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Equal Opportunities

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent steps his Department has taken to increase equality in his Department. [287973]

Mr. Wills: The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has taken a number of steps to increase equality in the department to support the efficient delivery of our policies and services including ensuring that our staff have the opportunity to develop their full potential and are representative of the communities the Department serves.

During the past year we have launched MOJ's Equality Action Plan and Equality Audit Tool; developed our e-learning equality compliance training for staff; streamlined our equality impact assessment procedure, published our Equal Pay Audit, and launched our Equality and Diversity portal. We have also recently published our Equality Schemes Annual Review setting out our progress during 2008-09.

Ethnic Minorities: Manpower

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people from ethnic minority backgrounds are employed by his Department. [287972]

Mr. Wills: On 31 July 2009 (the latest date for which figures are available) 6,388 of the 69,677 Ministry of Justice employees who voluntarily declared their ethnicity, were recorded as Black or Minority Ethnic (BME). This represents 9.1 per cent. of all employees with known ethnicity. There are 10,544 members of staff who have not declared their ethnic origin and so we are unable to provide figures for them.

Fines: Drugs

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the (a) lowest, (b) average and (c) highest fine given to a person convicted of possession of (i) cannabis, (ii) ecstasy, (iii) cocaine, (iv) crack cocaine and (v) heroin has been in each year since 1997. [291253]

Claire Ward: The requested information is shown in the following table:

12 Oct 2009 : Column 111W

Average, maximum and minimum fine amounts imposed at all cou rts by drug type and year, 1997 to 2007 , England and Wales
		Fine
Drug type and year		Minimum (£)	Maximum (£)	Average (£)
Cannabis	1997	<5	2,400	82.06
	1998	<5	3,060	78.27
	1999	<5	1,300	75.41
	2000	<5	3,350	74.87
	2001	<5	2,000	72.12
	2002	<5	2,000	66.27
	2003	<5	5,000	70.58
	2004	5	5,000	71.14
	2005	<5	5,000	73.65
	2006	<5	1,000	78.90
	2007	<5	1,400	80.93
Cocaine	1997	25	5,000	624.50
	1998	100	700	227.78
	1999	50	500	271.88
	2000	75	200	124.00
	2001	50	250	136.11
	2002	40	2,500	366.92
	2003	30	750	215.53
	2004	100	1,000	371.43
	2005	50	4,000	670.71
	2006	30	750	293.33
	2007	30	1,000	326.05
Crack cocaine	1997	180	180	180.00
	1998	75	100	83.33
	1999	125	200	162.50
	2000	50	50	50.00
	2001	100	300	190.00
	2002	100	150	125.00
	2003	75	75	75.00
	2004	50	250	183.33
	2005	50	1,500	321.43
	2006	20	120	80.00
	2007	25	60	38.33
Ecstasy (MDMA)	1997	40	750	209.33
	1998	100	750	269.09
	1999	75	2,000	359.06
	2000	50	1,000	246.50
	2001	100	1,500	403.00
	2002	50	1,000	291.14
	2003	40	1,000	356.46
	2004	75	650	272.50
	2005	100	1,000	500.00
	2006	100	500	210.00
	2007	250	2,500	678.57
Heroin	1997	70	2,000	406.25
	1998	50	300	155.77
	1999	50	500	194.44
	2000	75	300	161.25
	2001	25	600	163.75
	2002	60	250	142.78
	2003	60	2,500	455.00
	2004	25	100	58.33
	2005	80	300	155.00
	2006	25	240	103.75
	2007	25	100	65.83
Source: OMS Analytical Services, Ministry of Justice.

These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.

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