Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what types of offence resulted in confiscation orders being made in 2012-13; and how much was collected as a result of those orders.
Answered by Mike Penning
The table below shows the primary offence type for all confiscation orders made between 01/04/2012 and 31/03/2013 and the current amount paid against those impositions as of 16/01/2015. The ‘Amount Paid’ does not include any sums of interest that may have been collected on those orders.
Primary Offence Type | Amount Paid |
Arms Trafficking | £ 2,274.00 |
Bribery and Corruption | £ 724.00 |
Burglary / Theft | £ 5,178,518.99 |
Counterfeiting / Intellectual Property / Forgery | £ 3,482,693.99 |
Drug Trafficking | £ 27,142,467.06 |
Excise Duty Fraud | £ 1,250,612.62 |
Handling Stolen Goods | £ 778,521.81 |
Intellectual Property Crime | £ 390,863.43 |
Money Laundering - Drugs | £ 8,183,885.75 |
Money Laundering - Other | £ 18,291,592.71 |
Other Crime | £ 8,045,149.97 |
Other Fraud / Embezzlement / Deception / Crimes of dishonesty | £ 22,650,449.84 |
People Trafficking | £ 281,589.31 |
Pimps and Brothels / Prostitution / Pornography | £ 965,260.92 |
Robbery | £ 167,503.53 |
Tax and Benefit Fraud | £ 9,078,615.86 |
Terrorism | £ 39,945.15 |
Trading Standards Offences | £ 435,591.73 |
Unknown | £ 125,986.91 |
VAT Fraud | £ 10,548,046.91 |
Vehicle Offences | £ 917,892.02 |
Grand Total | £ 117,958,186.51 |
Confiscation orders are one of the key mechanisms available to the Government to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes. They are based on the notional benefit attributed to the crime and may, therefore, exceed the value of realisable assets that are known to the Court at the time of imposition. Crucially, an order that is outstanding stops the criminal benefitting from the proceeds of crime and ensures that, if assets are discovered in the future, they can be seized.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and other agencies involved in confiscation order enforcement take the recovery of criminal assets very seriously and are working to ensure that clamping down on defaulters is a continued priority.
The amount defendants repaid from their criminal activity across all agencies has increased for the last five consecutive years and we are currently on course to have another highly effective year. £137.2million was collected in 2013/14 (which represented a 4% increase on the total recovered during 2012/13); as at the end of December 2014, £113 million had been recovered, which is an increase of 10% on the same period last year.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the total value was of fines (a) issued by the courts and (b) collected was in financial year 2013-14.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
This Government takes recovery and enforcement of financial impositions very seriously and remains committed to finding new ways to ensure impositions are paid and to trace those who do not pay. This is why there has been a year on year increase in the amount of financial penalties collected over the last three years, reaching a record high in 2013-14.
HMCTS are actively seeking an external provider for the future delivery of compliance and enforcement services. This will bring the investment and innovation to significantly improve the collection of criminal financial penalties and reduce the cost of the service to the taxpayer.
The total value of fines (a) issued by the courts and (b) collected in the financial year 2013-14 is set out below.
Financial Year | Amount imposed | Amount collected |
2013-14 | £420,255,840 | £290,311,831 |
The total amount collected in the financial year 2013-14 was a record high and was £5.8 million higher than the previous financial year.
The amounts above include all elements of financial impositions (excluding confiscation orders): fines, costs, compensation and victim surcharge. The amounts collected in a particular year can relate to impositions from that year or any previous year. The amounts include those that were being paid by instalments or were not due for payment by the end of the year.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which five companies were used most often to provide temporary workers for his Department in the last financial year; and how much in agency fees was paid to each of them.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
Temporary staff can provide a fast, flexible and efficient way to obtain necessary skills that are not available inhouse. They are only used for short term appointments where there is a strong business case, such as support for Transforming Rehabilitation and other major reform programmes within the MoJ.
The Ministry of Justice has spent the following on the provision of service with (a) Capita, (b) Brook Street, (c) Hays PLC (d) Groupe Steria and (e) Certes Holdings in the Financial Year 2013/14. Spend is exclusive of VAT.
Supplier | Financial Year 2013/14 |
Capita | £26,411,523.67 |
Brook Street | £24,514,489.19 |
Hays PLC | £16,548,878.53 |
Groupe Steria | £3,000,763.31 |
Certes Holdings | £712,948.27 |
The approval process on expenditure has been tightened in recent years. All requirements over £20,000 must have departmental approval from the Director General of Finance.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many overseas trips, and at what total cost, his Department made in each year since 2010; and what the costs of (a) flights, (b) internal travel, (c) hotel accommodation and (d) subsistence were of each trip.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
The Ministry of Justice has reduced the overall cost of air travel by almost half since 2009, and our total spend on all travel has fallen by more than 40 per cent in the same period – a saving of more than £9m.
Furthermore, this year, the Justice Secretary toughened up the rules to ban first and business class travel for Ministers and officials in the department other than in exceptional circumstances where this is required to meet business need.
Overseas travel makes up a small proportion of the Department's overall travel requirement. Flights and travel by Eurostar are booked through our contracted supplier, and whilst the MoJ records data on transactions, it does not hold details of the cost or destination of individual trips centrally. The cost of breaking down all travel in the ways requested would be disproportionate, as managers across the Department would have to create a breakdown of every trip taken, itemised by the different kinds of expenditure.
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which 10 consultancy firms were paid the most by his Department in the last financial year; and how much each of those firms was paid.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
The Ministry of Justice can provide spend for the provision of services with the top ten consultancy firms for 11 months of the last financial year (13/14) as March 2014 spend is not yet available. All spend is exclusive of VAT. The below table shows the top ten suppliers for consultancy for 2013/2014 and spend.
Consultants can provide a fast, flexible and efficient way to obtain necessary skills that are not available inhouse. Consultancy spend is governed by strict Cabinet Office controls and any spend over £20k requires approval by the departmental board on behalf of the Secretaryof State.Consultancy contracts in excess of nine months require further approval by the Cabinet Office.
Supplier | 2013/2014 YTD | |
1 | PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS | £8,617,495.63 |
2 | ERNST & YOUNG GLOBAL LIMITED | £5,870,242.50 |
3 | PA CONSULTING GROUP LIMITED | £3,200,003.90 |
4 | MCKINSEY & CO INC. UNITED KINGDOM | £2,596,675.00 |
5 | ALLEN & OVERY LLP | £765,883.60 |
6 | CAPGEMINI S.A. | £723,189.07 |
7 | METHODS CONSULTING LTD | £364,726.69 |
8 | BIRD & BIRD | £312,387.78 |
9 | PINSENT MASONS | £161,134.37 |
10 | REGENCY IT CONSULTING | £116,805.00 |
Asked by: Chris Leslie (The Independent Group for Change - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department's 10 largest contracts let since the financial year 2010-11 are; what savings have been made in such contracts; what the level of overspend or underspend was in each such contract; and what steps his Department has taken to monitor the performance of each supplier of such contract following the contract award.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Ministry of Justice has taken a number of steps to improve commercial capability across the department. We regularly review suppliers' performance against key performance indicators and have recently embarked on a programme aimed at introducing a more robust approach to contract management, to ensure that contracts deliver best possible value for the taxpayer.
The table below features the ten largest contracts let by the Ministry of Justice since the financial year 2010/11, and provides details of savings and of any under- or overspend in each financial year.