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Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many outstanding confiscation orders there were on 31 December (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012 and (d) 2013.


Answered by
Shailesh Vara Portrait
Shailesh Vara
This question was answered on 2nd April 2014

Our accounts are based on financial years as opposed to calendar years; therefore the value and volume of outstanding confiscation orders as at 31 March, from 2010 through to 2013, are set out in the table below.

However, as at 31 December 2013, there were 20,634 outstanding confiscation orders totalling £1,466,924,522 including interest. Excluding interest the figure is £1,094,584,445.

Volume of Orders Outstanding

Value of Orders Outstanding

Excluding Interest

Including Interest

Excluding Interest

Including Interest

31 March 2010

6,359

12,771

£711,409,802

£870,804,796

31 March 2011

7,488

15,227

£1,046,473,308

£1,254,278,825

31 March 2012

8,397

17,440

£915,151,064

£1,195,167,499

31 March 2013

9,295

19,727

£1,055,230,330

£1,406,638,265

During 2011/12, two successful appeals with a combined total of £184.7 million were reduced to a total of £32.3 million. This reduced the outstanding debt by £152.4 million.

Confiscation orders are one of the key mechanisms available to the Government to deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes. The value of the order imposed, which is often very high, is based on the criminal 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 outstanding order stops the criminal benefitting from the proceeds of crime and ensures that, if the assets are discovered in the future, they can be seized.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and other enforcement agencies take the issue of recovering criminal assets very seriously and are working to ensure that clamping down on defaulters is a continued priority nationwide.

Although, as the Enforcement Authority, HMCTS owns the debt, it is not always the lead enforcement agency. HMCTS tends to lead on the high volume, low value orders. Prosecution agencies, including the CPS and the Serious Fraud Office, lead on enforcement where they have put Restraint Orders on the defendant's property to protect the asset, or where the professional expertise of an Enforcement Receiver will be required to enforce the confiscation order.

All outstanding amounts are actively pursued using a range of enforcement tools open to us. A confiscation order is a life time order and only amounts up to £50 can be written off. Default sentences of up to 10 years in prison are activated for non payment. Serving the default sentence does not cancel the debt and we will continue to pursue the amount owed. Interest is added to the order balance outstanding at the rate of 8% per annum. The fact that interest accrues at such a high rate and amounts over £50 cannot be written off, contribute to the increasing level of debt. At the end of December 2013, the total amount outstanding was £1.47 billion, of which £372 million was interest alone. At the end of December 2013, including interest £24 million is owed by defendants who are deceased and a further £86 million is owed by defendants who have been deported. Even for those that are deported we still try to actively pursue the defendants assets held abroad, but we rely on the cooperation of overseas enforcement agencies, which is often not forthcoming. The Agencies responsible for enforcement are building better relationships with overseas authorities and engage specialist forensic teams to track down hidden assets.

The amount defendants repaid from their criminal activity across all agencies reached an all time high during 2012/13, with a total of £133.1 million recovered. That represented a 7% increase on the £124.1 million recovered during 2011/12. The total amount recovered has increased for the last four consecutive years and once again we are on course to have another record breaking year this financial year. For the 2013/14 financial year, at the end of December 2013, £102.8 million had been recovered, which is an increase of 2% on the £100.5 million that was collected up to December 2012. Since 2008/09, when £98.8 Million was recovered, the amount collected from criminals has increased by 35%.

HMCTS is seeking a commercial partner to help increase collections, reduce enforcement costs and importantly, ensure more criminals pay. A new national system has been implemented to manage the collection of fixed penalty notices, with all of the Police Forces having transferred to the new platform by June 2013.The continuing improvement the Agencies are making combined with our future plans will ensure that more criminals pay and that taxpayers get better value for money.

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