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7 May 2008 : Column 925W—continued
Territorial Army: Officers
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Territorial Army officers there were in each year since 1997. [203213]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The data provided have been extracted from Tri-Service Publication 7; the following table shows the strengths of Territorial Army officers as at 1 April 1997 to 2007.
| Officer strength | |
| (1) 2007 data are as at 1 March. Due to the ongoing validation of the new Joint Personnel Administration System Territorial Army Officer data from April 2007 are currently unavailable. Notes: 1. Officer figures from April 1998 to April 2004 are provisional estimates which include Full Time Reserve Service Personnel. 2. TA Officers include Group A and B, Mobilised TA, and excludes Non-Regular Permanent Staff (from 1998) and Full Time Reserve Service. 3. Data have been rounded to the nearest ten for statistical analysis and presentation purposes only. 4. Numbers ending in five have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to avoid systematic bias. | |
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many officers in the Territorial Army qualified for their annual bounty in each year since 1997. [203214]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The information is not held in the format requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Weather: Forecasts
Mr. David Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the accuracy of weather forecasts provided by the Meteorological Office in respect of each region of the UK; and what plans he has to improve the accuracy of such forecasts. [201479]
Derek Twigg: The accuracy of weather forecasts provided by the Met Office is assessed through its performance in achieving its forecast accuracy key performance target (KPT). The KPT includes elements that measure the accuracy of forecasts for precipitation and maximum and minimum temperatures for 11 locations throughout the UK. The annual targets for these elements, which are agreed by me and laid before Parliament, have been met in each year since they were introduced in 2005.
Performance against the KPT is reflective of the continuous improvement in forecast accuracy made by the Met Office over the last twenty years. Today's
forecasts for three days ahead are more accurate than forecasts for one day ahead 20 years ago.
The government provides the Met Office with significant funding to support its activities. MOD, for example, is planning to invest £30 million in new, state-of-the-art super-computers. While investment in supercomputing is not the only factor in improving the accuracy of weather forecasts, it is significant as it underpins, amongst other things, the production of more accurate local-scale forecasts.
Through increased supercomputing capability, the Met Office expects to make further substantial improvements in forecast accuracy over the coming years.
Northern Ireland
Crimes of Violence
Mr. Gregory Campbell:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many crimes of violence
against a person there were in each constituency in Northern Ireland in each of the last three years; and what each figure represents per thousand of the population. [203437]
Paul Goggins: Tackling serious violent crime is a priority for the Government. Both the NIO’s public service agreement to “Make Communities Safer” and this year’s Policing Plan contain targets aimed at reducing the level of these kinds of offences.
The Chief Constable has provided the following information:
“The three tables below reflect the number of violent crimes by offence and rates per 1000 population”.
| Violent crime by parliamentary constituency, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 and rates per 1,000 population | |||||||||
| 2004-05 | 2004-05 rate per 1,000 population | ||||||||
| Offences against the person | Sexual offences | Robbery | Total violent crime | 2004 mid-year population estimate | Offences against the person | Sexual offences | Robbery | Total violent crime | |
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