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21 July 2009 : Column 1382W—continued
Mass Media
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how much his Department and its predecessors spent on (a) commissioning of public opinion research and (b) contracts with press monitoring services in each of the last five years; [257754]
(2) what the cost of contracts between his Department's (a) agencies and (b) non-departmental public bodies' and press monitoring services was in each of the last five years. [257755]
Mr. Straw: Details of the available information on expenditure on public opinion research and organisations providing media monitoring services in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and its predecessor are provided in the following table.
| Table 1: Public opinion research | |
| £ | |
| Note: Figures shown are estimates including VAT and are based on a collation of local returns as no central records are available. They include NDPBs. | |
The reason for the fluctuation of spend reflects a smaller research programme in 2006-07. The figures in 2007-08 and 2008-09 for the Ministry of Justice reflect the inclusion of Public Opinion Research for the Office of Criminal Justice Reform and National Offender Management Service.
| Table 2: Press monitoring | |
| Press cuttings (£) | |
The reason for the fluctuation in spend between 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 is due to a revision of the cuttings specification. For 2006-07 the specification was significantly narrowed and this resulted in fewer cuttings being charged to the Department. However, due to the creation of the Ministry of Justice in May 2007, the cuttings specification was widened to cover the additional subjects covered by the new Ministry and an increase in national and regional press.
The following figures are for costs of press monitoring services for the Department's agencies and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). The Ministry of Justice was created in May 2007. Figures before this relate to expenditure under previous Departments.
National Offender Management service (NOMS)
The cost of press monitoring for NOMS from May 2007 is incorporated in the MoJ cost. Press monitoring costs for NOMS prior to May 2007 were paid by the Home Office.
Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS)
Created in April 2005. Since 2005, HMCS press monitoring services have been part of DCA/MoJ contracts.
Office of the Public Guardian (OPG)
The Office of the Public Guardian formed on 1 October 2007, replacing the Public Guardianship Office.
| Office of the Public Guardian | |
| Durrants (press cuttings service) (£) | |
The Tribunals Service was created in April 2006, as an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. The Press Association and Meltwater News provide the
Tribunals Service with press monitoring services. To date they have paid in total £6,564.63 to PA; and £4,136 to Meltwater News.
The National Archives is a non-ministerial department and executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. The finance documents pre-2006 are kept off-site in a repository in Cheshire, and it would incur disproportionate cost to recover them. Following figures are provided for 2006 onwards.
| National Archives | ||||
| £ | ||||
| Cision (media management) | Cision (clippings and media monitoring) | Meltwater News | Total | |
Boundary Commission-Wales Office
Her Majesty's Land Registry (HMLR)
| Her Majesty's Land Registry (HMLR) | |
| Durrants (press cuttings service) (£) | |
Legal Services Commission (LSC)
| Legal Services Commission (LSC) | |
| Durrants (press cuttings service) (£) | |
The costs for the Legal Services Commission and Her Majesty's Land Registry increased primarily because there was more media relevant to their work which needed to be monitored. For Her Majesty's Land Registry, a key case of this was the launch in October 2006 of the monthly House Price Index.
Judicial Appointments Commission
The JAC does not hold its own contracts with press monitoring services; instead they are served by the Judicial Communications Office contract.
Press monitoring services include clippings of newspaper articles, compiled on a daily basis, that are relevant to the Department. The Government's Central Office of Information's Media Monitoring Unit provides a press summary service for the Department, but also includes broadcast coverage in these summaries. It is not possible to breakdown the cost of MMU summaries between press monitoring and monitoring of other media. It is important to monitor the climate of opinion and the evolving views of commentators and the media to ensure that policy development takes place in the fullest context and the Department is well placed to respond to events. Press and media monitoring is one way to do this and also provides useful instant feedback on announcements.
National Offender Management Service: Finance
David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much of the projected £30 million savings from the Specification, Benchmarking and Costing (SBC) Programme are expected to be made by (a) the Probation Service and (b) the Prison Service; and what the SBC expenditure reduction targets are for each service. [275387]
Maria Eagle: The Specification, Benchmarking and Costing (SBC) Programme is targeted to deliver more than £50 million of savings during 2009-10. The target for probation is £21 million and prisons £32 million. The probation savings will be achieved through the work of the SBC programme but also supported by the Probation Trust Programme and the introduction of best value.
Further savings are anticipated in future years from the SBC programme and work is currently ongoing to define and quantify the potential costs, benefits and impact.
David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much of the projected £117 million savings for the National Offender Management Service is expected to be made by (a) the Probation Service, (b) the Prison Service and (c) National Offender Management Service headquarters. [275388]
Maria Eagle: The National Offender Management Service has plans in place to achieve savings of £171 million in 2009-10. The savings will be realised through a range of programmes and initiatives to ensure that offender management is delivered effectively and efficiently.
A broad description of the savings is given in the table.
National Probation Service for England and Wales: Manpower
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the average ratio of (a) probation staff to offenders and (b) offender managers to offenders was in each probation service area in each year since 1997. [288426]
Maria Eagle: The information requested is shown in the following table for the years 2004 to 2007 inclusive. Reliable offender caseload data by probation service area are not available prior to 2004.
| (a) The average ratio of probation staff to offenders, by each probation service area in England and Wales at 31 December in each year from 2004-07 | ||||
| Area | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| Note: Figures provided are full-time equivalent | ||||
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