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12 Jan 2010 : Column 921W—continued
Supervised Homes
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many places in supervised homes were available for 16-and 17-year-olds in each month of the last two years. [308793]
Dawn Primarolo: This information is not collected centrally.
Written Questions: Government Responses
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he plans to answer Question (a) 3202667, (b) 302668, (c) 302936, (d) 303105 and (e) 303139, tabled on 25 November 2009. [310373]
Ms Diana R. Johnson: Parliamentary questions 302668 and 302936 have been answered today. PQs 303105, 303139 and 302667 will be answered in due course.
I apologise for the delay in answering these parliamentary questions.
Justice
Departmental Fines
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what powers (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies and non-departmental public bodies has to impose administrative penalties; what the statutory basis is for each such power; and how much (i) his Department and its predecessors and (ii) each of its agencies and non-departmental public bodies has recovered in administrative penalties in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [309295]
Mr. Straw: Administrative financial penalties arise where a Department has the authority to charge a financial penalty without the need to resort to court proceedings. They exclude interest charged on late payment of invoices.
The Ministry of Justice's statutory powers to impose administrative penalties are confined to the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC, an office of the Ministry of Justice) and the Legal Services Board (LSB, an executive non-departmental public body).
The Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC)
The Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC) had the power under section 52 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 to require the Law Society to provide information on how it deals with complaints, to make recommendations about the complaints system, and to set targets for complaints handling. In addition, the Commissioner previously had the power to require the Law Society to submit a plan for improved complaints handling and to levy a penalty on the Law Society if it failed to deliver an adequate plan or failed in the delivery of that plan. These powers were reduced in April 2009 in preparation for the closure of the Commissioner's office in March 2010. The maximum penalty that could be imposed was the lower of £1 million and 1 per cent. of the annual income of the Law Society.
In 2006-07 the Commissioner exercised this power and imposed a penalty of £250,000, later reduced to £220,000. In 2007-2008 the Commissioner announced that she was considering imposing a penalty of £275,000 for failure to meet her targets. However, following a series of discussions with the Law Society, a regulatory settlement was agreed which meant that the penalty was invested in client care measures by the Law Society.
The Legal Services Board (LSB)
The new Legal Services Board (LSB), regulating legal services provision by approved regulators, became fully operational from 1 January 2010. The LSB has a range of enforcement powers available to it under sections 31-48 of the Legal Services Act 2007. Its power to impose a financial penalty on approved regulators under section 37 of the Act is subject to the requirement that the LSB makes rules prescribing the maximum financial penalty. The LSB has prescribed the maximum financial penalty it may impose on an approved regulator as 5 per cent. of an approved regulator's regulatory income for its most recent accounting period.
All other penalties levied by the department or its agencies are through the courts.
Departmental Travel
Mrs. Laing: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what mode of transport Ministers and officials of his Department used to travel to each of the deliberative events on British values; and in what class those who travelled to such events by rail travelled. [306702]
Mr. Wills: The means of transport and costs are set out in the following table.
Elections
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment has been made of the potential effect on levels of electoral fraud of general election counts taking place the day after polling. [308305]
Mr. Wills: Under section 10 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission is responsible for producing advice and guidance for electoral administrators to follow at UK parliamentary elections. The Electoral Commission has issued advice for (acting) returning officers that security procedures must be in place for the storage of ballot boxes and the ballot papers, where there is a break in proceedings or where they have decided to count on Friday. The decision as to the timing of the count at an election is for the relevant returning officer.
Under section 5 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission is required to produce a report on the administration of each general election in the UK. The Government will study this carefully and respond to any issues that emerge.
Electoral Register
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the reasons are for the time taken to implement the CORE electoral registration programme. [308406]
Mr. Wills: A detailed specification for the Co-ordinated On-line Record of Electors (CORE) has been completed. However, the Government have paused the CORE project to allow time for the detailed arrangements for supporting the implementation of individual electoral registration to be developed, since individual electoral registration may impact on the design of the CORE system. In the meantime, work has continued on the implementation of electoral registration data standards. I wrote to the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Parties and Plaid Cymru on 24 July 2009 setting out these considerations in more detail.
Electoral Register: Expenditure
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost to the public purse of the (a) LASER and (b) CORE electoral registration projects have been to date. [308816]
Mr. Wills: I refer the hon. Member to my previous answer of 26 November 2009, Official Report, column 1653W.
It is not possible to accurately quantify the cost of the LASER project as not all the information is available. This project pre-dated the CORE electoral registration project and was managed by the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. No capital costs were incurred.
The cost of the CORE project to date, excluding staff costs, is £3,760,981. The increase since my previous answer is attributable to £676,333 grant in aid for local authorities to support the implementation of electoral registration data standards and £5,000 for the market testing of possible procurement options.
This expenditure will produce benefits for electoral registration generally, by improving the accuracy and utility of the data within the local authority, and there are also potential benefits for the development of individual registration, irrespective of whether or not CORE goes ahead.
Family Law Act 1996
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many applications for an occupational order under sections 33 to 41 of the Family Law Act 1996 have been (a) made and (b) granted in each year since their introduction. [310380]
Bridget Prentice: The following tables show the number of occupation orders applied for, and the number of occupation orders granted, in each court area in each year since 2003. The data are taken from the HMCS FamilyMan database and the applications figures do not include applications for arrest warrants.
| Occupation orders applied for in England and Wales, by court a rea, 2003 - 08 | ||||||
| Area | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
|
Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Rutland and Northamptonshire | ||||||
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