Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average cost to the public purse has been of preparing a (a) full pre-sentence report and (b) fast delivery report in magistrates' courts which includes the time spent by probation staff in court whilst the report is being delivered and considered in the last twelve months for which data are available.

Information is available on the direct staff costs of preparing a pre-sentence report, based on the average time in which it is expected that reports will be completed. These costs include the time spent by the officer in court to deliver the report.

The average assumed cost of each type of report is shown in the following table:

Information is also available on the annual volume of pre-sentence reports delivered in courts across England and Wales in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Full-year figures for 2017-18 are not yet available. The following table shows annual volumes of pre-sentence reports ordered by the courts for 2015-16 and 2016-17, together with estimated total costs. These estimates are based on the average cost figures given above and the planning assumption that 60 per cent of all reports should be delivered as oral reports, 30 per cent as short-format reports and 10 per cent as standard-delivery reports.