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8 Feb 2010 : Column 770W—continued


8 Feb 2010 : Column 771W

These 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.

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

Mrs. Laing: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what discussions he has had with (a) the Scottish Parliament and (b) the Scottish Executive on Clause 36 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill; [315646]

(2) whether he notified the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament of the provisions in Clause 36 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill; [315755]

(3) what discussions he had with (a) the Scottish Executive and (b) the Scottish Parliament on the provisions of Clause 36 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. [316049]

Mr. Wills: Clause 36 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill triggers the Sewel convention and we have been working with the Scottish Ministers to seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament in line with the Sewel convention. The Scottish Parliament gave its consent by way of a Legislative Consent Motion on 28 January.

Crimes of Violence: Sentencing

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what proportion of persons convicted of (a) sexual offences, (b) violence against the person, (c) burglary, (d) robbery and (e) drug offences in each year since 1998 served the maximum applicable sentence. [315472]

Claire Ward: There are 440 offences-each with a statutory maximum-included in the categories asked for; to extract the number of persons sentenced to or who have served the maximum in each year could be supplied only at a disproportionate cost.

Departmental Public Expenditure

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department spent on (a) consultants, (b) advertising, (c) publishing, (d) public relations, (e) professional training and (f) other activities for each campaign (i) operated by his Department and (ii) commissioned from other organisations in (A) 2005-06, (B) 2006-07, (C) 2007-08 and (D) 2008-09; and which organisation operated each campaign which was not operated by his Department. [308779]

Mr. Straw: Campaigns are defined as activities undertaken by the Ministry of Justice and its executive agencies (Her Majesty's Courts Service, the National Offender Management Service, the Tribunals Service and the Office of the Public Guardian) to communicate departmental programmes and policies to the public.

The nature of the Ministry of Justice's activities, principally administering the courts, prisons, probation and tribunals systems, is such that it does not engage in such campaigns to any significant degree.


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The way in which the Ministry records its expenditure does not enable us to identify all of the costs associated with specific campaigns without incurring disproportionate cost. Expenditure is recorded according to the type of expenditure and the business unit which incurs the expense. To provide a full response would therefore involve analysing individual transaction records in each of the five categories of expenditure (a) to (f) for headquarters and the Ministry's four executive agencies for the last four years to identify which costs related to campaigns, as defined.

Advertising and pub licity expenditure on campaigns

As campaigns will, by their nature, involve advertising and publicity expenditure, the following limited information has been collated from the Ministry's business areas in respect of specific advertising campaigns:

Democracy, Constitution and Law (DCL)

Total advertising expenditure for all years from 2004-05 to 2008-09:

£

2004-05

3,000

2005-06

372,068

2006-07

163,727

2007-08

20,434

2008-09

14,335


The expenditure was for the following initiatives:

Criminal Justice Group (CJG)

The two main advertising campaigns which are ongoing are:

Both initiatives are advertised mainly in the form of leaflets. The campaigns are intended to raise public awareness of the support available to witnesses and victims from the Office for Criminal Justice Reform.

The advertising expenditure for these two campaigns is not separately identifiable from the rest of the publicity and advertising expenditure of the CJG.

Access to Justice

The vast majority of advertising expenditure of HM Courts Service (which is from the MOJ Access to Justice budget) is for the Operation Payback initiative. The costs incurred are as follows:

HM Courts Service did not commission any Operation Payback campaigns in 2008-09.


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Operation Payback involved intensive week-long blitzes on outstanding fines which were initiated and co-ordinated by HM Courts Service in association with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), local police and other Criminal Justice System organisations.

Operation Payback is now running under the title of Operation Crack Down.

Tribunals Service

In 2007-08 £204 was spent on the launch of the Welsh language scheme.

National O ffender Management Service NOMS

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which has responsibility for the prison and probation systems, has spent the following non-recruitment related amounts on advertising, external publicity and broadcasting. Amounts relating to specific advertising campaigns cannot be separately quantified except at disproportionate cost.

Advertising expenditure (£000)

2005-06(1)

36

2006-07(1)

17

2007-08(1)

31

2008-09

281

(1) The figures obtained for the financial years 2005-06 to 2007-08 is for HM Prison Service (HMPS) agency only. They exclude NOMS HQ (previously a directorate within the parent Department) which is now part of the NOMS agency from 2008-09. The figure for 2008-09 is for NOMS HQ and HMPS but excludes the National Probation Service. The 2008-09 figures are therefore not comparable to previous years.
Note:
1. All years exclude expenditure by the 42 local probation boards and trusts which are part of NOMS, each of which operates its own separate accounting system. However, a one-off exercise undertaken in 2007-08 found that expenditure on advertising and promotion by the 42 local probation boards and trusts was £58,264. This information-gathering exercise was not repeated in any other years.

In addition to the campaigns mentioned above, the Ministry has commissioned adverts in the local media
8 Feb 2010 : Column 774W
to support the 'Justice Seen and Justice Done' campaigns that were funded entirely by the Home Office.

Campaigns (i) run by the Department and (ii) and commissioned from other organisations

Campaigns are managed by the Ministry but some work is commissioned from other organisations. Advertising commissions are undertaken by the Central Office of Information, a government department which exists to provide advertising services to Government in the most cost-effective manner. The Ministry has a contract with TSO to supply the Department with a large proportion of external publications. The Ministry's publications via TSO can be found at:

It would incur disproportionate cost in order to obtain a split between expenditure undertaken in house and that commissioned from other organisations.

Driving Offences

Mr. Sanders: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many convictions for (a) an offence of drink driving and (b) each other motoring offence in (i) Torbay constituency, (ii) Devon and (iii) England resulted in a custodial sentence in each of the last 10 years. [314213]

Claire Ward: The number of defendants found guilty at all courts in the Devon and Cornwall police force area and England for driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs and other motoring offences (by offence type) is given in Tables 1 and 2 from 1999 to 2008 (latest available). Sentences of immediate custody imposed at all courts are given in Tables 3 and 4.

Court proceedings data are not available at parliamentary constituency level. Data for Devon cannot be separately identified from within the Devon and Cornwall police force area.

Data for 2009 are expected to be published in the autumn 2010.


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Table 1: The number of defendants found guilty at all courts in the Devon and Cornwall police force area, of motoring offences( 1) , by offence type, from 1999 to 2008( 2,3)
Offence group Offence type 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

2

Dangerous driving

75

63

78

78

85

75

67

52

57

54

3

Driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs

2,098

2,052

2,225

2,271

2,489

2,341

2,299

2,199

2,140

2,054

4

Careless driving

480

547

698

687

656

782

743

725

760

999

5

Accident offences

106

91

118

139

154

267

224

151

131

83

7

Driving licence related offences

843

988

1,006

1,105

1,304

1,187

928

812

725

776

9

Vehicle insurance offences

3,228

4,259

3,916

4,196

4,220

4,124

3,608

4,111

3,773

3,478

10

Vehicle registration and excise licence offences

381

442

771

1,267

1,417

868

752

798

658

794

11

Work record and employment offences

84

111

103

125

60

93

73

67

44

52

12

Operator's licence offences

26

57

30

25

24

23

15

13

14

13

13

Vehicle test offences

663

450

466

542

547

591

416

444

370

310

14

Fraud, forgery etc. associated with vehicle or driver records

90

67

90

77

62

99

41

28

28

46

15

Vehicle or part in dangerous or defective condition

274

260

218

207

182

179

128

163

158

219

16

Speed limit offences

3,370

4,142

3,698

3,334

4,729

4,642

4,933

4,472

3,835

2,821

17

Motorway offences (other than speeding)

2

-

2

2

2

1

1

3

1

7

18

Neglect of traffic directions

535

444

376

635

530

605

1,048

968

648

452

19

Neglect of pedestrian rights

86

96

82

80

62

67

41

33

43

44

20

Obstruction, waiting and parking offences

548

399

446

370

315

238

237

240

143

81

21

Lighting offences:

180

146

127

146

133

117

86

77

67

97

22

Noise offences

26

29

16

25

15

18

16

13

19

14

23

Load offences

126

185

202

189

225

169

80

118

85

101

24

Offences peculiar to motor cycles:

5

6

6

4

4

8

5

10

6

5

25

Miscellaneous motoring offences

847

903

787

885

1,634

1,460

1,978

1,286

971

445

Total

14,073

15,737

15,461

16,389

18,849

17,954

17,719

16,783

14,676

12,945

(1) Offence groups are shown only where data have been reported within the period given. (2) 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. (3) 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. Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services-Ministry of Justice.

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