Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answers of 10 December 2015 to Questions 19024, 19025 and 19026, what the average administrative costs per offender of recovering money from offenders in court-ordered financial impositions were in (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2015-16 to date.

The total outstanding balance of financial impositions (regardless of year of imposition and excluding confiscation orders) at the end of September 2014 and at the end of September 2015 is published as part of the Criminal Court Statistics (Quarterly) publication which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2015

The administrative costs of compliance and enforcement activity within HM Courts and Tribunals Service in the periods April to September 2014 and April to September 2015 were as follows:

The figures provided represent a ‘snapshot’ position at the end of September in each respective financial year. The staffing costs include permanent staff, Fixed Term Contract staff and Agency Staff. The Non-Staffing costs include Estate Costs (Utilities, Rent, Maintenance), IT, Telephony and other contracted service costs, Printing and Postage, Arrest Warrant Execution costs, and Travel & Subsistence costs.

It is not possible to identify or calculate the average amount owed per offender; offenders can have multiple financial imposition accounts recorded against them where they have been convicted of separate offences.

Calculating what the average administrative costs per offender were would incur disproportionate cost.