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28 Oct 2009 : Column 394W—continued
Family Intervention Projects
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what steps his Department may take to deal with families which refuse to enter into a Family Intervention Project contract agreement; and if he will make a statement; [295338]
(2) how many families have refused to enter into a Family Intervention Project contract agreement; and if he will make a statement. [295344]
Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 27 October 2009]: While a family's initial involvement in a Family Intervention Project is voluntary, the projects draw on and drive home the implications of sanctions that a family or family members may already be facing. These include seeking possession of a family's tenancy, a parenting order, antisocial behaviour order, proceedings to take children into care and juvenile specific orders.
Provisional data from the Family Intervention Project (FIP) online monitoring information system, maintained by the National Centre for Social Research, show that as at 31 March 2009 of the 2,295 who have been offered a Family Intervention Project only 70 refused outright to enter into a contract and another 114 refused to enter into a contract after initially accepting the offer.
GCSE: Disadvantaged
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in what proportion of schools in each index of multiple deprivation decile fewer than 30 per cent. of pupils obtained five A* to C GCSEs including English and mathematics in (a) 2008 and (b) 2009. [295244]
Mr. Coaker: For 2008 figures I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 17 March 2009, Official Report, columns 1050-52W. School level figures for 2009 are currently being checked by schools as part of the annual results checking exercise prior to publication in the Achievement and Attainment Tables in January 2010. The requested information will be available shortly afterwards.
Schools: Sports
Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) when he plans to publish the School Sport Survey for 2008-09; [293879]
(2) how many schoolchildren participated in (a) two, (b) four and (c) five or more hours of sport each week in the latest period for which figures are available. [293882]
Mr. Iain Wright: The 2008/09 School Sport Survey was published on 14 October. It can be found at:
The 2008/09 survey is the sixth undertaken by the Department on PE and Sport, but for the first time we have moved away from measuring two hours of PE and sport each week, which 90 per cent. of pupils participated in last year. Instead, as part of the strategy's overall move towards offering five hours of PE and sport for young people in schools and other settings, the survey measured participation in at least three hours of PE and out of hours sport each week in schools for the first time. The survey found that 50 per cent. of pupils in Years 1-13 (including 6(th) forms) participated in at least three hours of high quality PE and out of hours school sport.
Schools: Vetting
Mr. Andy Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what progress has been made in his Department's Review of the definitions of frequency and intensity in the vetting and barring process; and if he will make a statement. [295377]
Dawn Primarolo: The Secretary of State has asked Sir Roger Singleton, chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority and the Government's Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children, to check whether the Government have drawn the line in the right place in relation to the degree of contact with children which should trigger the requirement to register with the new scheme. The Secretary of State's letter of 14 September 2009 to Barry Sheerman (copies of which are in the Libraries of both Houses) sets out the context of the issue Sir Roger has been asked to consider. Sir Roger has been asked to report to Ministers by early December.
Justice
Community Orders: Females
Mr. Martyn Jones:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many women received community sentences with requirements in relation to (a) compulsory unpaid work, (b) participation in any specified activities,
(c) prohibition from certain activities, (d) curfew, (e) exclusion, (f) residence, (g) mental health treatment, (h) drug rehabilitation, (i) alcohol treatment, (j) supervision and (k) attendance centres in (i) 2007, (ii) 2008 and (iii) 2009. [295213]
Claire Ward: The following table shows the number of each of the requirements started by women under community orders in 2007 and 2008 who started probation service supervision in England and Wales. 2008 is the latest complete year for which published information is available.
| Number of requirements started by women under community orders | ||
| Requirements( 1) | 2007 | 2008 |
| (1) The figures show the number of requirements started by women under community orders. There were 18,287 women who started these orders in 2007, and 19,191 in 2008. Note: The 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. | ||
Criminal Proceedings: Ex-servicemen
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, (1) what recent steps his Department has taken to assist armed forces veterans in the criminal justice system; [294505]
(2) what recent estimate he has made of the number of armed forces veterans who are in the criminal justice system. [294506]
Maria Eagle: The National Offender Management Service, the Ministry of Defence and third sector partners, have made significant progress in further developing the range of services and support available for veterans who have offended. New posters and leaflets have been distributed in order to promote the support that is on offer to veterans in prison and after release. Prison officers have been given access to the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency website and, where Governors allow, prisoners have direct access to their free helpline. Charities providing support have access to veterans for welfare visits which do not count against prisoners' personal visits allowance.
A guide for prison officers working with veterans is under development this has been informed by good practice in existence in a number of prisons and work is in progress to prepare instructions for probation staff supervising ex-service personnel, in the community.
New IT-based offender assessment procedures include questioning to identify offenders who have served in the
armed forces. This is in the early stages of roll out across the prison estate and will be fully implemented by May 2010.
While we acknowledge that we are currently unable to identify all of those prisoners who are veterans, we are confident that assessment at induction will signpost offenders, according to need, to the range of generic interventions that are available. This will include mental health in-reach, referral to the Medical Assessment Programme at St. Thomas' Hospital providing specialist health assessment for veterans and referral to Combat Stress Treatment Centres for help with anxiety management, post-traumatic stress, sleep disorder and grief. To complement this, the Prison Service provides a range of 14 Offending Behaviour Programmes, six Drug Programmes and a therapeutic community at Grendon prison.
Work is ongoing to quantify the numbers of armed forces veterans in the criminal justice system. Data matching will begin during November and we will disseminate the numbers identified by December. Discussions are underway with a view to extending this
to encompass offenders serving community sentences. We anticipate that the data will enable us to examine some of the paths into offending, make decisions about whether more specific services need to be developed and provide more targeted support.
Custodial Treatment
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many people (a) of each sex and (b) in each age band were sentenced to immediate custody for non-violent and non-sexual offences in each year since 1997; [295819]
(2) how many people (a) of either sex and (b) in each age band were in custody for non-violent and non-sexual offences in each year since 1997. [295820]
Claire Ward: The information requested for how many people of each sex and in each age band were sentenced to immediate custody for non-violent and non-sexual offences in each year since 1997 is shown in table 1.
| Table 1: Number of people sentenced to immediate custody, by sex and age for non violent and non sexual offences since 1997 | |||||||||||
| 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | |
| Source: OMS Analytical Services, Ministry of Justice | |||||||||||
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