| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
6 May 2009 : Column 219W—continued
Ashwell Prison
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what factors he took into account when deciding on the nature of the review of the disturbance at HM Prison Ashwell on 11 April 2009. [272820]
Mr. Hanson: There are a number of types of incident where the National Offender Management Service automatically initiates an investigation and the disturbance at Ashwell was clearly a matter which required investigation.
The Chief Operating Officer of NOMS was the Commissioning Authority for the investigation. He asked the Head of National Operations Group, who has significant operational experience to lead the investigation, supported by the Governor of HMP Stafford.
I will make the findings of the investigation and our conclusions on it available to the House in due course.
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prison officers constitute the normal night staff team at HM Prison Ashwell; and how many prison officers were on duty on the night of 10-11 April 2009. [272830]
Mr. Hanson: The normal staffing levels for night patrol at HMP Ashwell are eight operational support grades (OSG), four prison officers and one senior officer. On the night of 10-11 April staffing levels exactly matched normal levels with the addition of another senior officer who was on induction for night duties and was shadowing a colleague.
Bribery Bill: Draft
Sir Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice from which organisations he has received representations on the draft Bribery Bill; and if he will place in the Library a copy of each representation received. [272600]
Maria Eagle: The draft Bribery Bill was published 25 March 2009 for pre-legislative scrutiny. Since its publication the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has written to the Justice Secretary to welcome the publication of the draft Bill and to urge its adoption as early as possible. There will be the opportunity for other organisations to make representations to the committee undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny in Parliament.
Community Service Orders
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost to the public purse has been of advertising the Community Payback scheme; and what role members of the public have in determining the work undertaken by offenders. [272072]
Mr. Hanson: The Community Payback campaign aims to raise awareness of Community Payback by inviting members of the public to vote for unpaid work to be completed by offenders in their area.
Since the creation of the Ministry of Justice, £63,000 has been spent on advertising Community Payback across 59 pioneer areas in England and Wales in March/April 2009. Funding was provided by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice incurred no costs. The campaign invited the public to vote on a selected number of projects running in participating areas or to nominate new projects.
In 2007-08 55,771 people successfully completed community payback sentences. This amounts to over eight million hours of labour, used to benefit the community. The majority of the public surveyed in 2008 wanted to have a say on the type of work that was undertaken by offenders.
The Mayoral Project which involves Mayors and Civic Leaders to identify and sponsor Community Payback work project during their year in office, incurred no advertising costs nationally.
Crown Dependencies: Prisoners
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners from Crown Dependencies are serving time in British prisons for drug or alcohol-related offences. [272631]
Mr. Hanson: British Crown Dependencies consist of the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man and their citizens are British citizens. Any prisoners from the British Crown Dependencies are therefore included in the total number of British national prisoners and cannot be separately identified.
Departmental Air Conditioning
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much has been spent by his Department on carrying out inspections of air conditioning systems within departmental buildings in accordance with the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 since the Regulations came into force. [272126]
Maria Eagle: From the information collected so far, the Ministry of Justice has spent £142,920 on carrying out inspections of air conditioning within departmental buildings that we have information for in accordance with the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 since the regulations came into force. We are still awaiting returns and I will write to the hon. Member providing an updated figure when I have complete information.
Drugs: Sentencing
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people have been convicted of (a) possession and (b) supply of illegal drugs in each year since 1997; and how many received a custodial sentence in each case. [272027]
Maria Eagle: The available information is contained in the following tables.
Figures for 2008 will be available later this year.
| N umber of persons found guilty at all courts for offences relating to the possession and supply of illegal drugs in England and Wales for the years 1997 to 2007( 1,2,3) | ||
| Possession | Supply | |
| (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (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 courts, and 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. (3) Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. Source: OCJR—E & A: Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Evidence and Analysis Unit | ||
Electoral Register
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what local authority electoral registration departments (a) use and (b) do not use cross-referencing of other local authority databases to assist in increasing levels of electoral registration. [273101]
Mr. Wills: The Electoral Commission has issued guidance to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) encouraging them to use their powers to inspect records. The guidance also contains advice on the records that may be inspected. In addition, the Commission published a final set of performance standards for EROs in Great Britain in July 2008. These standards required EROs to provide information on their use of databases available to them. The Commission published the results of EROs' self-assessments against the performance standards in April 2009.
Performance Standard No. 1: 'Using information sources to verify entries on the register of electors and identify potential new electors', aims to ensure that EROs use the appropriate sources of information to verify records on the existing register of electors and identify potential new electors who come into the authority area. To meet the standard EROs are required to proactively identify and use the records they are entitled to inspect, throughout the year, to verify and validate data held on the electoral register.
The Commission's analysis of the returns for this standard shows that over half of EROs across Great Britain assessed themselves as above the performance standard, with 40 per cent. meeting the standard and a small minority (18 EROs) below the standard.
We will be discussing with the Commission how the performance standards programme can be developed.
National Offender Management Service
Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will take steps to ensure that there is no duplication in the workload of National Offender Management Service regional directors and HM Prison Service area managers; and if he will make a statement. [272374]
Mr. Hanson: One of the key objectives of NOMS is to protect the public and reduce re-offending. The new regional directors of offender management (DOM) will be accountable for this objective by achieving effective integration of the work of all agencies across the region. Each will lead by developing relationships and creating and implementing a strategic vision focused on outcomes. Optimising the integration of the prison and probation services at local and regional levels will be a key part of their role to protect the public, reduce re-offending and improve performance.
Following a comprehensive review and restructure of the regional organisation, the role of Area Manager no longer exists. Instead, each DOM will be supported by a team of regional managers, each with a specific portfolio of work, in line with overall strategy, reporting to the DOM.
The demarcation lines between the strategic role of the DOM and the more delivery focused roles of their senior management Team will remove the opportunity for duplication.
Prison Service: Management
Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will commission a review of the effectiveness of management at HM Prison Service headquarters; and if he will make a statement. [272375]
Mr. Hanson: The effectiveness of management at NOMS headquarters is under constant review through the use of Key Performance Targets and either the Senior Civil Service or NOMS performance management system. The agency also has a management and leadership development framework in place to assess and develop managers' behavioural competence and effectiveness. I do not believe there is a need to commission a separate review.
Prisoners Release
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners have been released in each month since the inception of the end of custody licence scheme, broken down by category of offence. [272066]
Mr. Straw: Information on the number of prisoners released under the end of custody licence (ECL) scheme each month and by offence group can be found in the following tables.
The figures presented in the answer are published monthly and available on the Ministry of Justice website at:
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
| Monthly ECL releases by offence group | |||||
| Violence against the person ( 1) | Sexual offences ( 2) | Robbery | Burglary | Theft and handling | |
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |