Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department plans to take steps to reduce the waiting time for appeal hearings in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support).
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are working to reduce the outstanding caseload across the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, which includes the Social Security and Child Support jurisdiction. This is key to reducing the waiting time for tribunal hearings.
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, the deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.
Data on Tribunals performance is published by the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis. Receipts, disposals and the outstanding caseload for individual Chambers in the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal can be found at the link below: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of legal advice available to people making an asylum claim.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Government is committed to ensuring that those seeking asylum in this country have access to publicly funded legal advice and representation.
Access to legal aid is a key part of a fair immigration system, which is why we are spending around £8m expanding access to legal aid, helping victims of modern slavery, individuals prioritised for removal and individuals appealing an age assessment decision.
The Legal Aid Agency keeps market capacity and the provision of services under constant review and takes immediate action when gaps appear, working with providers to ensure provision nationally.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the Government is taking steps to increase the availability of legal advice to people making an asylum claim.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Government is committed to ensuring that those seeking asylum in this country have access to publicly funded legal advice and representation.
Access to legal aid is a key part of a fair immigration system, which is why we are spending around £8m expanding access to legal aid, helping victims of modern slavery, individuals prioritised for removal and individuals appealing an age assessment decision.
The Legal Aid Agency keeps market capacity and the provision of services under constant review and takes immediate action when gaps appear, working with providers to ensure provision nationally.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how (a) many and (b) what ethnicity of women were known to be pregnant while (i) on remand or (ii) serving a sentence in HMP Styal on (A) 31 March and (B) 30 June 2020.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Pregnancy data is collected and monitored locally by individual prisons to ensure the appropriate support can be provided to women in our care, whether women are on remand or sentenced.
I can confirm that an ad hoc data collection exercise was undertaken on the 28 January 2021 which indicates that the number of women known to be pregnant whilst on remand or serving a sentence in HMP Styal on 31 March 2020 and 30 June 2020 was fewer than three on each date. As the overall number is fewer than three and releasing the actual number would risk identification of individuals, it is not possible to give any more information about ethnicity, for the same reason.
On 31 July we published a summary report of our review of operational policy on pregnancy and women separated from children under 2. This includes an undertaking to extend the range of data we publish in relation to pregnant women in prison, and can be found at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/905559/summary-report-of-review-of-policy-on-mbu.pdf.
We have already taken steps to increase our internal national data collection processes to support the policy review, and to enable us to plan for future publication.
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 (a) Band 3 prison officers on Fair and Sustainable terms and (b) all prison officers have (i) joined and (ii) left the Prison Service in each of the last eight quarters.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Table 1 - Band 3-5 Prison Officers1, Joiners2,3 by quarter ending December 2018 to September 2020
Headcount
| Three months to: | |||||||
| 31-Dec-18 | 31-Mar-19 | 30-Jun-19 | 30-Sep-19 | 31-Dec-19 | 31-Mar-20 | 30-Jun-20 | 30-Sep-20 |
New Joiners |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band 3 Prison Officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 1,165 | 771 | 499 | 757 | 449 | 591 | 807 | 361 |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 1,166 | 773 | 502 | 771 | 453 | 591 | 808 | 363 |
Average number of staff in post |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band 3 Prison Officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 11,408 | 11,767 | 11,735 | 11,797 | 11,700 | 11,672 | 11,951 | 12,127 |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 12,018 | 11,779 | 11,563 | 11,681 | 11,458 | 11,225 | 10,970 | 10,760 |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 23,425 | 23,546 | 23,298 | 23,477 | 23,157 | 22,897 | 22,921 | 22,886 |
New Joiners as a percentage of staff in post |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band 3 prison officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 10% | 7% | 4% | 6% | 4% | 5% | 7% | 3% |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 5% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 2% |
Table 2 - Band 3-5 Prison Officer1 Leavers2,3 by quarter ending December 2018 to September 2020
Headcount
| Three months to: | |||||||
| 31-Dec-18 | 31-Mar-19 | 30-Jun-19 | 30-Sep-19 | 31-Dec-19 | 31-Mar-20 | 30-Jun-20 | 30-Sep-20 |
Leavers Band 3 Prison Officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 454 | 454 | 475 | 585 | 487 | 437 | 266 | 367 |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 232 | 207 | 227 | 232 | 219 | 190 | 167 | 148 |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 686 | 661 | 702 | 817 | 706 | 627 | 433 | 515 |
Average number of staff in post |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band 3 Prison Officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 11,408 | 11,767 | 11,735 | 11,797 | 11,700 | 11,672 | 11,951 | 12,127 |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 12,018 | 11,779 | 11,563 | 11,681 | 11,458 | 11,225 | 10,970 | 10,760 |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 23,425 | 23,546 | 23,298 | 23,477 | 23,157 | 22,897 | 22,921 | 22,886 |
Leavers as a percentage of staff in post |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band 3 prison officers on Fair and Sustainable terms | 4% | 4% | 4% | 5% | 4% | 4% | 2% | 3% |
All Other Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 1% |
Total Band 3-5 Prison Officers | 3% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% |
Notes to Tables 1 and 2:
1. Includes Band 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers. |
2. Movements due to machinery of Government changes or due to staff transferring to or from the private sector as a result of changes in the management of establishments are not included in these tables. Such movements are: |
On July 1, 2019, 468 FTE staff transferred back into HMPPS, as HMP Birmingham came back under public ownership. |
3. As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However, the database itself is dynamic and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate. We are working hard to retain staff with additional training to progress their careers, and significant investment to keep them safe. All staff have access to support, including 24/7 counselling, trauma support and occupational health assessments and we are professionalising the prison service with qualifications for new officers on completion of training. |
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 prison officers are on (a) Fair and Sustainable terms and (b) closed grades, by rank.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Table 1 - Number and proportion of Band 3 to 5 Prison Officer by Fair and Sustainable and Closed term and grades, as at 30 September 2020
| Headcount | Percentage | ||||
| F&S | Closed | Total | F&S | Closed | Total |
Band 5 / Custodial Managers | 1,696 | 56 | 1,752 | 97% | 3% | 100% |
Band 4 / Supervising Officer | 1,407 | 571 | 1,978 | 71% | 29% | 100% |
Band 4 /Prison Officer Specialists | 1,203 | 1 | 1,204 | 100% | 0% | 100% |
Band 3 /Prison Officer | 12,018 | 5,765 | 17,783 | 68% | 32% | 100% |
Total | 16,324 | 6,393 | 22,717 | 72% | 28% | 100% |