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20 Apr 2009 : Column 335W—continued
Departmental Rail Travel
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what guidance his Department has issued to its staff on claims for travel in first class carriages on trains if there are no seats in standard class. [268445]
Mr. Wills:
All rail travel is completed in line with the Staff Pay and Allowances Handbook, which states that
all employees are encouraged to travel at standard class unless there is justification for travelling first class.
Senior employees may travel first class on official journeys by rail in exceptional circumstances.
Other employees should travel at standard class, except when:
necessarily travelling with a colleague entitled to first class travel, or someone not a civil servant travelling first class;
they certify (other than on suburban lines) that a standard class seat could not be found.
Separate guidance is provided for staff working within the NOMS agency, although it is broadly similar, stating:
For staff in the NOMS agency, current guidance states that staff at Prison Service Manager Grade G and below are entitled to travel first class when they certify that they were unable to find a seat in standard class and the journey exceeds 30-minutes in duration.
The MOJ has provided guidance to staff in order to reduce the costs of travel, subsistence and hospitality, for example by using video conferencing where possible and significantly reducing refreshments provided for meetings.
Departmental Training
Mr. Hurd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what his Department's policy is on holding departmental away days at locations other than departmental premises. [268467]
Mr. Wills: The Ministry of Justice does not hold a specific policy for holding departmental away days at locations other than departmental premises.
All spending on away days is completed in line with the Finance Policy Manual, which is in line with HM Treasury Guidance on Managing Public Money, and states the following for away days and team building events:
“These occasional events are organised to develop working relationships and achieve Departmental objectives. They are acceptable as long as the event can be justified as good value for money and can demonstrate development achievements. Costs should be reasonable and comparable to the status of the event”.
Across the MOJ staff are looking at ways to get best value for money and make savings, this includes local changes to ways of working which managers are putting in place. Wherever possible, taking into account room availability, size and flexibility, managers are using MOJ, or other public sector buildings, for planning and team meetings and away days rather than using external venues.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much has been spent on media training for each Minister in his Department in each of the last three years; how many sessions have been provided; and which organisations provided such training. [268549]
Mr. Wills: Ministers in the Ministry of Justice (formerly the Department for Constitutional Affairs) have not undertaken any media training within the last three years.
Departmental Translation Services
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department spent on translation services in each area of allocation in 2008. [267449]
Mr. Straw: The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) are able to provide the total cost for language translators and interpreters for the calendar year 2008 only at a disproportionate cost as the details are not held in this format.
Figures are available for the financial year 2007-08, as follows:
M O J headquarters
Translators: £272, 877
Interpreters: £4,034,000(1)
Her Majesty's Courts Service
Translators: £200,000
Interpreters: £0
Tribunals Service
Translators and interpreters: £6,058,000(2)
Office of Criminal Justice Reform
Translators: £448
Interpreters: £0
Her Majesty's Prison Service
Translators and interpreters: £820,633(2)
National Offender Management Service (headquarters, excluding HM Prison Service and the Probation Service)
Translators: £8,906
Interpreters: £32,000
(1) This figure is the total cost for interpreters' services in Her Majesty's Crown Court in 2007-08. This is paid from the central funds budget within MOJ headquarters.
(2) Tribunals Service and HM Prison Service are able to differentiate between the cost of translators and interpreters only at disproportionate cost. For TS this figure includes services for people with visual and hearing impairments and travel expenses.
The Probation Service costs for interpretation and translation services are not held centrally and are available only at a disproportionate cost.
Information for 2008-09 is currently being collated.
Feltham Young Offender Institution and Remand Centre
Dr. Vis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) juveniles and (b) young adults have been physically restrained in Feltham Young Offenders Institution in each month since January 2008. [261689]
Mr. Hanson: Establishments in the young people's estate, commissioned by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) collect information on the number of Restrictive Physical Interventions (RPI) that occurs each month. In the young adult estate we report on the use of control and restraint. Figures are collected on the number of incidents of restraint that take place, not the number of young people or young adults restrained.
A Report of an Independent Review of the Use of Restraint in Juvenile Secure Settings and the Government's response was published in December 2008. The Report recommended that HMPS provide staff with safe restraint techniques designed especially for young people and which do not reply on pain-compliance. The Government accept this recommendation and NOMS is developing
a new Adapted Control and Restraint (C and R) technique specifically for young people which will form part of a comprehensive behaviour management system.
Young People: Data on the number of times Restrictive Physical Intervention (RPI) was used on a young person (15-18 years old) at HMYOI Feltham from January 2008 to January 2009 are shown on the following table:
| Average YP Population | RPI Incident | |
RPI is a Youth Justice Board (YJB) measure defined as any occasion when force is used with the intention of overpowering or to overpower a young person. Overpowering is defined as “restricting movement or mobility”.
Young adult: Data on the number of times Control and Restraint (C and R) was used on a young adult (18-21 years old) at HMYOI Feltham from January 2008 to January 2009 are shown in the following table:
| Average YA Population | C and R Incident | |
C and R is used as a last resort in order to bring a violent or refractory prisoner under control and the technique is only applied for as short a time as is possible.
Fines: Surcharges
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the expected income of the Victims Surcharge Fund is in 2009-10. [268072]
Maria Eagle: The Victims Surcharge is a £15 charge levied on fines imposed in the magistrates and Crown courts in England and Wales on offences committed on or after 1 April 2007. Her Majesty's Courts Service have forecast that £8 million will be raised from the surcharge in 2009-10. The forecasts are based on the current numbers of fines imposed and enforcement achieved.
Housing: Sales
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when the Land Registry expects to publish figures for the numbers of properties which were sold in (a) February and (b) March 2009. [268585]
Mr. Wills: Land Registry publishes sales volume figures within its monthly house price index (HPI). The data are collected on all residential property transactions in England and Wales. It is expected that figures for February and March will be published on 1 June and 26 June 2009 respectively. The HPI is published at:
and will be available at 11:00 hours on the aforementioned dates.
Magistrates Courts: Sentencing
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people were sentenced in magistrates courts in the last year for which figures are available; and how many of those sentences were custodial. [267047]
Maria Eagle: In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, there were 1,325,453 persons sentenced at magistrates courts and 76,643 were given a custodial sentence including suspended sentences. More than 80 per cent. of sentences at magistrates courts are for summary offences for which custody is not always either available or appropriate. For non-summary offences the total number sentenced was 234,541 and 43,595 were given a custodial sentence.
These figures can also be found in table 1.3 of “Sentencing Statistics, England and Wales, 2007” published by the Ministry of Justice at the following link:
Members: Correspondence
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he plans to reply to the letter of 13 January 2009 from the hon. Member for Northavon on behalf of Mr. E. Penberton of Thornbury, on proposals relating to bailiffs. [269070]
Bridget Prentice: I replied to the letter from the hon. Member on behalf of Mr. E. Pemberton on 15 April 2009.
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