| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
16 Dec 2008 : Column 569W—continued
Legal Aid Scheme
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much funding has been provided for legal aid in each of the last five years; and how many individuals received legal aid in each such year. [242416]
Bridget Prentice: The information requested for each of the last five years is set out in the following table, taken from the Legal Services Commission’s annual reports. The figures exclude release of provision on dormant cases and charges for bad debt. The LSC’s management information system records acts of assistance rather than the number of individuals assisted. Some individuals may have received more than one act of assistance during the year and some acts of assistance may help more than one person.
| Resource expenditure (£ million) | Acts of assistance ( T housand) | |
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the average cost of providing legal aid was in relation to a (a) civil and (b) housing repossession case in the latest period for which figures are available. [242417]
Bridget Prentice: The average cost of civil representation cases before income(1) was £5,520 in 2007-08. The average cost of Legal Help by solicitors in 2007-08 was £265.The figures relate to cases that were closed in the year and include VAT.
The average cost of civil representation housing possession cases before income(1) was £2,200 in 2007-08. This excludes cases that have been settled.
The average cost of Legal Help in housing possession cases was £200 in 2007-08. The figures relate to cases that were closed in the year and include VAT.
(1) The figure shows the total amount that the LSC has paid for the case. The figure does not cover any of the money that the LSC will receive back as income, for example from costs and contributions.
National Offender Management Service Board
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will appoint a (a) director of mental health, (b) director of women's prisons, (c) director of education and (d) director of programmes to the National Offender Management Service Board. [243587]
Mr. Hanson: Offenders' mental health, education and programme needs and delivery, as well as women's prisons issues are already represented at director level on the National Offender Management Service Agency Board.
National Offender Management Service: Per Capita Costs
Willie Rennie: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much the National Offender Management Service spent per meal on inmates in HM Prisons in the latest year for which figures are available. [244136]
Mr. Hanson: For 2007-08, the last full financial year for which figures are available, the average public sector Prison Service daily food cost per prisoner in England and Wales was £2.12.
No discrete cost data are held centrally for each meal but we estimate that for breakfast, lunch and dinner the approximate breakdown of the daily food cost is 20 per cent., 40 per cent. and 40 per cent. respectively. This calculates as follows:
| £ | |
This estimate will vary between establishments and actual costs will be dependant on local regimes.
Offenders: Rehabilitation
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost of administering offending behaviour programmes was (a) in prison and (b) on probation in each of the last five years, broken down by type of programme. [243288]
Mr. Hanson: Funding for the delivery of accredited offending behaviour programmes in custody is built into prison baselines and it is not possible accurately to disaggregate the cost of this work. The National Offender Management Service is currently undertaking a specifications, benchmarking and costings exercise which will provide accurate costings of the interventions delivered.
The additional funding allocated for accredited drug rehabilitation programmes is given in the following table:
| Drug rehabilitation programmes | |
| £ million | |
Probation Boards fund the cost of providing programmes for offenders in the community through their main grant. Data are available only on the allocation of funds to deliver programmes to offenders under probation supervision which is set out in the following table:
| £ million | |
There is no information relating to expenditure for years leading up to 2005.
Prison Service: Conditions of Employment
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what change to manager posts is proposed under the Prison Service's Workforce Modernisation proposals; and how many (a) governor grade and (b) operational manager posts are to be affected. [242442]
Mr. Hanson: As part of the drive to deliver efficiency savings and improve the way in which the agency delivers its business, the Workforce Modernisation Programme proposes to streamline the number of management layers in establishments and reduce the number of managers by 1,100 over a period of five years. This will be achieved by setting a management benchmark at area level. There will be no need to impose compulsory redundancies to achieve this benchmark.
Workforce modernisation will also develop the capability of managers by clarifying their role, responsibilities, development opportunities and career progression arrangements. This modernisation will be implemented alongside new pay and grading arrangements to ensure that staff are paid fairly for the work that they do.
Prison Service: Industrial Relations
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many staff grievances were lodged at each prison establishment in England and Wales in each of the last five years for which figures are available. [244031]
Mr. Hanson: The National Offender Management Service does not hold the information centrally in the format requested. This could be obtained only at disproportionate cost through contact with each of the 138 prisons across the service.
Prison Service: Manpower
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has undertaken of the potential effect on the safety and stability of prisons of proposed changes in governor grade and operational manager posts in the Prison Service under the workforce modernisation proposals. [242443]
Mr. Hanson: Extensive engagement with staff, including governors and area managers, has led to the development of a set of proposals which the NOMS Board—including the chief operating officer—are satisfied will deliver more efficient ways of working while maintaining the current levels of safety and stability in establishments.
Prison Service: Sick Leave
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many working days were lost due to staff sickness in the Prison Service in the last five years for which figures are available; and what estimate he has made of the consequential cost to the Prison Service in each of those years. [242066]
Mr. Hanson: The following table contains information on the total number of working days lost to the public sector Prison Service through sickness absence in each year since 2003-04. The table also shows the average number of working days lost per employee of the public sector Prison Service during the same period. An estimate has been made of the overall cost of absence (at 2007 prices) for the public sector.
Sickness absence accounted for 5.3 per cent. of all available working days in the public sector Prison Service in 2007-08. 41 per cent. of Prison Service staff had no sickness absence in the 12 months to June 2008. Sickness absence rates have fallen by 12 per cent. since 2003-04 and by 20 per cent. since 2002. The reduction in absence rates since 2003-04 has saved an estimated £10.8 million.
Information has not been provided for the privately contracted prisons. As private companies, the contractors bear the costs of their staff sickness. The costs do not fall on public funds.
| Total working days lost and cost of sickness absence in the public sector Prison Service, 2003-04 to 2007-08 | |||
| Working days lost | Average working days lost | Estimated cost( 1 ) (£ million) | |
| (1) The cost of a day is estimated as £132.62. This does not include other costs associated with sickness absence. | |||
Prisoners
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners on average were serving sentences of (a) less than three months, (b) between three and six months and (c) between six and 12 months in each of the last five years. [243281]
Mr. Hanson: The requested information for all prison establishments in England and Wales as at 30 June each year can be found in the following table:
| Total | Less than or equal to 3 months | Greater than 3 and less than or equal to 6 months | Greater than 6 months and less than 12 months | Greater than or equal to 12 months | |
These figures are a reworking of figures which are available at the website:
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Prisoners Release
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many sentenced foreign prisoners were released from prisons in England and Wales in the last 12 months. [244479]
Mr. Hanson: During 2007, the latest year for which the requested information is available, there were some 7,400 foreign national prisoners released from prison establishments in England and Wales. This includes those who were subsequently deported. Over 4,200 were deported or removed in 2007.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing so the figure given has been rounded.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |