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3 Jun 2009 : Column 534W—continued
Young Offenders
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many persistent young offenders there are in each criminal justice area. [276847]
Mr. Straw: A persistent young offender (PYO) is a young person aged 10 to 17 who has been sentenced guilty by any criminal court in the UK on three or more separate occasions for one or more recordable offence, and within three years of the last sentencing occasion is subsequently arrested or has an information laid against them for a further recordable offence.
This definition is designed to measure the speed and efficiency of the youth justice system, through monitoring the pledge to halve the average time from arrest to sentence for dealing with PYOs in England and Wales from 142 days in 1996 to 71 days. However, the definition is not designed to provide a reliable measure of the level of youth offending over time, and it will give a misleading picture of the true trend if used for this purpose.
The above pledge was first met over a full calendar year in 2002 and has been met in all but one calendar year since then. Youth sentencing is therefore now more timely, and for repeat offenders more frequent, than it used to be prior to 1997. As the PYO definition relies on repeat sentencing occasions, a side-effect of the Government’s success in bringing much swifter justice to young repeat offenders is that more of them end up being defined as PYOs.
The table shows the number of individual PYOs sentenced in 2008, for each police force area.
On 10 December 2008, Official Report, columns 58-59WS, I announced in a written ministerial statement that the PYO pledge would be dropped with effect from the end of 2008. This is therefore the last year for which PYO statistics will be published and compiled.
| Number of persistent young offenders (PYOs) sentenced in 2008, by police force area | |
| Police force area | Number of persistent young offenders |
| (1) The England and Wales total figure includes British Transport Police. | |
Work and Pensions
Atos Healthcare
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when his Department's contract with Atos Healthcare is expected to expire. [275104]
Jonathan Shaw: The Department for Work and Pensions contract with Atos Healthcare commenced on 1 September 2005 and is due to expire on 31 August 2012. The Department also has options to extend for a further five years up to 31 August 2017.
Children: Maintenance
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many child maintenance cases are unable to be processed due to technical faults with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission’s computer systems; how many cases have been so affected in each of the last five years; and what the (a) longest and (b) average delay in processing claims due to computer system failures was in (i) North West Cambridgeshire constituency, (ii) Cambridgeshire, (iii) the East of England and (iv) the North West and Wales in each of the last five years. [274048]
Kitty Ussher: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have therefore asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many child maintenance cases are currently unable to be processed due to technical faults with the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission’s computer systems; how many cases have been so affected in each of the last five years; and what the (a) longest and (b) average delay in processing claims due to computer system failures was in (i) North West Cambridgeshire (ii) Cambridgeshire (iii) the East of England and (iv) North West England and Wales in each of the last five years. [274048]
Technical faults with the Child Support Agency’s computer systems result in cases being progressed clerically rather than not being processed. The Commission routinely publishes information on the number of cases which are processed clerically. This information is not available at regional level, and the latest national figures are available in Table 20 of the Child Support Agency’s Quarterly Summary of Statistics; a copy of which is available in the House of Commons library, or online at:
The number of cases the Agency managed clerically at a national level at 31 March 2009 was 60,000, which is less than 5% of the total caseload. Although the need to progress such claims clerically is not ideal, around £1 million in child maintenance is now collected each week for these cases.
The growth in the number of cases progressed clerically in the last six months is primarily a result of an upgrade to the Agency’s computer system in September 2008 which allowed the Agency to identify cases previously stuck and take action to progress them clerically. Information about any delays in processing individual claims clerically due to technical or other problems with the computer system is not available.
I am sorry on this occasion I could not be more helpful.
Andrew Selous:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much was owed in arrears of child maintenance payments in each quarter of each of the last two years; what recent progress has been made towards the payment of such arrears; what priority the payment of such arrears has in the work programme of the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission;
whether such targets have been set for the reductions of levels of such arrears; and if he will make a statement. [274722]
Kitty Ussher [holding answer 12 May 2009]: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have therefore asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was owed in arrears of child maintenance payments in each quarter of each of the last two years; what recent progress has been made towards the payment of such arrears; what priority the payment of such arrears has in the work programme of the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission; whether such targets have been set for the reductions of levels of such arrears; and if he will make a statement. [274722]
Information on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents is routinely published in both the Child Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts and the Quarterly Summary of Statistics, both of which provide the latest audited estimate of child maintenance arrears to the end of March 2008. This information by quarter is set out in the attached table. The Commission’s latest estimate on the amount of child maintenance arrears owed by non-resident parents in each quarter of the last year to March 2009 is also set out in the attached table. The table also includes the amount of child maintenance collected and arranged for each quarter from March 07 to March 09. This estimate is based on the Commission’s internal analysis and is subject to year end audit. The fully audited estimate will be published in the Child Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2009, currently expected to be published in July.
Collection of maintenance including arrears remains a priority for the Child Support Agency and its targets for the current year include the collection of £1135 million of which £170 million should be arrears. It is the total collected, rather than the separate amounts of current maintenance and arrears which affects movements in the total arrears outstanding, and there is no separate target to reduce the total. The Child Support Agency has made significant progress in the amount of maintenance collected over the period of its Operational Improvement Plan and as a result the rate at which arrears has grown has slowed dramatically from £23 million per month in 2004/5 to less than £2 million per month in per month in 2008/9 (based on un-audited figures).
However the current amount of arrears owed by non-resident parents is the cumulative total of sixteen years of maintenance owed and new arrears will continue to accrue as it is not possible to achieve total compliance.
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