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Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Labour Turnover
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many staff left his Department in each year since 2015.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The table below shows the headcount of leavers in the 12 month period to 31 December for each year since 2015.

Headcount of leavers for MOJ (including HMPPS) in the 12 months to 31 December, from 2015 to 2023

Includes MOJ HQ, HMPPS, HMCTS, OPG, LAA, and CICA

Headcount of Leavers

12 months to 31 December 2023

11,303

12 months to 31 December 2022

12,285

12 months to 31 December 2021

10,488

12 months to 31 December 2020

7184

12 months to 31 December 2019

8456

12 months to 31 December 2018

7360

12 months to 31 December 2017

6432

12 months to 31 December 2016

6927

12 months to 31 December 2015

6329

Notes

  1. Includes leavers from MoJ HQ, HMPPS, HMCTS, LAA, OPG, and CICA.

  1. Internal transfers between HMPPS and the other MoJ agencies, and vice versa, will be included in these figures but all other internal transfers are excluded.

  1. Number of leavers will be proportional to the size of the overall business, and therefore these figures should be considered within this context.

  1. A number of calendar years within this period will have been affected by COVID-19.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release: Homelessness
Monday 22nd April 2024

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.


Written Question
Prisons: Restraint Equipment
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2024 to Question 17264 on Prisons: Restraint Equipment, how many Nico 9 stun grenades were used in prisons in each year since 2015.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Gender Based Violence
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure swift justice for victims of violence against women and girls.

Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)

The Government is taking concerted action to ensure swift justice for victims of VAWG.

This includes delivering the end-to-end Rape Review Action Plan to improve the justice system’s response to adult rape, which has seen Crown Court receipts more than double since 2019.

The Department has also been increasing capacity in the Crown Court, including 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; and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.

Further to this, we are doing more than ever to ensure victims receive the support they need, including quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10.


Written Question
Prisons: Dogs
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2024 to Question 17263 on Prisons: Dogs, how many times the National Dog and Technical Support Group were deployed in prisons in each year since 2015.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Community Orders
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people on community sentences were assessed under the offender assessment system as lacking stable accommodation in the last year for which figures are available.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are delivering our groundbreaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers who are subject to probation supervision 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.

Data for accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody, broken down by sentence length, is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics.

Data for accommodation outcomes for people on community sentences is not collected at commencement of order; however, data from the case management system in relation to accommodation 3 months after commencement is published.

Latest statistics for April 2022 to March 2023 for both are available here: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Accommodation data for releases from remand could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people that had served sentences of 12 months or less were released from custody without a permanent address in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are delivering our groundbreaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers who are subject to probation supervision 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.

Data for accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody, broken down by sentence length, is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics.

Data for accommodation outcomes for people on community sentences is not collected at commencement of order; however, data from the case management system in relation to accommodation 3 months after commencement is published.

Latest statistics for April 2022 to March 2023 for both are available here: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Accommodation data for releases from remand could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people who were released from remand had no fixed address in each of the last three years.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are delivering our groundbreaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers who are subject to probation supervision 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.

Data for accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody, broken down by sentence length, is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics.

Data for accommodation outcomes for people on community sentences is not collected at commencement of order; however, data from the case management system in relation to accommodation 3 months after commencement is published.

Latest statistics for April 2022 to March 2023 for both are available here: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Accommodation data for releases from remand could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release: Employment
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of prison leavers are employed six months after their release.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We know that employment reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. In order to grow, businesses need skills and labour to fill the nearly one million vacancies in the UK right now. Prison leavers have a role to play in filling those vacancies, particularly in sectors with skills shortages such as construction and hospitality, that the economy needs to grow, while also cutting crime and delivering safer streets. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in delivering key employment reforms across 93 resettlement prisons, including:

  • Prison Employment Leads to match prisoners to jobs;
  • Employment Hubs where prisoners can access job vacancies and support with applications;
  • Employment Advisory Boards – chaired by business leaders and advise prisons on skills delivery.

I am pleased to say that the proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release more than doubled from 14% in April 2021 to over 30% in March 2023. The next release of this data will be published this summer


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: ICT
Monday 22nd April 2024

Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, updated on 29 February 2024, when his Department first assessed each of the red-rated legacy IT systems in (a) his Department and (b) HM Courts and Tribunals Service to be red-rated.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

We completed an assessment of our critical systems against the CDDO’s legacy technology measures in July 2023, identifying the red rated system during that process.

HMCTS first assessed the red-rated legacy IT systems in October 2022 as part of their Decommissioning and Legacy Risk Mitigation (DLRM) programme.