Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of assaults on prison staff that included the use of (a) new psychoactive substances and (b) urine and excreta resulted in the hospitalisation of those staff in the 12 months to September in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Violence against our hardworking staff is completely unacceptable and will never be tolerated, which is why we have doubled the maximum prison sentence for anyone who assaults prison officers. Those who commit more serious offences can be imprisoned for far longer.
We are giving officers tools like PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer.
More widely, we are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This will fund tough security, body scanners and phone-blocking technology.
The numbers of assaults, serious assaults and sexual assaults on staff are published annually. They are broken down into prison officers and other staff. The most recent go up to December 2018 and can be seen via https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-september-2019. The next set of annual data will be published on 30 April.
The numbers of prison staff admitted to hospital following the throwing of urine and/or excreta in the last ten calendar years are in the table below. HM Prison & Probation Service does not hold data that would show whether a prisoner was under the influence of psychoactive substances when assaulting a member of staff.
2009 | 0 | 2014 | 2 |
2010 | 0 | 2015 | 0 |
2011 | 0 | 2016 | 1 |
2012 | 0 | 2017 | 3 |
2013 | 0 | 2018 | 1 |
I regret that, apart from this, to provide figures to the level of detail requested could be done only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of assaults on (a) prison officers, (b) probation officers, (c) educational staff, (d) health-care staff and (e) other staff prison staff that included the use of (a) new psychoactive substances and (a) urine resulted in hospitalisation in the 12 months to September in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Violence against our hardworking staff is completely unacceptable and will never be tolerated, which is why we have doubled the maximum prison sentence for anyone who assaults prison officers. Those who commit more serious offences can be imprisoned for far longer.
We are giving officers tools like PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer.
More widely, we are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This will fund tough security, body scanners and phone-blocking technology.
The numbers of assaults, serious assaults and sexual assaults on staff are published annually. They are broken down into prison officers and other staff. The most recent go up to December 2018 and can be seen via https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-september-2019. The next set of annual data will be published on 30 April.
The numbers of prison staff admitted to hospital following the throwing of urine and/or excreta in the last ten calendar years are in the table below. HM Prison & Probation Service does not hold data that would show whether a prisoner was under the influence of psychoactive substances when assaulting a member of staff.
2009 | 0 | 2014 | 2 |
2010 | 0 | 2015 | 0 |
2011 | 0 | 2016 | 1 |
2012 | 0 | 2017 | 3 |
2013 | 0 | 2018 | 1 |
I regret that, apart from this, to provide figures to the level of detail requested could be done only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people (a) charged with and (b) convicted of violent offences in each of the last 10 years had previously served a prison term.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Ministry of Justice collects and publishes key statistics on proven reoffending in England and Wales. The proven reoffending figures include offenders who were released from custody, received a non-custodial conviction at court, or received a caution or reprimand. The data published can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/proven-reoffending-statistics.
The specific information you have requested is not held centrally by the Ministry of Justice because our data only records people who are convicted/cautioned and not people who are charged. If someone is found not guilty of all offences they are removed from our Police National Computer (PNC) extract. This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost because we would need to link prisons data to PNC data on previous convictions.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Crown court sitting days there were in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The table below is comprised of unpublished management information sourced from internal reports belonging to Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS) and provides the number of Crown Court sitting days there were in each of the last available 10 financial years:
Financial Year | HMCTS “Crown Court sitting days” |
2009/10 | 108,536 |
2010/11 | 109,263 |
2011/12 | 106,739 |
2012/13 | 103,181 |
2013/14 | 101,724 |
2014/15 | 106,583 |
2015/16 | 109,321 |
2016/17 | 107,863 |
2017/18 | 102,818 |
2018/19 | 97,293 |
Sitting days are based on the number of cases we expect the court to hear and, with fewer cases making it to the Crown Court, were reduced to allow judges to carry out work in the civil and family courts, where demand is higher. This approach has enabled us to reduce the number of outstanding Crown Court cases by almost 40% since 2014.
We keep sitting days under constant review and in November allocated an extra 700 days to the Crown Court for this financial year, in response to an increase in cases coming to court.
Notes:
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assurances his Department has received from the Office for Legal Complaints in relation to the Legal Ombudsman’s (a) governance and management and (b) allegations of bullying and harassment.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Department seeks on-going assurance from the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) as to the governance and management of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) as part of its partnership arrangements. This includes reports from the OLC on any issues of concern; regular meetings between Executives at the OLC and Ministry of Justice officials and attendance at OLC’s internal Audit and Risk Committee meetings.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost to the public purse has been of (a) hotel and (b) other expenses for prison officers on detached duty in each month since January 2018.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Prison officers do a challenging and vital job to help protect the public and we are committed to making sure we have enough staff to deliver safe regimes in our prisons.
Detached duty (DD) is one of the sensible and proportionate measures taken to ensure the safe and decent running of regimes in prisons, and respond appropriately to any operational issues that arise. The deployment of staff between prisons on detached duty is a regular and normal part of prison resourcing and the number of prison officers deployed will reflect operational circumstances.
When there is a need to accommodate staff in hotels, we work hard to ensure the best possible value for money for the taxpayer and have controls in place to help keep costs to a minimum. Where possible, bookings are for specifically timed trains and always in standard class to help keep costs to a minimum.
The Government is investing £2.75bn to modernise and maintain our prisons, create 10,000 additional places, and step up security to stop the flow of drugs and mobile phones.
Please find below a breakdown of travel costs by method:
Month | Hotels | Rail | Air | Ferry |
Jan-18 | £290,178.64 | £23,567.00 | £200.51 | £0.00 |
Feb-18 | £236,621.21 | £23,663.40 | £951.68 | £0.00 |
Mar-18 | £209,026.30 | £24,500.85 | £2,483.74 | £0.00 |
Apr-18 | £225,754.14 | £16,023.25 | £493.56 | £91.00 |
May-18 | £233,236.50 | £18,785.35 | £233.62 | £1,616.50 |
Jun-18 | £209,336.12 | £17,609.60 | £0.00 | £1,135.75 |
Jul-18 | £199,038.25 | £20,042.95 | £0.00 | £1,014.20 |
Aug-18 | £211,642.81 | £20,200.10 | £0.00 | £466.15 |
Sep-18 | £223,603.44 | £16,640.20 | £0.00 | £103.00 |
Oct-18 | £250,363.26 | £24,802.25 | £0.00 | £0.00 |
Nov-18 | £159,252.49 | £18,911.20 | £0.00 | £0.00 |
Dec-18 | £157,993.00 | £10,066.10 | £0.00 | £53.50 |
Jan-19 | £216,479.21 | £16,850.50 | £0.00 | £51.50 |
Feb-19 | £187,018.49 | £14,296.45 | £0.00 | £0.00 |
Mar-19 | £225,574.25 | £18,534.50 | £0.00 | £218.50 |
Apr-19 | £202,070.93 | £14,641.10 | £0.00 | £319.75 |
May-19 | £230,760.74 | £17,950.95 | £0.00 | £229.25 |
Jun-19 | £218,309.41 | £16,018.05 | £483.30 | £158.50 |
Jul-19 | £182,603.48 | £17,248.80 | -£483.30 | £0.00 |
Aug-19 | £156,795.30 | £16,970.75 | £0.00 | £0.00 |
Sep-19 | £146,658.25 | £18,526.70 | £0.00 | £239.00 |
Oct-19 | £120,290.85 | £16,812.90 | £0.00 | £305.25 |
The amount spent on other expenses claims for Prison Officers as outlined in the Travel and Subsistence policy (day and night subsistence, lodging allowance, etc):
Month |
|
Jan-18 | £643.24 |
Feb-18 | £758.37 |
Mar-18 | £2097.74 |
Apr-18 | £488.49 |
May-18 | £1436.75 |
Jun-18 | £142.27 |
Jul-18 | £76.84 |
Aug-18 | £77.80 |
Nov-18 | £1657 |
Feb-19 | £240 |
Mar-19 | £672 |
Apr-19 | £592 |
May-19 | £80 |
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times the National Tactical Response Group has been called to each prison in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) has been called to each prison in each year since 2010 is provided in the attached document.
The NTRG provides additional support staff or resources to prisons to help them deal with a variety of incidents. The overwhelming majority of call outs are for non-violent incidents, including where they attended as a precaution and when the situation was resolved locally.
We do not tolerate violence or disruptive behaviour in our prisons. We’ve recruited around 4,300 additional officers since October 2016 and are spending an extra £100 million on airport-style security, x-ray scanners and phone-blocking technology. This is part of the Government’s new £2.75bn investment to modernise and maintain our prisons, create 10,000 additional places, and step up security to stop the flow of drugs and mobile phones.
We are also committed to ensuring our prison officers have the tools they need to do the job safely with body worn cameras, ‘police-style’ handcuffs and restraints, and PAVA incapacitant spray.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the financial deductions levied against companies with which his Department has contracts valued at over £10 million over the life of the contract.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry of Justice holds the following information on the contract records and not within a central database, concerning Financial Remedies imposed against a supplier on Contracts valued £10 million or more for failure to meet their key performance targets or level of service required;
- The date the financial remedy was imposed;
- The value of the financial remedy;
- The reason the financial remedy was imposed.
Private providers play an important role in the Ministry of Justice. We continue to closely monitor the performance of all providers and we will not hesitate to take action where standards fall short
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department has spent with each company providing agency staff in each year since 2010.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We can confirm that the below table shows the spend across the department with companies providing agency staff.
Financial year | Agencies | |||||||||
CAPITA | HAYS | BROOK STREET | ALEXANDER MANN SERVICES | SERVOCA | SKYBLUE | BLUE ARROW | BADENOCH & CLARKE | TWENTYSIX |
| |
2011/2012 | £ 15,722,346.03 | £ 10,753,952.00 | £ 12,237,418.63 | £ - | £ - | £ - | £ 213,320.46 | £ - | £ - |
|
2012/2013 | £ 21,499,236.69 | £ 16,110,202.00 | £ 29,663,430.76 | £ - | £ - | £ - | £ 396,058.57 | £ - | £ - |
|
2013/2014 | £ 2,217,588.93 | £ 19,013,681.00 | £ 30,996,698.33 | £ - | £ - | £ - | £ 749,020.01 | £ - | £ 15,909.98 |
|
2014/2015 | £ 36,607,966.38 | £ 27,064,429.00 | £ 38,364,083.55 | £ - | £ - | £ - | £ 1,035,284.70 | £ - | £ 109,765.20 |
|
2015/2016 | £ 49,904,326.58 | £ 14,982,843.00 | £ 45,143,872.50 | £ - | £ - | £ - | £ 1,254,511.49 | £ - | £ 107,134.64 |
|
2016/2017 | £ 44,811,850.00 | £ 9,646,682.00 | £ 51,529,354.19 | £ - | £ 329.52 | £ - | £ 737,934.09 | £ - | £ 95,121.73 |
|
2017/2018 | £ - | £ 20,841,403.46 | £ 70,709,241.32 | £ - | £ 13,873.56 | £ - | £ 836,250.54 | £ - | £ 140,256.08 |
|
2018/2019 | £ 1,850.00 | £ 23,419,385.34 | £ 73,835,255.29 | £ 33,261,710.45 | £ 7,993,500.22 | £ 2,101,058.37 | £ 780,627.35 | £ - | £ 386,399.68 |
|
2019/2020 to | £ 626,953.32 | £ 9,049,561.89 | £ 37,640,648.56 | £ 23,853,921.85 | £ 4,366,995.31 | £ - | £ 389,758.54 | £ 1,074,400.49 | £ 262,466.54 |
|
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost incurred by the Legal Aid Agency was for means-testing applications for grants of exceptional funding in relation to representation at inquests before Coroners' Courts in (a) each year since 2013 (b) 2019 to date.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The means of applicants for Exceptional Case Funding are tested in accordance with the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Resources and Payment for Services) Regulations 2013, which apply to all applications for civil legal aid.
As such, it is not possible to ascribe a figure to the cost of assessing financial eligibility in ECF matters specifically, as this is not conducted under a separate process within the Legal Aid Agency.