet a 2.5 per cent. pay award for police officers from 1 September 2007. [179483]

Mr. McNulty: None. It is for police authorities to determine how they use the resources available to them to ensure the best possible service to the public.

Police: Interpreters and Translators

Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the average time (a) English speaking individuals and (b) non-English speaking individuals requiring interpreters were held in custody in the latest period for which figures are available, broken down by police force. [186136]

Mr. McNulty: This information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with reference to the answer of 12 December 2006, Official Report, column 1061W, on police interpreters, how much was spent on interpreters and translators by police forces in England and Wales in (a) 2003-04, (b) 2004-05, (c) 2005-06, (d) 2006-07 and (e) 2007-08 to date. [188086]

Mr. McNulty: This information is not collected centrally. Decisions on the distribution of resources are matters for the Chief Officer and the Police Authority.

22 Feb 2008 : Column 1086W

Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 26 November 2007, Official Report, column 192W, on police: interpreters and translators, if she will make it her policy to collect information on the amount spent by police forces on interpreters. [187842]

Mr. McNulty: There are no plans to collect this information centrally.

Police: Manpower

Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers there were in the Derbyshire Police Authority area in each year since 1997. [187035]

Mr. McNulty: The information requested is shown in the following table.

Police officer strength( 1) (FTE)( 2) in Derbyshire police force area , 31 March 1997 to 31 March 2007
As at 31 March:	Number
1997	1,791
1998	1,772
1999	1,759
2000	1,777
2001	1,823
2002	1,848
2003(3)	2,003
2004(3)	2,070
2005(3)	2,070
2006(3)	2,046
2007(3)	2,023
(1) This table contains full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items. (2) Full-time equivalent excludes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. (3) Comparable strength (excludes those on career breaks, or maternity/paternity leave). The Police Numbers Task Force (2001) recommended that a clear presentation was made of the numbers of staff employed by police forces including those seconded into the force and those on any type of long or short-term absence. These new calculations were first used in 2003, and are not comparable with data prior to March 2003. The data from 2003 onwards used here are termed comparable because they have been calculated on the old basis to allow comparison.

Police: Vehicles

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) injuries and (b) deaths were caused by accidents in which police vehicles were involved in each of the last 10 years, broken down by police force. [186467]

Mr. McNulty: The available information relates to the numbers of casualties and degree of injury from road traffic collisions resulting from immediate/emergency response and police pursuits on public roads involving all police forces in England and Wales.

These data have been collected centrally from 2002-03 and are provided in the following tables.

22 Feb 2008 : Column 1087W

22 Feb 2008 : Column 1088W

Number of casualties resulting from those road tra ffic accidents during immediate/ emergency response, from 2002-03 to 2006-07
	2002-03			2003-04			2004-05
	Fatal injury	Serious injury	Other injury	Fatal injury	Serious injury	Other injury	Fatal injury	Serious injury	Other injury
Avon and Somerset	2	7	53	2	6	74	0	9	52
Bedfordshire	0	2	16	1	1	56	1	1	27
Cambridgeshire	0	6	6	0	4	12	0	0	26
Cheshire	0	2	27	0	1	17	0	7	29
Cleveland	0	0	18	1	0	3	0	0	0
Cumbria	0	0	8	0	0	5	0	0	6
Derbyshire	0	0	38	0	1	25	1	0	35
Devon and Cornwall	0	1	26	1	1	64	0	0	18
Dorset	0	1	10	1	2	9	(1)—	(1)—	(1)—
Durham	0	1	41	2	1	36	0	1	26
Dyfed-Powys	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Essex	0	2	32	2	3	36	1	3	35
Gloucestershire	0	0	24	0	0	4	0	0	12
Greater Manchester	4	5	74	6	9	56	4	2	106
Gwent	0	0	12	0	0	24	0	0	5
Hampshire	1	7	29	0	3	7	0	0	7
Hertfordshire	0	6	59	0	2	16	0	5	61
Humberside	0	4	19	0	1	25	0	0	18
Kent	0	2	48	0	7	73	0	2	23
Lancashire	0	1	31	0	2	30	1	0	19
Leicestershire	1	2	15	0	2	16	(1)—	(1)—	(1)—
Lincolnshire	0	2	10	0	5	18	2	2	12
London, City of	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	1
Merseyside	3	3	62	3	6	75	0	3	58
Metropolitan Police	5	14	(1)—	4	21	600	4	23	724
Norfolk	1	1	17	1	1	28	0	6	26
Northamptonshire	0	1	14	1	6	19	0	4	22
Northumbria	0	3	62	0	3	70	3	13	94
North Wales	0	0	18	0	1	5	0	0	3
North Yorkshire	(1)—	(1)—	(1)—	0	2	13	0	2	7
Nottinghamshire	2	5	8	1	8	57	1	0	4
South Wales	0	0	20	0	0	9	0	0	0
South Yorkshire	0	3	24	0	12	67	2	10	83
Staffordshire	0	0	26	0	1	29	0	0	1
Suffolk	0	1	6	0	3	11	0	2	8
Surrey	0	2	40	1	2	33	0	1	31
Sussex	0	7	45	0	6	27	2	0	31
Thames Valley	3	13	115	2	11	122	0	6	71
Warwickshire	0	0	5	0	1	10	2	0	8
West Mercia	0	4	30	0	2	22	0	4	32
West Midlands	1	1	61	2	2	44	0	0	44
West Yorkshire	0	0	15	0	0	7	0	2	5
Wiltshire	0	0	8	0	0	4	0	0	11

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