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17 Mar 2008 : Column 882W—continued
“...additional resources have been allocated to probation, which will have the immediate effect of securing additional staff. This additional resource is specifically to promote community orders as an alternative wherever possible to short prison sentences.”
This £40 million was released to probation areas on 11 March and was in addition to the 2.3 per cent. already agreed as an increase for the financial year 2008-09.
Mike Wood: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many trainee probation officers from cohort 8 who qualified in September 2007 have not been offered employment; [194094]
(2) how many trainee probation officers from cohort 9 who are expected to qualify in September 2008 he expects will not be offered employment; [194095]
(3) how many trainee probation officers from cohort 10 who are expected to qualify in September 2009 he expects will not be offered employment; [194096]
(4) how many trainee probation officers there are in each of cohorts (a) eight, (b) nine and (c) 10; [194139]
(5) what was or will be the cost of training a probation officer in (a) cohort 8 (b) cohort 9 and (c) cohort 10. [194140]
Mr. Hanson: A breakdown of the number of trainees who have qualified or are expected to qualify in cohorts 8, 9 and 10 is contained in the following table. The table also details the number of students not offered permanent contracts as probation officers (POs) and the cost per student.
In cohort 8, 60 (13 per cent.) newly qualified POs were not offered permanent jobs as probation officers. Of these 60 trainee graduates, 35 have been offered other employment within the Nation Probation Service including fixed term PO contracts, PSO roles pending a PO vacancy or other roles within the service. 25 have left the service (some by their own volition despite being offered employment as POs).
A further 10 TPOs who qualified were originally offered temporary PO contracts which have now been made permanent.
Cohort 9 TPOs will qualify in September 2008 and cohort 10 will qualify in September 2009. For these cohorts is not yet possible to be specific about how many will be offered permanent employment as probation officers.
In a letter to Chief Probation Officers on 7 November 2007 Roger Hill, Director of Probation made explicit his expectation that areas would employ their graduating TPOs. This was reiterated in a subsequent letter on 22 February 2008 in which he announced that
“...additional resources have been allocated to probation, which will have the immediate effect of securing additional staff.”
| Cohort | Number of TPOs | Number not offered permanent PO contract | Cost of training per student (cost include university admin cost) (£) |
Prosecutions: Harassment
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many successful prosecutions there have been for criminal harassment since 2000. [192501]
Maria Eagle: The number of persons found guilty at all courts for the offence “harassment of another”, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, s.2(l) and (2) in England and Wales for the years 2000 to 2006 can be found in the following table. This covers all forms of criminal harassment.
Court proceedings data for 2007 will be available in the autumn of 2008.
| N umber of defendants found guilty at all courts for the offence of harassment of another in England and Wales, for the years 2000 to 2006( 1,2,3,4) | |
| Found guilty | |
| (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) The data relate to the following statute: Protection from Harassment Act 1997, s.2(l) and (2) (3) Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. (4) 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: Court proceedings data held by RDS—Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Ministry of Justice | |
Public Order Offences: Young People
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he will publish data on the number of penalty notices for disorder issued to 10 to 15-year-olds in the six pilot police force areas; when the evaluation of the results of the pilot schemes commenced; and what steps he is taking to validate the evaluation process. [193840]
Mr. Hanson: The evaluation report will be published as soon as possible. The evaluation began once the pilots had concluded in July 2006. It is standard scientific practice for the validation of an evaluation to be undertaken by submitting the report to independent academic peer review. This was done and some amendments made to the material in line with the reviewer's comments.
Radio Frequency Identification: Privacy
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what guidance has been provided to public authorities by (a) central Government and (b) non-departmental public bodies on the privacy implications of using radio frequency identification chips. [193843]
Mr. Wills: No guidance has been issued by central Government to public authorities on the privacy implications of using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
In 2006, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) released two sets of guidance on this topic. One was aimed at individuals and the other at any business or organisation (public and private) that uses or is considering using the technology. In order to address any concerns about the impact on people's privacy, the guidance outlines the technology behind the tags, their current and potential uses, and how the Data Protection Act 1998 applies.
The guidance is available on the ICO’s website in its document library within the tools and resources section. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses with the permission of the ICO.
Trials: Newspaper Press
Mr. Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether he has made an assessment of the effect that the reporting of the outcome of trials in local newspapers has on deterring criminal activity. [192908]
Mr. Hanson: The Ministry of Justice has made no assessment of this. However, current knowledge suggests that a number of factors may be important in incentivising people not to commit crime:
1. The perceived likelihood of detection and apprehension;
2. The severity of sanction; and
3. An awareness on the part of offenders and potential offenders of 1 and 2 and their ability to act on these.
The most consistently reliable evidence suggests that the CJS most effectively deters crime by increasing the likelihood, or certainty, of punishment. It is therefore possible that reporting of the outcome of trials in the
local press could in principle act as a deterrent but there is no rigorous research to demonstrate this one way or the other.
Vandalism
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) arrests, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions there were for vandalism in (i) Ribble Valley constituency, (ii) Lancashire and (iii) England in each year since 2000. [193595]
Maria Eagle: The arrests collection undertaken by the Ministry of Justice provides data on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences), by age group, gender, ethnicity, and main offence group. Information is given in table 1 for Lancashire and England for the number of persons arrested for offences within the main offence group ‘criminal damage’.
Data showing the number of defendants proceeded against and found guilty of criminal damage are given in table 2. The Ministry of Justice is unable to identify cases involving vandalism since both the arrest and
court appearance collections are on an offence basis and do not identify the circumstances behind the offences.
Information is given in the tables for Lancashire and England. Data are not available at parliamentary constituency level.
| Table 1: N umber of persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) of criminal damage( 1) in Lancashire and England, by period | ||
| Period | Lancashire | England |
| (1) Includes indictable offences for criminal damage and summary offences of criminal damage, £5,000 or less. (2) Estimated. Note: Every effort is made to ensure that 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 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. | ||
| Table 2: Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrate s courts and found guilty at all courts of criminal damage( 1) in Lancashire and England, 2000 to 2006( 2) | ||
| Proceeded against | Found guilty | |
| (1) Includes indictable offences for criminal damage and summary offences of criminal damage, 5,000 or less, and in addition offences under section 19 of the Allotments Act 122. (2) These data are on the principal offence basis. Note: 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. | ||
Treasury
Bank Services: Liechtenstein
Bob Russell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has had with the authorities in Liechtenstein on identification of British citizens seeking to evade UK taxes; and if he will make a statement. [194939]
Jane Kennedy: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) on 13 March 2008, Official Report, column 541W.
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