Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the names of every offender who has committed a Serious Further Offence since 2010.

Figures on the number of serious further offence notifications that have resulted in a conviction for 2021/22 will be published in October 2023. Figures will be accessible using the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/proven-reoffending-statistics

Figures are published based on the date of SFO notification (charge) to HMPPS. The lag between the date of publication and the conviction figures is to allow time for most cases to complete the criminal justice process.

In respect of the number of serious further offence convictions by offence type and region in each year since 2010, I refer the honourable Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) to the answers I gave on 20 January 2023 to Question UIN 125451 and on 3 February 2023 to Question UIN 132490.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2023-01-17/125451

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2023-01-25/132490

The table below sets out the total number of notifications – that is, where an offender subject to probation supervision has been charged with a qualifying serious further offence (SFO) – which resulted in a conviction for an SFO, by index sentence, for notifications submitted to NOMS/HMPPS between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2014.

The latest figures for 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2021 were published in October 2022 and can be found in in Table 2 of the ‘Serious Further Offence Annual Tables’ which can be accessed by the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-october-to-december-2020

1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.

2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender

3. The data only includes convictions for serious further offences that have been notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS.

4. The data provided are provisional subject to change when any outstanding cases are concluded at court.

5. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.

6. The data for April 2010 to March 2014 has been updated and may differ to the original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping.

7. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

8. A basic SFO scheme was introduced in 2003 but data was not captured accurately. An electronic case management system was introduced in 2009/10, which recorded all SFOs referred to the central SFO Review Team, but even then, it was a couple of years since we had assurance that local areas were referring all SFO cases to the SFO Review Team to be recorded on the case management system.

9. The list of offences that qualify as SFOs has changed since 2009.

In respect of the number of serious further offence convictions by index sentence and offence type in each year since 2010, I refer the honourable Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) to the answers I have given to Questions UIN 185282 and 185281.

The Ministry of Justice publishes the number of offenders convicted of a serious further offence but do not expect to publish the names, due to the personal nature of the information. Personal data relating to offenders can only be released if to do so would not contravene any of the principles set out in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Serious further offences are incredibly rare, with fewer than 0.5% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service going on to commit serious further offences but each one is investigated fully so we can take action where necessary. We have also injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year into the Probation Service to deliver tougher supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer.

On Wednesday 29 March 2023, we announced the introduction of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. As part of this, Ministers will be given the power to veto the release of the most dangerous offenders, including murderers, rapists and terrorists - putting public protection back as the overriding focus of the parole process. The Bill will also legislate for a new release test for the Parole Board making it clear that public safety is the only priority when making release decisions – to stop a balancing exercise taking into account prisoners’ rights.