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The revisions to the provisions in the Police Act 1996 governing collaboration arrangements for police forces and police authorities have been welcomed by the service. They provide greater clarity to the complex questions of how the service should make formal arrangements to work more closely together in order to deliver better, more efficient services for the public, while ensuring appropriate governance mechanisms are maintained and the responsibilities and duties of individual participants are upheld. These new provisions also include the new ability for collaboration agreements between police forces to transfer direction and control between chief officers, as appropriate for individual arrangements, as specified by the agreement.
The new statutory guidance supporting this legislation has been developed through extensive consultation throughout the service and has been endorsed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Police Authorities, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the National Policing Improvement Agency and the Police Advisory Board of England and Wales, all of whom have made a significant contribution to its content. This statutory guidance is further supported by an electronic toolkit providing both statutory and more practical advice to police practitioners embarking on new collaboration plans.
Both the statutory guidance and its supporting toolkit will be copied to all police force chief officers, police authority chairs and chief executives and other key stakeholder organisations and individuals. The statutory guidance will also be made available from the Home Office website.
Justice
UK Supreme Court (Final Set-Up Costs)
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom came into being on 1 October 2009 and was delivered on time and within budget by the Ministry of Justice. I promised to keep the House informed of the final costs of the Supreme Court Implementation Programme, and I am therefore pleased to announce that the implementation costs of £57.6 million are £1.3 million below the estimated set-up figure of £58.9 million that was announced in Parliament on 3 July 2008.
This figure is made up of £33.7 million for capital construction using a lease and leaseback arrangement over 30 years, £19.4 million of other set-up costs (including library costs, visitor facilities programme team costs, furniture, IT services) and £1.5 million for additional repairs to Middlesex Guildhall. In addition the figure also includes the £3.0 million cost of the external security works, in line with the Whitehall Streetscape Programme, which was not included in the previously announced estimated figure of £58.9 million.
The establishment of the Supreme Court represents a major milestone in the Government's constitutional reform agenda. It has given greater clarity to our constitutional arrangements, achieving a clear and physical separation of the judiciary from the legislature and the executive and improving the visibility of and accessibility to the highest court in the UK.
Sentencing Guidelines Council (Annual Report)
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): I have laid today before Parliament the final joint Annual Report of the Sentencing Guidelines Council and the Sentencing Advisory Panel. The report gives details of the excellent work they have achieved during the past 10 years, which the Sentencing Council, created by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, will build upon in future. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members, past and present, of both bodies for their hard work in realising the significant achievements of the last decade.
Coroner System Reform (Consultation)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Bridget Prentice): The Government are today publishing a consultation paper to seek views on aspects of policy that will inform the drafting of secondary legislation to be made under part 1 (Coroners Etc) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
Our consultation paper seeks views on the following nine policy areas:
The specific types of deaths which should be reported to coroners for investigation.
The criteria, and financial arrangements, for transferring cases from one coroner to another.
Post-mortem examinations.
The application of coroner powers of entry, search and seizure.
Coroners' disclosure of relevant documents to bereaved families and others with a core interest.
The conduct of inquests.
The new appeals and complaints systems.
The training of coroners, their officers and other support staff.
Short death certificates.
The consultation will run until 1 July 2010. Following the subsequent development of the secondary legislation, we plan to share it, in draft, in a further consultation in 2011. The intention remains to implement the bulk of the Act's coroner provisions in April 2012.
Today, I have deposited copies of the consultation paper in the Libraries of both Houses. Copies are also available in the Vote Office and Printed Paper Office. Copies are available on the internet at: www.justice.gov.uk.
Prison Transfers Prior to HMCIP Inspections
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw):
In my statement of 20 October 2009, Official Report, column 53WS, I announced a review of the transfer of prisoners prior to inspection. This will be published on 11 March 2010. The review was conducted by the director of analytical services at the Ministry of Justice and HMCIP and was commissioned after an investigation by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) discovered that 11 prisoners were subject to temporary transfers around the time of inspection. Six were moved from Pentonville to Wandsworth immediately prior to the Pentonville inspection (11 to 15 May), and five from Wandsworth to Pentonville
immediately prior to the Wandsworth inspection (1 to 5 June). The investigation found that the 11 transfers had been arranged as deliberate attempts to manipulate the outcomes of the inspections.
Subsequently allegations were made regarding transfers from Brixton prison around the time of inspection. A separate investigation concluded that these were also deliberate attempts to manipulate the outcome of the prison inspection. A separate investigation commissioned by the Director of Offender Management for London found that three prisoners had been transferred out of Brixton prison on the day the prison's inspection began in April 2008. Two prisoners were held in HMP High Down and one in HMP Wandsworth. All three returned to Brixton after the inspection was completed. As a result, four members of staff were charged under the Prison Service's Code of Conduct and Discipline. Two later had their charges dismissed, one was found guilty of serious unprofessional conduct and received a written warning and the fourth was found guilty of unprofessional conduct and received an oral warning.
The wider investigation focused on identifying patterns of movement which were similar to those at HMPs Pentonville, Wandsworth and Brixton. The defining characteristics of these transfers were transfers to and from a prison where all transfers out of the prison took place on the same day; and all transfers back to the prison took place on the same day; and the time spent in the second prison was very short compared to other transfers at the time of inspection. In addition some prisoners had been transferred who should not have been transferred for medical reasons.
By analysing these characteristics around the time of all inspections it was found that the practice identified at Wandsworth, Pentonville and Brixton was not widespread but there were some features that warranted further investigation.
One other prison had transferred a prisoner at the time of inspection who should not have been moved for medical reasons and six prisons transferred prisoners who should not have been moved for security reasons.
These details were passed to the NOMS for further investigation. These cases were investigation by NOMS found that none of these were a deliberate attempt to manipulate HMCIP inspections.
In addition a selection of other cases where transfers took place at the time of inspection but did not have the same characteristics as the transfers which took place between Wandsworth and Pentonville were also sent to NOMS for investigation. This was to ensure that there were not other methods being used to carry out this practice.
Following this work, the report concludes that there is no evidence that the practice identified in the transfers between Wandsworth and Pentonville and also at Brixton took place at any other prison. However, improvements can be made to the system to prevent such incidents occurring in the future.
Prisons will be required to submit details of all transfers in the four weeks prior to inspection to HMCIP upon arrival then any movement of prisoners with security or medical reasons for not being transferred would be identified.
Secondly, the analysis conducted here will be repeated annually to check for any further suspicious patterns.
A copy of the report has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and is available on: www.justice.gov.uk/publications/prison-transfers.htm
Prime Minister
Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report 2008-2009
The Prime Minister (Mr. Gordon Brown): I have laid today before the House the Intelligence and Security Committee's Annual Report 2008-2009 (Cm7807). This follows consultation with the Committee over matters that could not be published without prejudicing the work of the intelligence and security agencies.
I have also laid before the House today the Government's response to this report (Cm7808). Copies of the report and the response have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
I am grateful to the Intelligence and Security Committee for its valuable work.
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