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21 Jan 2009 : Column 1557W—continued
Legal Aid Scheme
Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the merits of reducing the interest rate applied to statutory charges for legal-aided clients. [248682]
Mr. Malik: The Department is currently considering the merits of altering the interest rate applied to the statutory charge.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many times the interest on Legal Services Commission charges has been reviewed and changed to reflect the economic climate in the last five years. [248341]
Mr. Malik: The statutory charge interest rate has been reviewed once in the last five years. The rate was changed in 2005.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people have had a Legal Services Commission legal aid charge postponed and attached to their property after a family proceeding in the last three years. [248342]
Mr. Malik: At 31 March 2008, there were 8,253 open statutory charges that had been postponed and attached to a property after a family proceeding between 2005-06 and 2007-08. Each statutory charge relates to a case rather than a person.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether the Government plan to reduce the interest rate applied to legal aid charges to the Legal Services Commission to reflect Bank of England interest rate reductions. [248345]
Mr. Malik: The Department is currently considering the merits of altering the interest rate applied to the statutory charge.
National Offender Management Service: Manpower
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many (a) former Probation Service and (b) former Prison Service staff by grade are working in the Financial Management Unit under the auspices of the Chief Operating Officer at the National Offender Management Service; [248461]
(2) how many former (a) Probation Service and (b) Prison Service staff of each grade are working in the (i) Office of Information and Technology, (ii) Office of Financial Control and Accountancy, (iii) Office of Shared Services, (iv) Commercial and Competitions Unit, (v) Audit and Corporate Assurance Office, (vi) Strategy and Effectiveness Group, (vii) Programme and Project Services Group and (viii) Procurement Group under the auspices of the Director of Finance and Performance at the National Offender Management Service; [248462]
(3) how many former (a) Probation Service and (b) Prison Service staff of each grade are working in the (i) Estates Planning and Development Group under the auspices of the Director of Capacity Programme and
(ii) Safer Custody and Offender Policy Group under the auspices of the Director of Commissioning and Operational Policy at the National Offender Management Service; [248463]
(4) how many staff of each grade working in National Offender Management Service headquarters previously worked for the (a) Probation Service and (b) Prison Service; [248464]
(5) how many former (a) Probation Service staff and (b) Prison Service staff of each grade are working in the office of the (i) Chief Operating Officer, (ii) Finance and Performance, (iii) Human Resources, (iv) the Capacity Programme, (v) Commissioning and Operating Policy, (vi) the office of the Director of Offender Health, (vii) the office of National Commissioning under the auspices of the Chief Operating Officer and (viii) the office of Performance Delivery under the auspices of the Chief Operating Officer at the National Offender Management Service. [248465]
Mr. Malik:
Information on the number of former probation and prison staff that are now employed by
each directorate, headquarters group and the National Offender Management Service Headquarters broken down by grade, is contained in the following tables.
The information includes a number of staff (792) who are employed in the units specified who were neither former Prison Service or Probation Service staff. These staff were previously employed in the former NOMS HQ.
The new NOMS HQ was formed from all staff from the National Probation Directorate and Prison Service Headquarters, as well as staff from the former NOMS HQ. Inevitably the majority were former Prison Service staff. This is because the Probation Service headquarters was significantly smaller as many staff are employed in probation boards and trusts. What matters is that all employees in NOMS HQ recognise that they are now working for a new agency and whatever their past employment history they are focused on public protection and reducing re-offending through integrated offender management.
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