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30 Jun 2009 : Column 171W—continued

http://www.judicialappointments.gov.uk/

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he last discussed the criteria for judicial appointments with the chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission. [282556]

Mr. Straw: I have regular bilateral meetings with the chairman of the JAC at which the criteria for judicial appointments are sometimes discussed. The last of these meetings was held on 13 May 2009.

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many applications for the position of recorder the Judicial Appointments Commission has received in each of the last three years. [282578]

Mr. Straw: No recorder selection exercises were run in the financial years 2006-07 and 2007-08. In 2008-09 the number of applications received in respect of recorder selection exercises is as follows:

Recorder Northern, North Eastern and Wales: 433 eligible applicants;

Recorder Midland: 366 eligible applicants; and

Recorder South East: 981 eligible applicants.

The Judicial Appointments Commission today released diversity data in respect of these exercises save for the Recorder South East exercise which has yet to complete. These data can be found on their website at:

http://www.judicialappointments.gov.uk/

Judicial Appointments for England and Wales: Consultants

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much the Judicial Appointments Commission has spent on external consultants in each of the last three years. [282580]

Mr. Straw: The Judicial Appointments Commission has spent the following sums on consultants in each of the financial years:

	£
2006-07	112,000
2007-08	87,000
2008-09	154,000

Judicial Appointments for England and Wales: Manpower

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) permanent and (b) temporary staff the Judicial Appointments Commission employs. [282555]

Mr. Straw: On 31 March 2009, the Judicial Appointments Commission employed 43 permanent staff (JAC employees) and 62 temporary staff (comprising 15 staff on fixed-term JAC contracts, 44 seconded or loaned to the JAC from public sector bodies, and 3 agency staff). On 31 May 2009, the Judicial Appointments Commission employed 47 permanent staff (JAC employees) and 58 temporary
30 Jun 2009 : Column 172W
staff (comprising 18 staff on fixed-term JAC contracts, 39 seconded or loaned to the JAC, and one agency staff).

The Judicial Appointments Commission publishes headline information about its staffing in its annual reports, which can be found on their website at:

http://www.judicialappointments.gov.uk/

Legal Aid

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make it his policy to undertake a full impact assessment before implementing reforms relating to (a) family law legal aid and (b) legal aid client criteria arising from the Legal Service Commission’s review of family law legal aid funding; and if he will make a statement. [282438]

Bridget Prentice: An initial Impact Assessment was conducted and published alongside the Family Fees consultation paper “Family Legal Aid funding from 2010”. The LSC is currently modelling the proposed final scheme and accompanying Impact Assessment, which will be published with the final policy proposals on family fees. This follows consideration of the consultation responses and the commissioning of the research by Ernst and Young on the family advocacy market to provide additional data for the Impact Assessment. The LSC has agreed to share the outcome of the research with a number of stakeholders representing legal service providers and will do shortly.

The LSC is committed to conducting Impact Assessments on all its public consultations on policies and adheres to its own Impact Assessment Code of Practice. A copy of the Code can be found on its website.

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what estimate he has made of the proportion of the population who will be eligible for legally-aided representation in the Crown Court once means-testing is re-introduced; [282669]

(2) what estimate he has made of the proportion of the population eligible for legally-aided representation in magistrates' courts. [282670]

Mr. Straw: Every defendant appearing before the Crown court for trial once the new means testing scheme is introduced will be granted a representation order, subject to the submission of a completed application form. We estimate that just over three-quarters of defendants will receive legal aid without needing to make any contribution. Further information is available in the “Impact Assessment”, published alongside the Government's response to the consultation on the principle of Crown court means testing.

Defendants in the magistrates court need to pass both the Interests of Justice test and the means test to qualify for legal aid. Recent estimates suggest that around half of the population of England and Wales would be financially eligible to receive legal aid in the magistrates courts if they were charged with an offence that satisfied the Interests of Justice test. The majority of defendants who are not legally-aided in the magistrates courts are ineligible because their cases do not meet the Interests of Justice criteria.

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Mentally Disturbed Offenders

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners have been transferred from prison to a secure mental health unit in each of the last five years. [282569]

Mr. Straw: The information requested is given in the following table.

	Number transferred
2004	890
2005	907
2006	967
2007	941
2008	997

National Offender Management Service

Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many staff with a (a) prison and (b) probation background are employed in the Department of Violence, Extremism and Psychopathy within the National Offender Management Service. [282403]

Maria Eagle: While there is no specific Department of Violence, Extremism and Psychopathy, there is a team within NOMS Interventions and Substance Misuse Group which focuses on interventions in these three areas. There are currently 17 staff and of these 10 have a prison background, two probation, two have worked directly for both settings, three have neither. The majority of these staff have experience of delivering work which spans both services.

Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people working at the National Offender Management Service Head Office have a background in (a) a probation service and (b) a prison service. [282405]

Maria Eagle: There are no centralised records held on the background of employees. These records may be held locally and to collect this for the National Offenders Management Service headquarters would incur disproportionate cost.

Offences against Children: Prosecutions

Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prosecutions for offences relating to child abuse there have been in each local authority area since 1997. [280667]

Claire Ward: The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for sexual offences against children, 2004 to 2007 is shown in the table. As there is no specific offence of “child abuse,” statistics are only provided where the age of the victim can be identified as a child from the description of the offence. The term “child abuse” describes harm caused to a child arising from emotional, physical, sexual abuse or neglect caused by a parent, guardian, carer, or stranger. A number of other offences such as offences against the person including physical assault may frequently be used by the police to charge offenders.

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The Sexual Offences Act 2003 significantly modernised and strengthened the laws on sexual offences in England and Wales to provide extra protection to children from sexual exploitation. This makes direct comparisons with previous legislation very difficult. Many new offences created by the Act will not have a direct equivalent under the old legislation.

These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

Court proceedings data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.

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N umber of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for offences relating to child abuse( 1) England and Wales, by police force area, 2004 - 07( 1,)( )( 2,)( )( 3,)( )( 4)
Police force area	2004( 5)	2005	2006	2007
Avon and Somerset	66	110	88	81
Bedfordshire	27	46	37	32
Cambridgeshire	34	58	41	56
Cheshire	44	80	62	81
City of London	—	1	—	—
Cleveland	27	43	58	60
Cumbria	21	46	32	48
Derbyshire	49	100	86	89
Devon and Cornwall	21	65	94	110
Dorset	18	29	33	28
Durham	49	67	72	68
Essex	52	58	54	24
Gloucestershire	18	37	40	45
Greater Manchester	159	234	248	245
Hampshire	105	134	129	195
Hertfordshire	40	65	82	39
Humberside	48	55	61	53
Kent	47	39	33	49
Lancashire	81	159	149	155
Leicestershire	49	66	78	78
Lincolnshire	52	59	54	51
Merseyside	49	60	60	90
Metropolitan Police	356	495	483	452
Norfolk	22	44	41	53
North Yorkshire	39	42	69	59
Northamptonshire	18	30	24	11
Northumbria	56	121	122	129
Nottinghamshire	68	91	92	80
South Yorkshire	61	89	85	101
Staffordshire	91	89	91	72
Suffolk	28	59	60	48
Surrey	17	50	39	44
Sussex	27	73	79	79
Thames Valley	40	122	112	139
Warwickshire	13	30	22	34
West Mercia	60	88	88	98
West Midlands	308	286	332	293
West Yorkshire	117	159	130	140
Wiltshire	25	54	38	34
Dyfed-Powys	41	25	24	26
Gwent	51	79	52	54
North Wales	50	56	49	25
South Wales	120	117	108	130
England and Wales	2,664	3,810	3,731	3,778
(1) Includes the following offences: Causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person. Cruelty or neglect of children. Abandoning children under two years. Sexual assault of a male child aged under 13. Rape, attempted rape of a male or female aged under 13 or under 16. Sexual assault of a female child aged under 13. Sexual activity with a male or female child aged under 13. Sexual activity with a male or female aged under 16. Familial sexual offences of a male or female child aged under 13. Abuse of children aged under 18 through prostitution and pornography. Abuse of trust sexual offences against a child aged under 18. Meeting a male or female aged under 16 following sexual grooming. (2) Covers offences which identify the victim as a minor at the time the offence was committed. (3) The statistics relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences the principal offence is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. (4) 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. (5) The Sexual Offences Act came into force on 1 May 2004. Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Evidence and Analysis Unit. Ministry of Justice.

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