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7 May 2008 : Column 979W—continued
Criminal Proceedings: Genetics
Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what research his Department (a) has commissioned and (b) plans to commission on the use of DNA mixtures evidence in court proceedings; [201451]
(2) what guidance his Department has issued to the courts on the use of low-tech DNA evidence in cases before the courts. [201452]
Maria Eagle: The Ministry of Justice has not commissioned any research on the use of DNA mixtures evidence in criminal proceedings, and has no plans to do so. Nor is it our practice to issue guidance to the courts on how to evaluate the admissibility of different kinds of evidence. However, the Independent Forensic Science Regulator will shortly be publishing a full response to the independent review “A Review of the Science of Low Template DNA Analysis”, which recommended the development of guidance on DNA technology for the use of participants in the criminal justice system generally. Furthermore, guidance on low copy number DNA evidence was issued jointly by the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Interim Forensic Science Regulator to Crown prosecutors on 28 January 2008. It is available on the CPS website at:
Departmental Closed Circuit Television
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent assessment he has made of the extent to which closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) operated (a) by and (b) on behalf of his Department comply (i) with the Data Protection Act 1998, (ii) the CCTV Code of Practice published by the Information Commissioner and (iii) relevant BSI standards. [203246]
Mr. Wills: All CCTV systems installed in Ministry of Justice buildings are required to comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act and the CCTV Code of Practice published by the Information Commissioner, which has been adopted by the Ministry. MOJ CCTV systems are not currently required to conform with recently published BSI standards on digital CCTV recording, which are not a mandatory requirement. The Ministry's policy on CCTV compliance is reviewed bi-annually; the next review is due to be undertaken in December 2008.
Departmental Contracts
Mr. Pickles:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2008 to the hon. Member for Fareham, Official Report, columns 1170-74W, on departmental contracts, to which property or properties the expenditure on GVA Grimley related;
and what the conclusion of the non-domestic rating challenge was. [202814]
Maria Eagle: The expenditure on GVA Grimley related to their work, during 2007-08 in challenging National Non Domestic Rating assessments on the following properties:
Barnet Magistrates Court
Bristol Greyfriars
Bury County Court
Cambridge Magistrates Court
HMCS NE Regional Directors Office
Manchester County Court
Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court
N and W Greater Manchester MCC Offices
Northampton Bulk Issue Centre
Nuneaton County Court
Royal Courts of Justice
Stourbridge County Court.
The rating challenge exercise resulted in savings in rates payments of £567,908 recovered in 2007-08, with continuing savings of £418,303 per annum.
Departmental Freedom of Information
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many freedom of information requests made to his Department were (a) answered (i) within 20 days, (ii) within 40 days, (iii) within 60 days, (iv) after 60 days, (b) not answered and (c) answered citing an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as a reason not to provide the requested information in each year since the Act came into force. [201721]
Mr. Wills: The Ministry of Justice has published two annual reports
containing statistical information on freedom of information requests received by monitored bodies (including central government departments) in 2005 and 2006. These reports can be found at the following address:
The 2007 annual report is currently being drafted for publication in June 2008. However, statistics on requests received in each quarter of 2007 have been published and can be found via my Department's website:
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires public bodies to respond to written requests within 20 working days of receipt, but allows additional time for the consideration of the public interest in disclosing the requested information.
The published reports provide statistics on the number of "non-routine" requests received during each period where: an initial response was provided within 20 working days; an initial response was given outside this time but a public interest test extension had been applied; an initial response was given outside this time and no public interest test extension was applied, and where no initial response had been given at the time the statistics were collected.
The 2006 annual report provides statistics on the duration of the public interest test extensions in that year. Corresponding statistics for 2007 will be available when the 2007 annual report is published.
Information requests where deadlines were extended beyond 40 days is not collected in the form requested; however the proportion of resolvable requests the Department answered "in time" (i.e. meeting the deadline or with a permitted extension) in 2007 was 89 per cent.
For 2005 and 2006, the reports show the number of requests received by the Department which were withheld, either in full or in part, where an FOI exemption or EIR exception was applied. For 2007, the number of such requests was 176, based on aggregated quarterly statistics from 2007. Requests withheld solely under the exemption applicable to 'information
available by other means' are not included; statistics on these are not collected centrally because they are dealt with as routine business.
Figures prior to 9 May 2007 are for requests made to the DCA.
Departmental Public Participation
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 22 April 2008, Official Report, column 2012W, on departmental public participation, how many responses were received for each (a) survey, (b) questionnaire and (c) other service. [203102]
Mr. Wills: The information requested is detailed in the following table.
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