Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners sentenced to custodial sentences had previously received at least one (a) community and (b) suspended sentence in each year since 2010.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the independent judiciary and, by law, courts are required to be satisfied that the offence committed is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified, and even when that threshold is met, courts are able to consider whether a community sentence would be more suitable in that particular case. In many cases, sentences served in the community can more effectively reduce reoffending when compared to short custodial sentences.
Data showing the number and proportion of prisoners sentenced to custodial sentences, who have previously had at least one community order or suspended sentence order respectively for each year since 2010, is drawn from the Police National Computer. This can be viewed in the table below.
Table showing the number and proportion of offender s(1), (2) sentenced to immediate custody(3) in each year since 2010(4), who previously(5) received at least one community order(6) or suspended sentence order respectively(7), prior to the immediate custodial sentence. England and Wales(8).
Year | Number of offenders who received at least one community order prior to an immediate custodial sentence | Proportion of offenders who received at least one community order prior to an immediate custodial sentence | Number of offenders who received at least one suspended sentence order prior to an immediate custodial sentence | Proportion of offenders who received at least one suspended sentence order prior to an immediate custodial sentence |
2010 | 34,550 | 40% | 23,602 | 28% |
2011 | 40,134 | 46% | 25,870 | 29% |
2012 | 42,183 | 49% | 26,216 | 31% |
2013 | 41,201 | 52% | 26,670 | 33% |
2014 | 41,962 | 54% | 27,746 | 36% |
2015 | 41,699 | 54% | 28,381 | 37% |
2016 | 42,985 | 55% | 30,138 | 38% |
2017 | 41,424 | 56% | 30,010 | 41% |
2018 | 38,318 | 57% | 28,112 | 42% |
2019 | 35,524 | 58% | 25,634 | 42% |
2020 | 28,623 | 59% | 20,895 | 43% |
2021 | 28,523 | 55% | 20,898 | 41% |
2022 | 27,230 | 56% | 20,339 | 42% |
Source: MoJ extract of the Police National Computer
1 - 'Proportion' refers to the number of offenders in each year who received an immediate custodial sentence in each year and had at least one previous community order or suspended sentence order respectively as a proportion of all offenders who received an immediate custodial sentence in the same year.
2 - Offenders are counted once in each year but may appear in multiple years if they received an immediate custodial sentence in more than one of the years.
3 - Immediate custodial sentences include types of detention other than adult prison (e.g. detention and training orders given to 10 to 17 year olds or detention in Young Offenders Institutions). An offender sentenced to immediate custody does not necessarily mean that the offender is a member of the prison population.
4 - The figures for 2020 and 2021 are likely to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
5 - Previous community orders or suspended sentence orders respectively may have been received at any time prior to the index offence (last immediate custodial sentence) in each year.
6 - Community orders strictly include community orders, with or without electronic monitoring or curfew restrictions, but excludes other types of community sentences (e.g. youth rehabilitation order, supervision orders) and other sentences that may be served in the community (e.g. suspended sentence orders). At least some of the orders included were only introduced in their current form in 2005.
7 – individuals can be present in both columns
8 - England and Wales includes all 43 police force areas plus the British Transport Police
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of court trials for (a) rape, (b) sexual assault, (c) violence against a person, (d) murder, (e) theft, (f) possession of weapons and (g) fraud have been delayed each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have interpreted your request as relating to ineffective trials, which is where the trial does not take place on the day as planned and requires rescheduling. Ineffective trials happen for a variety of reasons, such as the absence of a defendant or a witness or adjournment requests from either the prosecution or defence.
The tables attached set out the data held by the Ministry of Justice on ineffective trials broken down by offence type, in volume and as a proportion of the total listed trials for that offence type. Crown Court data is available from 2014 onwards.
The pandemic created a significant challenge for the Crown Court and affected its ability to effectively list trials. As a result, the ineffective trial rate notably increased in 2020, primarily due to increases in defendant illness or absence, and overlisting (55% of all ineffective trials were for these reasons combined).
Since 2022, the proportion of ineffective trials in the Crown Court for all offences increased significantly as a result of the Criminal Bar Assocation (CBA) action. While the ineffective trial rate reduced swiftly following the conclusion of the CBA action, in the most recent available data published by the MoJ (October-December 2023), the defence or prosecution not being ready was the largest reason for ineffective trials, accounting for 22% (450) of all ineffective trials.
Despite the overall increase in ineffective trials since the pandemic and subsequent CBA action, the latest data shows cases progressed through the Crown Court more quickly throughout 2023, with the median time from receipt to completion reducing from 167 days in the first quarter of 2023, to 125 days in the last quarter.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the average time from sentence to start of community payback in each year since 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Year | Average days from sentence to start of Community Payback | Number of offenders who did not complete their first session of Community Payback | Total caseload |
2021 | 87 | 8,830 | 44,108 |
2022 | 63 | 7,822 | 47,421 |
2023 | 37 | 6,604 | 48,058 |
The dataset includes all offenders starting an order with a community payback requirement between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. The start of the community payback requirement has been defined as either the first attended session of group work, or an individual placement, or the completion of Employment, Training and Education work.
There are a variety of reason why a person hasn't completed their first community payback session. These include receiving a custodial sentence or remanded into custody, recall to prison, a warrant for their arrest, deportation, suitability of sentence and non -compliance. For issues of suitability or non-compliance requirements are returned to court for appropriate action to be taken.
People whose first community payback session took place over a year from their order start date have been excluded from the average days calculation as additional court work would need to be completed to ensure that the first session was worked within a lawful period.
People who have not completed a first work session have also been excluded from the average day calculation, along with those where a first work session has been recorded after the community payback requirement was terminated.
The 2023 figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Centrally collected data are only available from 2021.
Between 2021 and 2023, a total of 23,256 offenders did not complete their first session of community payback.
This figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Data as at 15 April 2024. Data are sourced from nDelius and while these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have not completed their first session of community payback.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Year | Average days from sentence to start of Community Payback | Number of offenders who did not complete their first session of Community Payback | Total caseload |
2021 | 87 | 8,830 | 44,108 |
2022 | 63 | 7,822 | 47,421 |
2023 | 37 | 6,604 | 48,058 |
The dataset includes all offenders starting an order with a community payback requirement between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. The start of the community payback requirement has been defined as either the first attended session of group work, or an individual placement, or the completion of Employment, Training and Education work.
There are a variety of reason why a person hasn't completed their first community payback session. These include receiving a custodial sentence or remanded into custody, recall to prison, a warrant for their arrest, deportation, suitability of sentence and non -compliance. For issues of suitability or non-compliance requirements are returned to court for appropriate action to be taken.
People whose first community payback session took place over a year from their order start date have been excluded from the average days calculation as additional court work would need to be completed to ensure that the first session was worked within a lawful period.
People who have not completed a first work session have also been excluded from the average day calculation, along with those where a first work session has been recorded after the community payback requirement was terminated.
The 2023 figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Centrally collected data are only available from 2021.
Between 2021 and 2023, a total of 23,256 offenders did not complete their first session of community payback.
This figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Data as at 15 April 2024. Data are sourced from nDelius and while these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the unused court capacity was in each year since 2015.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS had the following number of sessions recorded as either available or unavailable since 2015:
Period | Available verified sessions | Unavailable verified sessions |
FY 15-16 | 1,552,490 | 42,692 |
FY 16-17 | 1,512,424 | 36,811 |
FY 17-18 | 1,387,270 | 37,598 |
FY 18-19 | 1,347,648 | 36,507 |
FY 19-20 | 1,302,006 | 38,408 |
FY 20-21 | 1,062,856 | 130,071 |
FY 21-22 | 1,277,033 | 86,511 |
FY 22-23 | 1,277,981 | 42,665 |
FY 23-24 | 1,281,838 | 48,201 |
A ‘session’ represents the time that court/hearing room space is available, with up to two sessions available each day. Available and unavailable sessions are recorded for all jurisdictions.
HMCTS record a session being unavailable for a number of reasons, including important alternative uses. For example:
HMCTS’ Courtroom Planner performance database was introduced in April 2015 to collect information on the availability of courtrooms. The data was suspended in April 2020 due to COVID disruption and resumed in September 2020. The data between April and August 2020 is therefore incomplete.
The amount of time we use our available estate for hearings is also connected to the funded number of sitting days in any one year, and the availability of key participants such as judiciary and legal professionals.
To maintain session levels, we are investing £220m in the two years to March 2025 for essential maintenance and repair work across the estate to ensure we are keeping as many courtrooms open as possible to hear more cases. This two-year capital maintenance allocation enables us to plan major estate projects in advance and with certainty. Maintenance funding is prioritised to sites that need it most, and this investment is a step forward in improving the quality of the court estate. We have a planned pipeline of future works to improve the resilience and quality of the court estate, and this is kept under regular review.
We have also introduced additional measures to speed up justice for victims and improve the justice system, including:
o Extending 20 Nightingale courtrooms beyond March 2024 to provide additional capacity in the court estate.
o Investing in judicial recruitment since 2017 which has resulted in the annual recruitment of approximately 1000 judges and tribunal members across all jurisdictions. In particular, this has led to an overall increase in the number of judges in the Crown Court.
Please note all data provided is internal and subject to data quality issues inherent in any large-scale manual system.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The data held centrally by the Ministry of Justice on ineffective trials does not specifically identify those that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.
The Government is committed to improving the Criminal Justice System’s response to adult rape. This includes the significant progress we have made in delivering our Rape Review Action Plan. Within this plan, we set ourselves stretching ambitions to return the volumes of police referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), CPS charges and Crown Court receipts for adult rape to 2016 levels. In practice, this means more than doubling the number of cases reaching court since the Rape Review was commissioned in 2019. We are pleased to say we have already exceeded these ambitions.
We also recognise that lengthy waiting times can be particularly difficult for victims of rape and other serious sexual offences who wish to see justice done and move on with their lives. The Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales has recently announced that all rape cases outstanding for more than two years will be listed by the end of July 2024, providing certainty to those victims that their cases will be prioritised and heard as soon as possible.
Alongside the SPJ’s efforts, we continue to make sure we do more than ever to improve timeliness at court. This includes delivering over 107,000 additional sitting days in Crown Courts; opening two permanent ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; increasing criminal legal aid spending by £141 million per year; investing over £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of court buildings (up to March 2025); and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.
We know that support services play a critical role in supporting victims including those engaging with the Criminal Justice System. This is why we are quadrupling funding for victims and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10. The funding will allow us to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors to around 1,000 by 2025.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time was for a (a) rape, (b) murder, (c) GBH and (d) robbery trial in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have interpreted waiting time to refer to the time between the date of sending a case to the Crown Court and the start of the substantive Crown Court hearing.
The average waiting times of defendants dealt with in rape, murder, GBH and robbery trial cases where a not guilty plea was entered in the Crown Court can be found in the below table based on published annual data from 2014 to 2023. Data prior to 2014 is not available.
While the Crown Court is still recovering from the impact of the pandemic and disruptive action from the Bar, which reduced our ability to hear cases swiftly, the latest published statistics show that the median age of cases that are outstanding was around 6 months.
We are committed to ensuring the delivery of swift justice for all victims and have introduced a raft of measures to achieve that aim. This includes funding around 107,000 sitting days during the most recent financial year (FY23,24), recruiting up to 1,000 judges annually across all jurisdictions and investing in the continued use of 20 Nightingale courtrooms into this financial year (FY24/25) to allow the courts to work at full capacity.
Judges do prioritise cases involving vulnerable complainants and witnesses, and seek to ensure that domestic abuse, serious sexual offences and those with vulnerable witnesses are listed at the first available opportunity. The Senior Presiding Judge has also recently announced that all rape cases outstanding for more than two years at court will be listed by the end of July 2024.
Average waiting times (weeks) of defendants dealt with in rape, murder, GBH and robbery for-trial cases where a not guilty plea was entered in the Crown Court, annually, 2014 - 2023 | ||||||||
| Rape | Murder | GBH | Robbery | ||||
Year | Median | Mean | Median | Mean | Median | Mean | Median | Mean |
2014 | 27.6 | 29.5 | 25.0 | 26.3 | 26.6 | 30.1 | 23.9 | 24.5 |
2015 | 28.9 | 31.8 | 25.7 | 28.8 | 28.0 | 33.0 | 24.4 | 28.4 |
2016 | 28.0 | 30.9 | 24.3 | 23.1 | 25.9 | 33.4 | 24.0 | 27.3 |
2017 | 28.8 | 31.5 | 24.0 | 24.6 | 24.9 | 30.5 | 22.6 | 24.6 |
2018 | 29.6 | 32.9 | 23.7 | 23.7 | 24.7 | 28.9 | 22.6 | 23.4 |
2019 | 26.7 | 30.1 | 24.6 | 24.5 | 24.1 | 26.7 | 22.9 | 23.2 |
2020 | 30.6 | 32.5 | 25.5 | 28.9 | 27.0 | 31.4 | 25.4 | 27.8 |
2021 | 41.0 | 44.8 | 32.6 | 36.9 | 36.7 | 44.0 | 33.9 | 39.4 |
2022 | 39.7 | 44.4 | 33.0 | 36.6 | 35.9 | 46.7 | 32.4 | 43.1 |
2023 | 41.7 | 48.2 | 33.6 | 38.5 | 36.9 | 50.3 | 29.7 | 47.6 |
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many psychologists were employed in prisons on average in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, and the latest publication covers data up to 31 December 2023. The average number of psychologists is given in table 1 below.
Table 1 - Average number of psychologists1 in HMPPS 2 for each calendar year from 2010 to 2023
(full-time equivalent)
Calendar Year |
| Total |
2010 |
| 568 |
2011 |
| 549 |
2012 |
| 522 |
2013 |
| 507 |
2014 |
| 507 |
2015 |
| 544 |
2016 |
| 615 |
2017 |
| 654 |
2018 |
| 698 |
2019 |
| 762 |
2020 |
| 798 |
2021 |
| 816 |
2022 |
| 874 |
2023 |
| 862 |
Notes
1. Only including staff in HMPPS bands 5 to 11 and will include trainee psychologists. Staff in groupworker or administrative roles in psychology at bands 3 and 4 are excluded.
2. Psychologists employed in the Probation Service are not included.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) male prisoners, (b) women prisoners and (c) young offenders were transferred to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under sections 47/49 and 48/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of prisoners to a secure hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act.
The requested data are set out in the tables below for the years 2013 to 2022 and are taken from an electronic casework system. Providing data for the years from 2010 to 2013 would require substantial manual checks of paper files which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost. The data for 2023 are due to be published on 26 April.
| TRANSFER YEAR |
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SEX | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Female | 109 | 104 | 117 | 111 | 111 | 118 | 130 | 109 | 103 | 142 |
Male | 887 | 956 | 898 | 875 | 854 | 895 | 924 | 921 | 995 | 930 |
Total | 996 | 1060 | 1015 | 986 | 965 | 1013 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
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| TRANSFER YEAR |
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AGE BAND | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
18 and over | 976 | 1039 | 995 | 972 | 946 | 996 | 1028 | 1012 | 1088 | 1062 |
Under 18 | 20 | 25 | 21 | 14 | 19 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 10 |
Total | 996 | 1064 | 1016 | 986 | 965 | 1014 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
Notes
Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)
We are committed to delivering improvements to mental health care and treatment for vulnerable offenders through non-legislative means. This includes improving oversight of the 28-day time limit for transfers to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 and increasing judicial awareness of alternatives to custody through the expansion of the Bail Information Service.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of prison leavers were homeless in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics. Data is only available from 2017/18 onwards. From this point, accommodation performance metrics were introduced to the probation performance framework with reliable data not available for previous years. The data can be found here: Prison and Probation Performance Statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We are delivering our ground-breaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers have a guaranteed 12 weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.