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The Department of Health DEL has increased by £26,403,000 made up of:
the take-up of £3,000,000 (administration costs) end year flexibility as announced in the provisional outturn White Paper (Cm 7419);
£30,000 (£-200,000 capital) for adjustments to Invest to Save budget awards;
a net transfer of £296,000 (administration costs) from the Cabinet Office for services of the Parliamentary Counsel, offset by funding for the centre of expertise for sustainable procurement (Administration Cost Limit);
a transfer of £-16,000 (administration costs) to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills for the skills training strategy. (Administration Cost Limit);
a net transfer of £-5,025,000 to the Department for Children, Schools and Families mainly for substance misuse funding offset by a grant for the child migrant trusts;
a net transfer of £28,318,000 with the Ministry of Justice mainly for adjustments to prison healthcare budgets offset by funding for mental health review tribunals; and
a transfer of £-200,000 to the Statistics Board for information on migration statistics.
In addition, there is movement from the revenue to capital DEL of £200,000,000 to allow for increased capital investment in the NHS.
The Department of Health’s administration cost limit has increased by £3,280,000 as described above.
The change to the Food Standards Agency element of the DEL is due to:
a transfer of £450,000 from programme into capital; and
reinstatement of £700,000 non-cash budget to the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement position.
Home Department
Policing - Publication of Reports by Sir David Normington and Jan Berry
The Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing (Mr. Vernon Coaker): I am today placing in the House Library two reports that were published on Monday 16 February 2009 which form an important part of our overall approach to removing unnecessary bureaucracy in policing. These are “Reducing the Data Burden on Police Forces in England and Wales” by Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, and the interim report by Jan Berry, the new independent Reducing Bureaucracy Advocate, entitled “Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing”.
On the same day the Home Secretary announced the next step in common sense policing, by scrapping a police timesheet freeing up an estimated 260,000 police hours to focus on cutting crime and driving up public confidence. Police officers will no longer have to complete an annual analysis form accounting for their activity—a step which alone frees up approximately 150 extra officers and staff.
Both these documents form part of our overall approach to reducing the burdens placed on police forces and reforming processes to free up officers to deal with the issues that matter to people. The Government have rightly committed themselves to freeing up police time to work with communities to tackle the issues that matter to local people. This involves cutting red tape
and dramatically reducing administrative tasks that can take up so much time—including the collection of data by the Home Office and others. This agenda was at the heart of the Policing Green Paper, “From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our Communities Together”, published in July last year.
The Green Paper set out a clear commitment to reduce the data collection burden placed on police forces in England and Wales and Sir David Normington’s review sets out how the Green Paper’s commitment to reduce by up to 50 per cent. the amount of data collected by the Home Office is to be achieved.
His review contains a number of important proposals, most of which can be implemented in the short term, for:
cutting out altogether or significantly reducing 36 data streams;
ending activity-based costing—which alone will free up an estimated 260,000 police hours;
a reduction in ad hoc data requests from the Home Office;
a two-year moratorium on requests for new data collection; and
a “gateway” process to limit requests that fall outside the annual data requirement.
A new “data hub” will further reduce the burden on police forces, dispensing with 40 per cent. of data requests from the Home Office. Taken together these measures will significantly reduce the central data burden imposed by the Home Office and its agencies.
The Home Office is also streamlining the performance management arrangements for police forces by removing police targets and replacing them with a new single top-down target on confidence. We are also continuing to invest in technology to allow officers to spend more time on patrol. We have now committed £80 million to delivering an ambitious target to put in place 30,000 mobile data devices by March 2010, and the second round of funding awards was announced on 29 December 2008.
The delivery of these mobile devices to the front line will save an individual police officer up to 30 minutes per shift.
We also used last year’s Green Paper to respond to the recommendations made by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his hugely important “Review of Policing”. It is now almost one year on from the publication of Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s recommendations and we have made considerable progress in implementing them. Nineteen of his 59 recommendations have already been implemented and the remaining are well on track to be delivered.
One of the most significant changes we have made is allowing forces to scrap the stop and account form, which if implemented by all forces could save the service up to 690,000 hours each year.
To build on the progress we have made, we have now appointed Jan Berry as the new independent Reducing Bureaucracy Advocate to provide a national lead across all the work under way to reduce bureaucracy.
In her report Jan Berry recognises the amount of work being undertaken across Government and the police service to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and the benefits that are already being delivered. Examples include the streamlined processes project in the four force pilot areas (Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Surrey
and the West Midlands), the digital recording of interviews in Lancashire and the use of electronic file-building in the West Midlands.
Jan Berry’s full report will be published later in the year but her initial findings and recommendations are now being considered by the Government and include:
support for scrapping time-sheets for police officers;
reviewing working practices within forces to simplify processes;
making more use of technology to free up officer time and maximising the use of existing airwave equipment; and
reviewing charging practices to reduce unnecessary burdens on officers and help them to use their discretion more.
Supported by a practitioner group made up of police officers and staff, Jan Berry is also looking in detail at the bureaucracy involved in 10 time-consuming policing processes in order to identify where further savings can be made.
There is more to be done, both within the police service and the Home Office, and we all must actively encourage police forces to share good practice and work collaboratively to adopt measures to reduce bureaucracy.
The Home Office will continue to play its part to drive this important reform and I am encouraged by the progress we have made since the publication of the Green Paper last July.
Justice
Parole Board (Appointment of Chairman)
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): I have appointed Sir David Latham to be chairman of the Parole Board from 25 February 2009 for a period of 12 months. He succeeds Sir Duncan Nichol in this role.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Shaun Woodward): On 18 November, an historic agreement was announced by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister setting out a process which would pave the way to the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The agreement, and the subsequent report of the Assembly and Executive Review Committee on the modalities of devolution contained a number of significant decisions on the shape of the post-devolution framework for the administration of policing and justice in Northern Ireland.
The Government are committed to helping to move the process forward in whatever way they can.
I am therefore today introducing a Bill to Parliament to give effect to those elements of the November statement and the AERC report that require primary legislation.
The Bill does not provide for when devolution will happen, nor does it provide for what is to devolve—both of these still require further consideration by the parties and ultimately by Parliament.
It does however provide a framework for the post-devolution administration of justice by providing for a new ministerial model which the Assembly can use to set up a new Department of Justice.
It also provides for certain functions in relation to judicial appointments and removals to rest with the Judicial Appointments Commission rather than the First and Deputy First Ministers.
In addition, later this week I will be laying an Order under section 17(4) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to increase the maximum number of ministerial offices to 11. This will enable the Assembly to give effect to the recommendation of the AERC report that a Department with policing and justice functions should be established as an additional Department to the existing Departments which make up the Northern Ireland Executive.
The Assembly is currently prevented from establishing an additional Department by section 17 of the Northern Ireland Act which limits the number of ministerial offices to ten.
Separately I will also commence a number of provisions under the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions)
Act 2006 and the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. This will ensure that when the Northern Ireland Assembly makes a decision to legislate to set up the new Department of Justice it has a full range of options to choose from.
There are still important decisions to be taken by the Northern Ireland Assembly on the timing of devolution and on what functions they wish to see devolve.
However, these measures provide the framework for those decisions to be taken and represent another significant step for Northern Ireland on the path to the completion of devolution.
Solicitor-General
Spring Supplementary Estimate 2008-09
The Solicitor-General (Vera Baird): Subject to parliamentary approval of any necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Attorney-General’s total DEL will be increased by £19,703,000 from £740,920,000 to £760,623,000. Within the total DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are set out in the following table:
| Change | New DEL | £'000 | |||
| Voted | Non-voted | Voted | Non-voted | Total | |
| (1) The total of ‘Administration budget’ and ‘Near-cash in Resource DEL’ figures may well be greater than total Resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping. (2) Capital DEL includes items treated as resource in Estimates and accounts but which are treated as Capital DEL in budgets. (3) Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting. | |||||
The Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) element of the Attorney-General’s total DEL will be increased by £4,114,000 from £636,325,000 to £648,559,000.
Changes in CPS’s near-cash Resource DEL arise from:
Budgetary transfers from the Ministry of Justice totalling £2,769,000 consisting of:
£2,600,000 from the Victim Surcharge Collections
£169,000 to help fund the Liverpool Community Justice Centre
A budgetary transfer to the Ministry of Justice of £130,000 to support theVirtual Courts pilot scheme
The draw down of £650,000 from End Year Flexibility to increase spending on the prosecution of criminal cases
The take-up of agreed allocation from the Modernisation fund of £825,000 consisting of:
£500,000 to develop the Advocacy Strategy
£325,000 to develop leadership and management
The CPS administration budget increases from £56,002,000 to £56,352,000 due to the take-up of £325,000 modernisation funding to develop leadership and management.
The Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO) element of the Attorney-General’s total DEL will be increased by £14,089,000 from £44,094,000 to £58,183,000. This will enable repayment of the Contingency Fund advance as set out in the Ministerial Statement of 12 February 2009.
The changes in the SFO’s near-cash resource DEL arise from:
Blockbuster Funding: £5.9 million Expenditure
An increase of £1,940,000 from our Ring Fenced Blockbuster Reserve for Oil for Food case.
An increase of £3,900,000 from our Ring Fenced Blockbuster Reserve for the Holbein and ICG Blockbuster Reserve.
Transformation Funding: £8.2 million Expenditure
The take up of £4,300,000 Programme resource End Year Flexibility.
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