Tag: Karl Turner

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many temporary agency staff were recruited by the Legal Aid Agency to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts; and what proportion of staff assessing the bids for such contracts were external staff.

Mr Shailesh Vara

13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.

The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.

The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-12-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2015 to Question 18028, with what representatives of claimants his Ministers or officials met when developing policy on the small claims limit.

Dominic Raab

The Government is very clear on what claimant representatives think about raising the small claims limit. The Coalition Government consulted on this issue between December 2012 and March 2013 with a wide range of stakeholders. Following that consultation, the Coalition Government announced in October 2013 that it was deferring the decision on whether to raise the small claims limit to focus instead on work that would lead to the establishment of the MedCo system in April 2015.

The present Government decided that the time was right to return to the issue of raising the small claims limit, announcing its intention to do so in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. The Ministry of Justice has continued to engage with representatives from all sectors since the Chancellor’s announcement and will be consulting on the detail of the new reform package in the New Year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Attorney General, how many tip-offs were made to the Serious Fraud Office tip-off line in each year since 2010.

Jeremy Wright

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched its dedicated reporting channel on 1 November 2011. The service was intended to encourage reports of serious or complex fraud by whistleblowers and accepted referrals by post, email and telephone. The SFO decided to close the telephone element of the service on 12 June 2012 because a disproportionate amount of staff time was being spent dealing with telephone calls that did not contribute to this aim.

The total number of calls, emails and other referrals through the channel in each year since it was established is shown in the table below. These figures may include multiple reports from single individuals, or multiple referrals about the same matter received from different individuals. Referrals made through the dedicated reporting channel in November and December 2011 were not counted separately from other referrals to the SFO in those months.

Year	Total number of reports
2012	2,731
2013	2,996
2014	3,001
2015	3,163

The SFO now offers guidance on its website as to how the public may best report any information it may have about fraud to the most appropriate law enforcement authority, including Action Fraud, which is the UK’s central reporting mechanism for fraud and cyber crime.

The SFO continues to receive and assess reports from the public sent directly to it via the online reporting tool, by email or post, or referred to it by other law enforcement and regulatory bodies.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were (a) prosecuted for, (b) convicted of, (c) cautioned for and (d) given a non-custodial sentence for rape in each year since 2010.

Mike Penning

The number of offenders cautioned, and defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty and sentenced at all courts, with sentence outcomes, for rape offences in England and Wales from 2010 to 2014 (latest available) can be viewed in the Outcomes by offence tables in the annual publication found at:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2014

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of staff assigned to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts had no previous experience of working on public sector procurement.

Mr Shailesh Vara

13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.

The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.

The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-01-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of demand for police services.

Mike Penning

It is the role of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to assess police forces in England and Wales on their efficiency, including how they are managing demand for services and whether they have appropriate systems in place to assess trends. Their most recent assessment (report published October 2015) found that forces have a good understanding of current demand but need to improve their understanding of future demand. Forces are working with the College of Policing to progress this work.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Attorney General, if he will place in the Library data gathered by Crown Prosecution Service Business Area of prosecutions and convictions for (a) rape-flagged offences, (b) domestic violence, (c) child abuse and (d) human trafficking for each year since 2013.

Jeremy Wright

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of the number of prosecutions and convictions in each CPS business area flagged as rape, domestic violence, child abuse and human trafficking.

The attached tables show the volume of defendants prosecuted and convicted in flagged cases for each CPS business area over the last three financial years for which data is available. These also include a number of caveats and explanatory notes which should be observed when reviewing the data. Data for 2015/16 will be published later this year and will be placed in the House of Commons library.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Attorney General, how many fraud prosecutions were carried out in each CPS business area in England and Wales in each year since 2005.

Robert Buckland

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of the numbers of defendants and the outcome of prosecution proceedings, divided into twelve Principal Offence Categories, including ‘Fraud and Forgery’. The numbers of defendants prosecuted under this category are provided in the accompanying attachment.