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Departmental Public Participation

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 7 May 2008, Official Report, columns 982-3W, on departmental public participation, what action has been (a) taken or (b) planned as a result of the findings of each (i) survey, (ii) questionnaire and (iii) other service carried out in 2007-08. [205448]

Bridget Prentice: Pursuant to the answer of 7 May 2008, Official Report, columns 982-83W, a list which contains details of the action taken or planned in each case has been placed in the Library.

Electoral Register: Freedom of Information

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether the marked electoral register is excluded from the disclosure provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; and if he will make a statement. [205649]

Bridget Prentice: The Freedom of Information Act provides a general right to access information held by public authorities, subject to certain exemptions. The right of access under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is supplementary to the very many ways in which public authorities already provide information to members of the public. Under regulations made under the Electoral Administration Act 2006, the marked electoral register is available for people to inspect for one year after polling day, under the supervision of the Electoral Registration Officer, for research or electoral purposes. Copies of the marked electoral register may be supplied to certain authorised persons and bodies for research or electoral purposes.

Ipsos MORI

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what payments his Department has made to Ipsos MORI since its establishment; and for what purposes. [205435]

Bridget Prentice: The following table shows departmental contracts with Ipsos MORI, with payment information and purpose, undertaken since 9 May 2007.

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Payments made by MOJ to Ipsos MORI since 9 May 2007
		Payments made (in total from 9 May 2007 to date)
Name of project	Purpose of project	Incl. VAT (£)	Excl. VAT (£)
HMCS Court User Survey	To elicit levels of court user satisfaction with standards or customer service and other key service issues across the High Court, the Crown, county and magistrates courts and associated offices.	(1)—	(1)—
Witness and Victim Experience Survey	To gather consistent and comparable local and national data on victim and witness satisfaction with criminal justice system agencies in cases that resulted in a prosecution.	(1)—	(1)—
Boosting public confidence in the CJS; inform, persuade	Study to test out the impact of a targeted communication activity upon improving public confidence	19,740	16,800
Nottingham Community Justice public opinion poll	Consultation to gauge public opinion of the criminal justice system in St. Ann’s and Aspley via two telephone survey waves	37,600	32,000
Survey on Tackling and Preventing Sexual Harassment	To provide detailed picture of the incidence and nature of sexual harassment amongst prison staff and to assist the Prison Service to deliver on its commitment to tackle inappropriate behaviour.	38,431	32,708
Tribunal Service Customer Expectation Survey	Survey originally in its third year of a contractual obligation with the former Appeals Service, it was adapted to cover a different purpose in testing customer perception and expectation across a number of jurisdictions.	43,475	37,000
Constitution Directorate tracker survey	Periodic “tracker” survey to monitor public knowledge and opinion on a range of issues related to constitution, democracy and rights	59,355	50,515
Customer Satisfaction questionnaire	To develop a questionnaire to survey complainants regarding customer satisfaction.	2,703	2,300
Stocktake of attitudinal data	To inform the development the Criminal Justice System Strategic Plan 2008-11 through review of research and other published evidence on public attitudes to the criminal justice system.	5,552	4,725
Beacon Approach Evaluation	To evaluate OCJR’s new approach to working with Local Criminal Justice Boards	63,897	54,380
General Public Awareness of the Mental Capacity Act (Capibus survey)	Determine baseline data on awareness of the Mental Capacity Act amongst the general public prior to implementation	26,179	22,280
Legal Professionals Awareness of the Mental Capacity Act (online survey)	Determine baseline data on awareness of the Mental Capacity Act among legal professionals prior to implementation	9,165	7,800
Health and Social Care Professionals Awareness of the Mental Capacity Act (paper survey)	Determine baseline data on awareness of the Mental Capacity Act among health and social care professionals prior to implementation	28,468	24,278
Office of Public Guardian and Court of Protection Customer Survey	To provide quantitative baseline data on Office of Public Guardian and Court services as perceived by users. The results for the initial baseline survey will establish where improvements can/need to be made and will lay foundations to make improvements to the Office of Public Guardian and Court services, in addition to setting an appropriate Key Performance Indicator target for customer satisfaction.	30,528	25,981
Young Witness Workshop (YWW)	Assistance in facilitating YWW	1,052	895
Statement of Purpose and DSO research	Testing of language and understanding of Departmental Strategic Objectives	36,660	31,200
Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction	To identify prisoners’ needs and problems upon reception, the training and programmes they receive while in prison, and outcomes upon release.	401,217	341,462
Secondary Analysis of 2005 Citizenship Survey	Development work with MOJ analysts and policy officials to identify need and scope for additional secondary data analysis of 2005 Citizenship Survey dataset possible research project	470	400
(1) Costing information is not supplied as this is commercial in confidence. This survey is subject to periodic re-tendering and release of the costings would weaken the Department’s negotiating position.

Life Imprisonment: Prisoners Release

Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 30 January 2008, Official Report, column 485W, on life imprisonment: prisoners release, and with reference to the answer of 12 June 2006, Official Report, column 1035W, on life sentences, for what reasons it was not possible to provide the information requested. [205100]

Mr. Hanson: To provide the information requested would require data matching between different sources of information, and manual checking of individual records which could be carried out only at disproportionate cost. Data migration for the Department's new database is currently under way and will be subject to data quality assurance. I will write to the hon. and learned Member within the next few weeks, to provide the information that will be available from it, where relevant.

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Prisoners: Uniforms

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what guidance is in place on the wearing of uniforms by prisoners; and if he will make a statement. [205812]

Mr. Hanson: Prison rules allow unconvicted prisoners and civil prisoners to wear their own clothes. Other prisoners are required to wear clothing provided for them; however PSO 4000 provides guidance on the wearing of own clothes which is one of the key earnable privileges in the incentives and earned privilege scheme.

Prisons: Audio Equipment

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what guidance is in force on the use of personal music systems by prisoners, with particular reference to permissible volume levels. [205810]

Mr. Hanson: Guidance on prisoners' in-possession property is contained in PSO 1250 (a copy of which is in the Library) dependent on the local incentives and earned privileges scheme. Prisoners may be allowed to have in their possession a personal music system. This is at the discretion of the Governor dependant on good behaviour under the local incentives and earned privileges scheme. There is no central guidance with regard to permissible volume levels. It is a matter for local management and the discretion of staff to ensure that music does not disturb other prisoners, especially at night.

Prisons: Islam

Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what institutional arrangements are in place for the aftercare of Muslim prisoners. [205894]

Mr. Straw: All prisoners who serve 12 months or more are subject to a period of statutory supervision on release. Those sentenced to any period in custody who are under 21 years at the point of release will also be supervised by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) on a standard three-month licence.

Prisoners on licence are seen by NOMS who assess and manage their risk and needs, such as accommodation, relationships, lifestyle, etc. The religious needs of prisoners are considered and treated with respect. Supervision is conducted in a way that is consistent with and responsive to the religious affiliation of the offender, and appointments are arranged at times that do not prevent attendance at religious events.

Prisons: Television

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many television sets are available for use by prisoners in prisons in England and Wales; and at what cost. [205811]

Mr. Straw: The provision of televisions to prisoners has been devolved to Governors and Directors of contracted prisons, and therefore the total number of televisions available for use by prisoners is not held centrally. Public funds are not used to support the
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purchase of television sets used in cells. These costs are covered by the weekly rental paid by prisoners for the use of the sets. A cell television is only available through the incentives and earned privileges scheme.

Probation

Mr. David Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether he has received a copy of the Centre for Crime and Justice's report on probation resources, staffing and workloads from 2001 to 2008; and if he will make a statement. [204585]

Mr. Hanson: I have received a copy of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies' Report (Probation Resources Staffing and Workloads 2001-2008) from Judy McKnight (General Secretary of NAPO).

Earlier in the year, I announced an extra £40 million funding for the NFS. This was in addition to an extra average of 2.7 per cent. budget for each probation area and an average increase of 5.4 per cent. in respect of approved premises. Officials are working closely with NAPO and the other NFS trade unions on the broad issue of capacity and workloads.

Home Department

Acceptable Behaviour Contracts

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent estimate she has made of the breach rate of acceptable behaviour contracts issued to persons under 18 years of age in the latest period for which figures are available. [195646]

Mr. Coaker: Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) are voluntary agreements and therefore not suitable for central data collection. A National Audit Office (NAO) report published in December 2006 found ABCs to be highly effective, particularly when agencies provided support to improve the recipient’s chances of meeting the conditions.

Anti-Social Behaviour Orders: North West

Mark Hunter: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many antisocial behaviour orders were breached in each parliamentary constituency in the north-west in each year since 1997. [205630]

Mr. Coaker: Antisocial behaviour orders (ASBOs) became available in April 1999. Information on the number of ASBOs breached is not collected centrally at parliamentary constituency level and not compiled below Criminal Justice System (CJS) area level.

Currently, ASBO breach data are available for ASBOs breached between 1 June 2000 and 31 December 2006.

The number of ASBOs breached in each year in each CJS area within the north-west region is shown in the following table. Please note that the table takes the data from those shown in Table 7 as published on the Crime Reduction website.

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