Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners released between October 2023 and June 2024 under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme were subsequently recalled to prison.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are constantly monitoring the use of End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) and its impact.
ECSL was implemented in October 2023. Since its operation, the number of ECSL releases between 17 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was 10,083.
The information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost, because it would require the linkage and reconciliation of multiple administrative datasets.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners released between October 2023 and June 2024 under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme had been imprisoned for an offence relating to domestic violence.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) began in October 2023. The number of ECSL releases that took place between 17 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was 10,083.
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been allocated to each (a) court and (b) tribunal in HM Courts and Tribunals Service budget for the financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Mike Freer
Sitting days in courts and tribunals are subject to formal agreement between the Lord Chancellor, Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals via an annual process. This process has not yet concluded for the financial year 2024/25 and therefore sitting day allocations, and the associated budget information, is not yet available.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many sitting days each (a) court and (b) tribunal has been allocated in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Mike Freer
Sitting days in courts and tribunals are subject to formal agreement between the Lord Chancellor, Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals via an annual process. This process has not yet concluded for the financial year 2024/25 and therefore sitting day allocations, and the associated budget information, is not yet available.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential risk to public safety of Operation Early Dawn.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Operation Early Dawn is an existing contingency measure to ensure sufficient governance exists between HMPPS, the Prison Escort Custody Service (PECS) and HMCTS to maintain the effective management of prisoner transfers between courts and custody.
It involves an operational assessment being made each morning by HMPPS on which prisoners can be transferred from police cells and taken to courts to ensure there is a safe and secure location if remanded to custody.
At least a partial collection is made from every Police Station which allows Police (and HMCTS for subsequent collections) to identify priority collections, including those who pose a higher risk.
Public protection is carefully considered when taking decisions under Operation Early Dawn.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether beds of prisoners who have been released on temporary licence are counted as available for the purposes of determining capacity.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Where a prisoner is authorised to temporarily leave prison, including hospital visits and release on temporary licence (ROTL), their bed remains allocated to them. This reflects the fact that such absences are strictly time limited and the prisoner must return within the short term. Their bed is not therefore considered vacant for the purpose of determining available capacity.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies there are in the probation service by region.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The workforce position, at 31 March 2024, was 20,758 FTE Staff in Post working in Probation Service grades (including those working in Approved Premises). This is an increase of 728 FTE (3.6%) since 31 March 2023.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.
We have recruited 4,582 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2023/24. Many of these trainees have already qualified and taken up Probation Officer posts and we expect the remainder of these intakes to qualify by the end of 2025 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads. We will continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications.
Table One: Vacancies across Probation Service Regions, March 2024, all Probation Service grades.
Probation Service Region | Vacancies (FTE) |
PS East Midlands | 45 |
PS East of England | 204 |
PS Greater Manchester | 18 |
PS Kent, Surrey & Sussex | 100 |
PS London | 446 |
PS North East | 50 |
PS North West | 89 |
PS South Central | 103 |
PS South West | 71 |
PS Wales | 0 |
PS West Midlands | 67 |
PS Yorkshire & the Humber | 109 |
PS Approved Premises | 0 |
Notes
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department consulted representatives of (a) magistrates and (b) solicitors before implementing Operation Early Dawn.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The Ministry of Justice engaged with key Criminal Justice System partners, including the judiciary and legal profession, in advance of the activation of Operation Early Dawn.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many appearances in magistrates courts were delayed on (a) 15 and (b) 16 May 2024 as part of Operation Early Dawn.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Operation Early Dawn is a contingency designed to mitigate impacts across the Criminal Justice System. We monitor system impacts but it is hard to say how many appearances in the magistrates courts were delayed because of Operation Early Dawn, as this data is not collected in our management information systems (because Operation Early Dawn is a contingency).
The Ministry of Justice, across its agencies, is working to minimise any delays across the court system, which includes prioritising the most urgent cases.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice on 14 May 2024, Official Report, column 119, whether a decision by a Governor to block the early release of a prisoner under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme can be overruled by HM Prison and Probation Service.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
It remains at the discretion of the prison service to prevent the End of Custody Supervised Licence release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date. A panel formed of HMPPS senior leaders take decisions over exclusions following advice from prison and probation staff.