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18 Mar 2009 : Column 1226W—continued
Re-offenders: Disclosure of Information
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when data regarding multiple offender entries in 2007 will be available. [263952]
Mr. Straw: The Ministry of Justice statistical publication ‘Re-offending of adults: results from the 2007 cohort’, which will contain a table on multiple offender entries in 2007 quarter one, has been postponed. This was due for publication on 19 March.
This postponement is a result of a technical fault in the programming code used to produce the results. Statisticians need additional time to resolve this fault.
Initial investigations indicate that this fault has resulted in slight errors in the published adult re-offending datasets (from 2000-06). These will be revised when the 2007 cohort data is published.
At present it is not possible to specify a new publication date. However, we will make every effort to ensure that the postponement is as short as possible and will make a further announcement once the statistics are ready for release.
The National Statistician has been informed of this postponement and is satisfied that it is necessary on operational grounds.
A notice about the postponement is available on the Ministry of Justice website:
Further information on Multiple Offender Entries can be found in Annex C of the publication Re-offending of Adults: results from the 2006 cohort:
Reoffenders: Hertfordshire
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many offenders were charged with each category of violent offence whilst being supervised by the probation service in (a) Hemel Hempstead and (b) Hertfordshire in the last (i) six months, (ii) 12 months and (iii) five years. [263084]
Mr. Hanson: The National Offender Management Service holds information on the number of offenders charged with serious further (violent) offences while under probation supervision for the years 2006-07, 2007-08 and for the first six months of 2008-09. However, this does not include all types of violent offence and it is not broken down by town or city. To provide the full information requested would require manual checking of files, which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost.
The following table contains data on the number of offenders, managed by Hertfordshire probation area, who were charged with certain violent offences, where there was a requirement initially to notify the National Offender Management Service, in line with the serious further offence probation circulars 06/2006 and 41/2006.
The Offender Management caseload statistics, which are published annually, include data on the number of offenders under probation supervision who are charged with serious further offences and whose cases proceed to review, as defined by the relevant probation circulars. Those data are updated to show outcomes, that is. convictions, acquittals, convictions for lesser offences and charges dropped.
The number of offenders convicted of a serious further offence is around 0.35 per cent. of the caseload of the Probation Service nationally.
Young Offender Institutions
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what proportion of inmates in each young offender institution (YOI) have a registered place of residence in the same local authority area in which the YOI is located. [261521]
Mr. Hanson: In the management of the prison population, the aim is to hold offenders in establishments that: provide the degree of security they require, are suitable to their gender, age and legal status, provide special facilities appropriate to offender needs, and are as close as possible to their homes or the courts dealing with their cases.
The information relating to registered home address is not held centrally and could only be provided by manually checking address data at each establishment at a disproportionate cost.
Using the committal court as a proxy address where no home address is registered, the average distance from home for offenders aged under 21 is 50 miles (data from September 2008).
Young Offenders: Education
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what responsibilities local authorities have to support the training and education of young offenders in custody. [263182]
Beverley Hughes: I have been asked to reply.
Currently local authorities do not have specific legal responsibilities in relation to supporting the training and education of young offenders in custody, although local authority education services are a statutory member of youth offending teams, who play a role in sentence planning for young people in juvenile custody.
However, the current Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill proposes to place new duties on local education authorities (LEAs) in relation to education and training for young people in juvenile custody. It includes clauses to:
make LEAs (with custodial establishments in their area) responsible for securing suitable education for young people subject to detention there; and
make the young person’s ‘home’ LEA responsible for taking steps to promote the fulfilment of the person’s learning potential while they are in juvenile custody and on their release.
Youth Custody
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many juvenile prisoners aged (a) 15, (b) 16 and (c) 17 years old are being held more than 50 miles from their home address. [263837]
Mr. Straw: Latest data available (September 2008) indicate that the average distance from home for juvenile prisoners is 52 miles.
The following table shows the number and percentage of 15, 16 and 17-year-old offenders held over 50 miles from their home address. Data are from September 2008.
| Age | Number held >50 miles from home | Percentage held >50 miles from home |
Where no home address is listed the committal court is used as a proxy address.
Every effort is made to place prisoners under 18 as close to their homes as possible, but the relatively low number of establishments—12 for England and Wales—has always made this inherently difficult for some prisoners. Total numbers of prisoners under 18 have been relatively stable in recent years (under 3,000).
Health
Antidepressants: Costs
Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost of prescribing anti-depressant drugs in (a) each primary care trust, (b) strategic health authority and (c) England was in each of the last three years; and what steps he is taking to reduce these costs. [261982]
Dawn Primarolo: The net ingredient cost of anti-depressant drugs prescribed in England and dispensed in the United Kingdom, by primary care trusts (PCTs), strategic heath authorities and for England, in the years 2005 to 2007, the most recent full three year period available, have been taken from the Prescribing Analysis and Cost tool (PACT) system and been placed in the Library.
The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (IAPT) began in 2006. This aims to help PCTs implement National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines for treating depression and anxiety disorders, and to make psychological therapies more readily available. We have made a very substantial commitment to IAPT, which will provide patients with a real choice of prescribed anti-depressants or therapy or both. By 2010-11, annual funding for IAPT will rise to £173 million, to train 3,600 extra therapists and treat 900,000 more people in those three years.
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