Serious Organised Crime: Finance
Mr Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the budget of the Serious Organised Crime Agency was in each year since its inception. [47253]
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Nick Herbert: The information is as follows:
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£ million |
Serious Organised Crime: Manpower
Mr Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff at each payband the Serious Organised Crime Agency employs in (a) the UK and (b) Northern Ireland. [47254]
Nick Herbert: At the end of February 2011 the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) employed the following staff at each pay band in the UK:
| Grade | Full-time equivalent |
(b) SOCA has a UK-wide remit and has officers deployed throughout the UK and overseas. Staff are not necessarily based in the region or area on which their work has an impact. For reasons of operational sensitivity it is not possible to provide details of personnel strength in specific locations.
Serious Organised Crime: Northern Ireland
Mr Dodds: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions she has had with the Justice Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive on the work of the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Northern Ireland. [47248]
Nick Herbert: None. However the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has regular discussions at official level with the Ministry of Justice in Northern Ireland. Officials are briefed regularly on the work of SOCA and are consulted in the preparation of the SOCA Annual Plan. SOCA is a member of the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF), chaired by the Minister, and attends both the stakeholder and strategy groups. SOCA also contributes to specific OCTF work streams where it is able to add value.
Serious Organised Crime: Terrorism
Richard Drax: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of European arrest warrants issued to the UK were in respect of serious organised crime or terrorism offences in each year since 2004 for which figures are available. [49703]
Nick Herbert
[holding answer 29 March 2011]: The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for Scotland are
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the designated UK authorities responsible for processing European arrest warrants (EAWs).
It is not possible to provide the figures for the number of EAWs issued to the UK broken down by offence type prior to April 2009. This would require a manual examination of all case files. A new recording system was introduced in April 2009 and the figures for EAWs issued to the UK broken down by offence type are available for the 2009-10 financial year. This is set out in the following table.
It is not possible to provide the figures for the number of EAWs issued to the UK in respect of serious organised crime specifically as this is not one of the recording
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categories used. To provide this figure a manual review of all files would have to be undertaken.
It is worth noting that the majority of European arrest warrants (EAWs) issued by EU member states are circulated to other EU member states on the Schengen Information System (SIS). As the UK is not party to the SIS, we rely on the bilateral transmission of the EAWs. A significant proportion of the EAWs circulated will therefore prove to have no connection to the UK although they are registered as having been “received” by SOCA. This includes, for example, the 40 EAWs issued in April 2009 for alleged war crimes. We understand that those sought have no connection to the UK.
| 2009 | 2010 | ||||||||||||
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Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oc t | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Ma r | Total |
| (1) Previous data provided to the House of Lords’ EU Select Committee referred to 84 EAWs (part one warrants) received by the UK for terrorist-related offences. A further data cleansing exercise carried out by SOCA has revealed that seven of these cases as requests from non-EU countries. | |||||||||||||
Telephone Tapping: Newspaper Press
Mr Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information her Department holds on contact between the Police Commissioner for the Metropolis and News of the World editors during the time the Commissioner was responsible for investigating telephone tapping. [47875]
Nick Herbert [holding answer 18 March 2011]: The Home Office holds no such information.
Vetting: International Organisations
Yasmin Qureshi: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedures are in place to enable international organisations to access the criminal records checking procedures of UK institutions. [49400]
Lynne Featherstone: International organisations do not have access to the UK’s criminal records disclosure services. Individuals can choose to supply a “basic” certificate disclosing their unspent convictions to international organisations. These are currently provided by Disclosure Scotland and AccessNI. The Government are currently considering a recommendation, made by Sunita Mason in her recent Phase 1 report reviewing the Criminal Records’ Regime, that the Criminal Records Bureau should make a basic certificate available in England and Wales.
Under the terms of European Union Council Decision 2005/876/JHA law enforcement agencies in an EU member state can seek the previous convictions of a UK national being prosecuted in that member state. Requests are received by the UK Central Authority for the Exchange of Criminal Records. If identity can be confirmed the
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UK Central Authority will send the convictions, or information that there are none, to the requesting member state. Requests that do not concern criminal proceedings are also sent to the Central Authority. The Central Authority will reply using the same procedures, as long as the purpose of the request is one for which access to previous convictions would be possible in a domestic case.
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Parties to the 1959 Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters who are not in the EU can make requests, in cases of criminal proceedings, under the terms of that Convention. Countries which are not in the EU and are not parties to the 1959 Convention can make a request in cases of criminal proceedings, through the Serious Organised Crime Agency.