Fines: Surcharges

(asked on 18th March 2015) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been (a) imposed, (b) collected, (c) cancelled and (d) outstanding under the victims' surcharge in each financial year since 2010.


Answered by
Mike Penning Portrait
Mike Penning
This question was answered on 23rd March 2015

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. The amount of money collected has risen year on year since 2012, and reached an all time high of £290 million at the end of 2013/14 and collections continue to rise.

The victim surcharge is an ancillary order made by the court when it sentences an offender. Revenue from the surcharge is ring fenced for victim services and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) distributes this through grants to Police and Crime Commissioners and centrally managed national victim services.

The Government set out its commitment to ensure offenders contribute more to the cost of victim support services and from October 2012 the victim surcharge on fines was increased and extended to a wider range of court disposals with the amount payable dependant on the seriousness of the sentence.

The table below shows the value of all victim surcharge orders made in each financial year since 2011/12 along with the amount of those impositions that were collected or cancelled in the same year of imposition and the amount that remained outstanding at the end of that year. This data is only available from 2011-12 onwards.

Year

Value imposed

Value collected in year of imposition

Value cancelled in year of imposition

Value outstanding at end of year of imposition

2011/12

£12,199,956

£6,810,532

£645,381

£4,744,043

2012/13

£15,508,307

£7,607,886

£888,027

£7,012,395

2013/14

£33,726,535

£15,343,460

£2,265,389

£16,117,686

It is not possible to provide the figures above separated by adults, youths and organisations without carrying out a manual search of all victim surcharge accounts.

It is not possible to identify how many times the victim surcharge has been imposed, collected, cancelled and outstanding by the type of sentences. The Ministry of Justice does not collate the information in the manner requested and could only be obtained by undertaking a manual search of all financial accounts which would incur disproportionate cost.

The Ministry of Justice holds information on defendants proceeded against, found guilty and sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales but not the specific circumstances of each case. This also does not include details of the amount of victim surcharge imposed for the majority of cases. Below is a link to our most recent statistics.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/343330/sentencing-tables.xls

The total value of victim surcharge impositions outstanding, regardless of imposition date, at the end of 2013/14 was £21,110,000.

The ‘value outstanding’ figures includes accounts that were not due to be paid by the end of the period specified (either because they were imposed close to the end of the year or because they had payment timescales set by the courts for beyond the end of the financial year) and those that were being paid by instalments on agreed payment plans. Outstanding balances of victim surcharge impositions can also relate to amounts imposed on offenders who have also been given a custodial sentence and the victim surcharge cannot be enforced until they are released.

The value cancelled includes both administrative and legal cancellations. It is not possible to split the figures between the two types of cancellation.

Administrative cancellations only take place in certain circumstances and after all attempts to collect the amount outstanding have been made. These circumstances include where the offender has died, where they have emigrated with no prospect of return, where the offender has been sent to a psychiatric hospital for 12 months or more or where the offender cannot be traced and there has been a least 12 months from the point of imposition. It should be noted that administrative cancellations can be re-instated if the prospects of recovery improve (where, for example, a new address is found).

Legal cancellations occur after the case has been reconsidered by a judge or magistrate and further evidence has been presented. Legal cancellations can be as a result of a successful appeal, a change in financial circumstances of the offender or a committal to prison for non payment.

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