Tag: John McDonnell

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what government funds are available for victims’ support organisations in England and Wales.

Mike Penning

This Government is committed to supporting victims, by ensuring that they have access to high-quality, effective and timely support. We have made more money than ever before available for this purpose, increasing the contribution offenders make to the costs of providing support, and more than doubling the victims budget to over £92million for 2015/16.

Locally accountable Police and Crime Commissioners are now responsible for the provision of support services in their areas and will receive the bulk of the available funding with which to do so. This was £63.15m in 2015/16.

Some services remain nationally commissioned. This includes support for families bereaved by homicide, support for victims of rape and modern slavery, and support for witnesses at court. National services have recently been competitively re-commissioned.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what costs may be incurred by a victim when applying for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

Mike Penning

According to latest figures, in the financial year 2013-14 we made payments totalling more than £242m to victims of violent crime.

We also aim to make our application process as simple as possible. Applicants need only complete one form when applying to Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) and we have an online application service. Those who have no access to online services, or who need additional support, can apply by phone. Depending on the nature of the claim, applicants may be asked to provide evidence to support their claim, for example: medical reports or employment information.

In the last financial year 94 per cent of applicants we surveyed after receiving their decision, including people who were refused compensation, said they were happy with our service.

Where necessary, CICA will ask applicants to provide basic medical evidence to support their claim. Applicants are expected to meet the cost of a medical report up to the value of £50. If additional medical information is required this will be paid for by CICA. If an applicant cannot afford to pay for the initial medical report, CICA will pay and deduct this from any award of compensation made. There are no other charges associated with making a claim.

An application received in one financial year may not necessarily be resolved in the same financial year. Although we aim to make compensation payments as quickly as possible, we have a duty to the taxpayer to investigate claims properly while ensuring that the applicant gets the level of compensation they deserve. In some cases it may not be in the best interests of an applicant to finalise a claim before the long term implications of an injury can be properly assessed.

Question	2013	2014
(224448) How many victims were granted compensation by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority	21,846*	16,238*
(22449) How many people applied for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority	33,574	32,297

*This is the total number of victims compensated and their claims concluded within those calendar years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the delays in criminal proceedings in courts in England and Wales.

Mike Penning

The Transforming Summary Justice programme is a collaboration between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts designed to ensure that magistrates’ court cases are prepared and prosecuted in a timely and efficient manner. It is in the process of being rolled out and will be operating throughout England and Wales by May 2015. The recent report of the Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings, which was carried out by Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, makes detailed recommendations for improving efficiency, some of which build on these initiatives. The Government is now considering these recommendations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in how many cases in which a suspect had been charged for offences committed in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 a trial had not commenced after (i) six and (ii) 12 months had elapsed.

Mike Penning

Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) records the date of offence and date of trial in magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. However, a number of cases do not go to trial, either because the defendant pleads guilty or the prosecution drop the case. A number of offences committed during 2014 will not yet have reached six or twelve months since receipt by HMCTS. To answer this question would require the creation of complex reports to combine the variables within the question, which would then need to be tested, this would incur disproportionate costs.

Also, offences committed in 2014 would be incomplete as many will not yet have reached six or 12 months since they were received by HMCTS.

The Ministry of Justice does, however, publish official statistics on the timeliness of criminal cases in Criminal Courts Statistics Quarterly at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what payments have been received by the NHS in return for the advertising of Optical Express services on the NHS Choices website.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS Choices does not advertise services on their website. Optical Express is included within the service directory published on NHS Choices on the basis that it is a provider of NHS services.

NHS Choices has neither sought nor received any payment from Optical Express in return for this inclusion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason the NHS logo appears on the Optical Express website; what the relationship between Optical Express and the NHS is; whether NHS funding (a) is and (b) has been provided to Optical Express in order to carry out procedures on NHS patients; and how many NHS patients were referred to Optical Express by the NHS in each of the last 10 years.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The current NHS identity guidelines only allow opticians to use the NHS logo on a poster in their premises. The guidelines are available at:

www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk/all-guidelines/guidelines/opticians/introduction

NHS England is due to take over responsibility for managing the NHS identity from the Department shortly, and we will be carrying out a thorough review of NHS identity guidelines during 2014-15.

Optical Express receives NHS funding from NHS England for providing NHS sight tests and optical vouchers to qualifying patients. The choice of optician is a matter for individual patients who are able to use any optician offering NHS sight tests and they can also choose where they have their glasses dispensed.

Other eye health services, over and above the NHS sight test, are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups, formerly primary care trusts. Neither the Department nor NHS England holds data on the number of patients who have received such services from Optical Express.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what advice or guidance his Department provides to employers in the media industry on equality monitoring.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Promoting greater equality of opportunity in the workforce is a matter the Government takes seriously. The Government is actively engaging with leading organisations in the media industry who are working together through the Creative Diversity Network to help address the under-representation of ethnic minorities in that sector. The industry will outline the steps it intends to take at a roundtable event in early July. Equality data monitoring is among a number of issues that will be discussed. In addition, Ofcom has a number of duties relating to equality of opportunity, as set out in the Communications Act 2003. These include requiring all UK licensed radio and television broadcasters’ licences to have in place arrangements for promoting equal opportunities in employment on the basis of gender, race and disability, and to review those arrangements with regard to any relevant guidance published by Ofcom.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in his Department have been asked to assist G4S in the delivery of the new Child Maintenance Options scheme to date; how many more staff G4S estimates will be needed to administer this contract when peak levels of applications are reached; and how much in staffing costs his Department is liable to pay as a result.

Steve Webb

The Child Maintenance Options service is not a new service and was introduced in 2008. It offers information and support to help separating and separated parents make an informed choice about their child maintenance arrangement. It is not a child maintenance scheme.

The Department has in place planned and agreed business continuity arrangements with its supplier. This includes utilising the Department’s staff to take some calls where volumes exceed contracted levels. Over the past nine months the Department has used anything from 5 to 20 people for periods ranging from minutes to hours.

The child maintenance reform programme includes ending liabilities on Child Support Agency cases in the 1993 and 2003 schemes over the next three years and it is too early to accurately predict when peak call volumes into Child Maintenance Options will be reached. Child Maintenance Options calculates resource requirements based on forecast volumes provided by the Department on a rolling three month basis. The number of staff Child Maintenance Options employs will increase in line with these forecasts over the next three years before returning to more normal levels when the reforms have completed. The associated costs are reflected in the contract.