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Antisocial Behaviour: Fixed Penalties

Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been issued with penalty notices for disorder in each of the last three years, broken down by type of offence; and how many remain unpaid. [262525]

Mr. Alan Campbell [holding answer 10 March 2009]: The number of penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) issued and not paid within the suspended enforcement period in England and Wales for each year from 2005 to 2007 (latest published), broken down by offence are in the following table. PND data for 2008 will be available in November 2009.

Under the PND scheme, recipients have 21 days in which either to pay the penalty or request a court hearing. If no action is taken, a fine of one and a half times the penalty amount is registered against an offender by the magistrates court. The overall fine payment rate at court is 85 per cent.; the courts fine registration system cannot differentiate between those fines arising from unpaid PNDs and any other fine.

Number of penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) issued to offenders of all ages and not paid( 1) , broken down by offence, in England and Wales, 2005 to 2007( 2)
	2005		2006		2007
Offence	Issued	Not paid	Issued	Not paid	Issued	Not paid
Wasting police time	2,525	1,326	3,933	2,022	3,966	2,104
Misuse of public telecommunications system	405	167	909	386	1,193	523
Giving false alarm to fire or rescue authority	92	43	106	63	96	41
Causing harassment, alarm and distress	64,007	30,092	82,235	39,115	77,827	37,470
Throwing fireworks	642	295	682	302	649	275
Drunk and disorderly	37,038	16,176	43,556	18,883	46,996	20,629
Criminal Damage (under £500)	12,168	5,172	20,620	9,269	19,946	8,874
Theft (retail under £200)	21,997	12,940	38,772	22,603	45,146	26,035
Breach of fireworks curfew	33	15	53	19	39	14
Possession of category 4 firework	13	8	28	16	22	12
Possession of adult firework by person under 18	47	18	76	25	106	39
Sale of alcohol to drunken person	32	8	47	12	81	17
Supply of alcohol to person under 18	3	1	60	7	54	13
Sale of alcohol to person under 18	2,058	253	3,195	439	3,583	509
Purchase alcohol for person under 18	170	64	407	139	555	235
Purchase alcohol for person under 18 for consumption on premises	83	24	60	21	64	33
Delivery of alcohol to person under 18 or allowing such delivery	209	81	297	121	431	163
Trespass on a railway	220	123	1,042	491	1,527	747
Throwing stones at a train/railway	20	7	15	9	25	12
Drunk in a highway	3,138	1,469	2,712	1,279	2,066	920
Consumption of alcohol in public place	712	544	1,061	809	1,544	1,216
Littering	737	369	1,169	576	1,374	669
Consumption of alcohol by person under 18 on relevant premises	84	18	75	20	85	18
Allowing consumption of alcohol by person under 18 on relevant premises	27	13	14	4	11	2
Buying or attempting to buy alcohol by person under 18	21	8	73	21	158	49
Total—all offences	146,481	69,234	201,197	96,651	207,544	100,619
(1) Not paid—not paid within the suspended enforcement period. (2 )Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. Source: Evidence and Analysis Unit—Office for Criminal Justice Reform

17 Mar 2009 : Column 1087W

Asylum: Repatriation

Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much her Department spent on the Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Programme in 2008. [263199]

Mr. Woolas: This information is currently not available as the cost of the 2008 Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Programme is subject to audit.

Asylum: Zimbabwe

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people from Zimbabwe who (a) have been and (b) have not been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK were held in immigration detention centres on 1 December 2008. [243485]

Jacqui Smith [holding answer 15 December 2008]: The UK Border Agency only detains those Zimbabwean nationals who have committed crimes within the United Kingdom and are subject to deportation action and have been assessed as unsuitable for release due to being either a threat to the public and/or are likely to abscond. During December 2008 there were around 35 Zimbabwean criminals who have been detained beyond their sentence.

All foreign criminals detained pending deportation action have their detention regularly reviewed and have the opportunity to apply for release on bail to the independent Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the Government will grant temporary leave to remain to refused Zimbabwean asylum seekers until it is safe for them to return home. [255892]

Jacqui Smith [holding answer 12 February 2009]: Following the recent Asylum and Immigration Tribunal country guidance judgment, all cases are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Those asylum seekers deemed to need protection will be granted it.

Where the independent courts have confirmed that it is safe for an individual to return home, we expect them to return home voluntarily. Hundreds of Zimbabweans have voluntarily returned home since we suspended enforced removals in September 2006.

Children: Chernobyl

Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions she has had with her Belarus counterpart on visits of children to the UK from Belarus. [263368]

Mr. Woolas: The Belarusian authorities have suspended visits to the UK by children from Chernobyl contaminated areas on charitable programmes. Negotiations are being carried out at official level on a bilateral arrangement that will allow the visits to recommence. We hope to reach agreement so that visits can be planned for the summer holidays.

17 Mar 2009 : Column 1088W

Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

Mr. Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what crime and disorder reduction partnerships have been established in each local authority area in each year since 1997. [262430]

Mr. Alan Campbell: Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) in England and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) in Wales were set up under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. These partnerships are organised on local government boundaries and are sited at unitary authority level in single tier authorities and district level in two-tier areas in England and county council or county borough council level in Wales. There are 346 CDRPs in England and 22 CSPs in Wales. Adjoining CDRPs/CSPs can formally merge if this is in the interests of reducing crime and disorder, subject to approval by the Secretary of State. Since 2005, six formal mergers of two or more CDRP areas have taken place.

Mr. Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of (a) business improvement districts, (b) crime and disorder partnerships and (c) town centre management schemes at reducing crime. [262432]

Mr. Alan Campbell: Business improvement districts and town centre management schemes are locally funded approaches that primarily aim to improve the trading environment and image of defined areas. Information is not collected centrally on the performance of these schemes. Each scheme is accountable to its funder(s) who in most cases are the local authority.

Under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Crime and Disorder Partnerships (or Community Safety Partnerships in Wales) were required to report annually to the Secretary of State on their activities. This duty was repealed in 2007 in recognition that partnership working practices had matured, to reduce bureaucracy and to enhance the response to the local community’s needs. It was replaced by statutory requirements for CDRPs/CSPs to produce a strategic assessment identifying local community safety priorities and a partnership plan which sets out the approach for addressing these priorities and is published locally (in summary form). Hallmarks of Effective Partnerships were also introduced to drive up standards.

Regional Government offices provide a link between CDRPs/CSPs and central Government and have a key role in improving the effectiveness of partnerships. They work closely with partnerships to monitor their work in relation to local and national priorities, and provide support and guidance on the implementation of the hallmarks of effective practice.

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