Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many contract and temporary staff the Serious Fraud Office employed annually from 2010 to the most recent period for which figures are available; and what the cost was of that employment for each such year.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The average number of temporary contract staff employed annually by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) since 2010 and the cost of that employment is detailed in the table below. The figure for 2016-17 is the actual number of temporary contract staff engaged by the SFO as at 31 October.
| 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 |
Temporary Staff Cost | £3.693m | £2.296m | £2.672m | £3.926m | £4.646m | £6.991m | £3.735m |
Temporary Staff FTE | 20 | 51 | 29 | 36 | 69 | 106 | 113 |
The Serious Fraud Office operates a flexible resourcing model due to the demand-led nature of its casework and to take account of the mix of core and blockbuster funding. The majority of temporary staff are assigned to work on blockbuster cases and the number of such cases has increased since 2010.
Prior to April 2014 the SFO did not maintain a centralised record of temporary staffing and the figures prior to that date are estimates.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of blockbuster funding for the Serious Fraud Office and the effect of the funding model on the body's staffing and resources.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) blockbuster funding model allows the SFO the flexibility to take on the complex and high value cases for which it was established. SFO officials meet regularly with my staff and with Treasury officials to review the financial position and we will continue to work closely with Treasury colleagues to ensure that the SFO has an effective and sustainable funding model.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many agency staff the Government Legal Department employed at what cost in 2015-16.
Answered by Robert Buckland
In 2015-16, the Government Legal Department employed the full time equivalent of 175 agency and contracted staff at a cost of £9,231,000.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how much (a) the Government Legal Department, (b) the Attorney General's Office and (c) HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate spent on counsel fees to independent barristers in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Government Legal Department (GLD) provides legal services to other government departments and instructs external barristers on their behalf. The amount paid by GLD to external barristers for such services in the 12 months from October 2015 to September 2016 was £25.1m. These charges are recharged to the client departments.
In addition, the GLD, Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) made the following payments to external Counsel for their own cases in the same period:
| £ |
GLD | 33,584 |
AGO | 131,150 |
HMCPSI | 0 |
Total | 164,734 |
The amount paid to barristers in one financial year is not necessarily reflective of the work carried out during that year. Payment may sometimes take place some time after the work has been done and so fees paid in one financial year may relate to an aggregate of work done over more than one year.
All the figures listed exclude VAT (individuals must pay the VAT to HM Revenue and Customs) but are inclusive of disbursements incurred such as travelling costs.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what the annual budget was for the Government Legal Department and the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The annual budget for the Government Legal Department and the former Treasury Solicitor’s Department can be found in the published Parliamentary Supply Estimates for HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor, which also contains provision for the Attorney General’s Office and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, which can be found on www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-main-estimates.
The budget for the Government Legal Department (GLD), formerly the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSD), can be found in each Estimate in Part II: Subhead detail Row A. There are separate budgets for Resources and Capital.
The resource budget is to cover the Government Legal Department’s costs which are not recovered from clients, specifically the costs of public interest casework (time and disbursements) on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office and the Government Legal Service (GLS) Secretariat (up to and including 2015-16).
Supplementary Estimates for HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor were taken in 2013-14, 2012-13 and 2010-11. Supplementary Estimates are used to seek additional resources, capital and/or cash or to reallocate existing resources and capital to new activities. These can be found on www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-supplementary-estimates
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how much the Crown Prosecution Service spent on agency staff in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Buckland
In the last full financial year, 2015-16, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spent £7,842,489 on agency staff.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, in what proportion of cases the Crown Prosecution Service used (a) in-house lawyers and (b) independent barristers in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) cases are not prosecuted exclusively by in-house lawyers or independent barristers. Many cases are transferred between in-house and self-employed advocates. Therefore it is not possible to report on the proportion of cases prosecuted solely by one type of advocate or the other.
The CPS does record the proportion of work undertaken across the 13 CPS Areas in the Crown Court and High Court by in-house and self-employed advocates by value, in accordance with the prosecution fee schemes. Data for the last 6 years is contained in table 1.
TABLE 1 - Proportion of the work undertaken in the Crown Court by in-house and self-employed advocates by value | ||||
Financial Year | Estimated in-house advocate costs | Expenditure on external advocates | Proportion of in-house costs (%) | Proportion of external costs (%) |
2010-11 | 20,020,236 | 134,194,870 | 13.0% | 87.0% |
2011-12 | 20,787,591 | 111,041,044 | 13.5% | 84.2% |
2012-13 | 20,286,293 | 110,608,524 | 13.2% | 84.5% |
2013-14 | 21,759,812 | 114,606,542 | 14.1% | 84.0% |
2014-15 | 15,932,453 | 118,557,077 | 10.3% | 88.2% |
2015-16 | 14,953,333 | 132,024,999 | 9.7% | 89.8% |
Source: CIS Crown Advocacy & Finance modules
In the magistrates’ courts the CPS collects data on half-day court sessions conducted by in-house advocates (Associate Prosecutors, Crown Prosecutors and Senior Crown Prosecutors) and external advocates (Agents). Data for the last 6 years is contained in table 2.
TABLE 2 – The number of half-day court sessions conducted by in-house and external advocates | |||||
Financial Year | Lawyer Sessions | AP Sessions | AP2 Sessions | Agent Sessions | Covered by Agents % |
2010-11 | 198,798 | 103,626 | 4,358 | 33,033 | 9.7% |
2011-12 | 175,670 | 93,715 | 7,257 | 27,892 | 9.2% |
2012-13 | 132,932 | 76,515 | 8,181 | 55,703 | 20.4% |
2013-14 | 115,717 | 64,239 | 5,781 | 66,717 | 26.4% |
2014-15 | 104,098 | 57,450 | 4,030 | 63,295 | 27.7% |
2015-16 | 101,156 | 51,914 | 3,368 | 65,675 | 29.6% |
Source: CIS Manpower module
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what the staff budget of the Crown Prosecution Service was in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The staff budget of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), in each year since 2010, is given below:
Financial Year | Staff Budgets £’000s |
2010-11 | 737,667 |
2011-12 | 372,627 |
2012-13 | 361,278 |
2013-14 | 347,260 |
2014-15 | 313,169 |
2015-16 | 291,472 |
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2016 to Question 22400, if he will meet the hon. Member for Torfaen to discuss the case of Norman James.
Answered by Robert Buckland
I am happy to meet any Honourable Member where appropriate to discuss any issues for which I am accountable to this House. However, in this case I do not believe that a meeting would serve a particular purpose as I am accountable only for the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service, and the specific allegations raised by Mr James are ones that would be more appropriate for the police to investigate. As I pointed out in my previous answer the CPS has no investigatory powers in this regard.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will review Norman James' case as raised in the letter from the hon. Member for Torfaen of 15 June 2015 to take account of recent developments in that case.
Answered by Robert Buckland
My office has no plans to conduct a review into this matter. The specific allegations raised by Mr James are ones that would be more appropriate to the police to investigate rather than the Crown Prosecution Service for which I am answerable to this House and which in any event does not have any investigatory powers.