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Tag: Sadiq Khan

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what security breaches associated with the Prisons ICT Academy programme there have been since 1 January 2014; when these first came to the attention of Ministers; what the (a) nature of and (b) the outcome of their investigation was; and what illegal activities by prisoners were uncovered.

    Jeremy Wright

    We are aware of two security breaches within the Prison Information Technology Academies (PICTA) since 1 January 2014. These came to the attention of Ministers on 26 February 2014. As a precaution we immediately suspended the use of the PICTA workshops across the prison estate, pending an investigation which is still in progress. It would therefore not be appropriate to comment further at this stage. In addition we are increasing the security measures within PICTA workshops and we expect them to re-open in the near future.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what additional staffing requirements will arise in HM Prison Hull and HM Prison Chelmsford from the re-opening of closed wings; what the cost of this re-opening will be; and where any additional staff be sourced from.

    Jeremy Wright

    We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer

    This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate. We will have increased the adult male prison capacity so that we have more places than we inherited from the previous Government.

    The retention of significant spare prison capacity over and above what is required is expensive and cannot be justified given the current financial climate. The mothballing of spare capacity at HM Prisons Chelmsford and Hull saved the taxpayer £3.6m in the financial year 2013-14. This compares to the significantly lower cost of maintaining this accommodation on a mothballed basis, so that it could be reactivated if necessary.

    We have reviewed the refurbishment requirements at both sites and believe that, with minor investment, they can now be reopened on a contingency basis without carrying out a full refurbishment. These costs are anticipated to be around £132k by the time they have reopened. From the end of March to date, around £12k has been spent on Chelmsford, and around £107k has been spent on Hull.

    The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Hull is around 65 members of staff – of which approximately 40 are uniformed. The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Chelmsford is around 30 members of staff – of which approximately 20 are uniformed grades. This means we are able to create additional places at an average cost of £7k per place (subject to final benchmarking review), as opposed to the average cost of a prison per place of £26,139.

    The staffing requirement will initially be met by short term detached duty from other prisons, before looking to redeploy staff permanently where surpluses exist – and if necessary through external recruitment.

    Subject to certification, Hull will create 282 places and Chelmsford 148 places, with prisoners due to start arriving this summer.

    The reactivation of these places is a prudent and good value for money response to an increased prison population. Under the previous administration, police and court cells were turned into temporary prisons, with over 50,000 prisoners held in these cells in 2007-08 alone.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been spent purchasing additional prison places from existing privately run prisons in each month since 1 January 2014; from which prisons such additional spaces have been purchased; how many additional spaces were agreed; for how long each such additional space has been purchased for; and what the cost was for each space agreed.

    Jeremy Wright

    The Ministry of Justice has purchased the following Additional Prisoner Places (APPs) in existing privately run prisons since February 2014.

    We are unable to provide the cost of APPs at each prison as this information is commercially sensitive.

    We have presented the information below setting out at which prisons the APPs have been purchased since February 2014, and the duration of these places.

    Prison

    Number Places

    Duration

    Altcourse

    100

    11 months

    Dovegate

    73

    11 months

    Forest Bank

    96

    11 months

    Lowdham Grange

    32

    6 months

    Peterborough (male only)

    48

    6 months

    Parc

    63

    9 months

    Total Number of Places

    412
  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department maintains a list of books which are not allowed to be kept in prison libraries.

    Jeremy Wright

    The Ministry of Justice has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what financial penalties have been levied against those running private prisons in each year since 2010-11.

    Jeremy Wright

    On the question of what financial penalties have been levied against those running private prisons in each year since 2010-11, I refer the Rt. Honourable Member to the response sent to him in November of 2013, under PQ 165769, which can be found on Hansard under the reference 4 Dec 2013 Column 705W.

    The data presented in table 1 below is based on total number of performance points accrued for the relevant periods. This does not take into account credit points awarded to Contractors and offset against total performance points for the period. Financial remedies are only applicable when performance point baseline targets are exceeded for the period.

    Please note, data relating to the 4th quarter of 2013/14 is pending approval and not available for release at this time. Data for the following prisons are also not available and awaiting verification and validation by the parties:

    • HMP Birmingham
    • HMP Doncaster
    • HMP Dovegate
    • HMP Forest Bank
    • HMP Oakwood
    • HMP Thameside

    This information will be available later in the year.

    It is important to note that performance points are essentially about operational efficiency, and at no point has public safety been at risk. There are no significant historical trends in the attached figures and it is fair to say that privately managed prisons achieve the majority of their contractual targets with proportionately low levels of performance points and financial remedies applied as a result. The data for each contract is closely monitored by MoJ staff and any emerging or sustained performance failures are discussed in detail with the relevant Contractor in order to rectify performance shortfalls as quickly as possible.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many agency workers have been employed as cover for clerical staff in each month since January 2014.

    Andrew Selous

    Since April 2010 we have cut our overall spend on temporary staff by £35.5m. We only use temporary staff to fill business-critical posts and essential frontline services where they can provide a fast, flexible and efficient way to obtain necessary skills that are not currently available in-house. We will continue to examine our use of contractors and look for further reductions.

    In responding to each question we have utilised data provided by our contracted supplier of temporary clerical staff and contracted supplier of temporary operational staff. As the data provided has been supplied by two different third parties there is a slight difference in the way that the answer to question 3 and 4 has been presented.

    Temporary operational staff relate to Operational Support Grades (OSGs) used within HM Prison Service. We have contracts in place to provide temporary OSGs to fill in gaps in requirements, for building projects or to fill vacancies short term. Temporary OSGs are a very small proportion of our staff complement.

    Uniform operational support staff are Operational Support Grades (OSGs).These are uniformed staff who undertake a wide range of duties in prisons, for example operating prison gates, working in security and managing stores areas. They also escort contractors and their vehicles.

    1) The following amounts (exclusive of VAT) have been spent on clerical agency staff across –

    January 2014 – £2,983,633.14 (5 week period)

    February 2014 – £2,613,023.10 (4 week period)

    March 2014 – £2,591,678.87 (4 week period)

    April 2014 – £2,900,742.70 (5 week period)

    May 2014 – £2,398,053.57 (4 week period)

    June 2014 – £658,700.28 (1 week period)

    2) The following amounts (exclusive of VAT) have been spent on uniform operational support staff –

    January 2014 – £1,082,247 (5 week period)

    February 2014 – £1,420,329 (4 week period)

    March 2014 – £1,137,834 (4 week period)

    April 2014 – £1,249,908 (4 week period)

    May 2014 – £2,282,468 (5 week period)

    The spend for May 2014 also includes the backdated annual pay rise for eligible workers from 1st April 2014.

    3) The following number of clerical agency staff have been utilised –

    January 2014 – 1571 (Average headcount)

    February 2014 – 1634 (Average headcount)

    March 2014 – 1624 (Average headcount)

    April 2014 – 1578 (Average headcount)

    May 2014 – 1644 (Average headcount)

    June 2014 – 1674 (Average headcount)

    4) The following number of uniform operational support staff have been utilised –

    January 2014 – 697 (Peak worker number)

    February 2014 – 845 (Peak worker number)

    March 2014 – 867 (Peak worker number)

    April 2014 – 853 (Peak worker number)

    May 2014 – 855 (Peak worker number)

    June 2014 – Peak worker number not available yet.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electorial Commission

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electorial Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-03-11.

    To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the electoral registration figures were in each ward in the recent confirmation dry run conducted in the London Borough of Wandsworth.

    Gary Streeter

    The Electoral Commission informs me that the confirmation dry run involved matching all entries on the electoral registers against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information System database. Entries would be marked as green if they matched with DWP, amber if they were a partial match or red if there was no match.

    Results for all wards are available on the Commission’s website here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0003/163146/Confirmation-dry-run-2013-Results-Wards.xls

    The ward results for Wandsworth were as follows:

    Ward

    Green matches

    Amber matches

    Red matches

    Balham

    57.8%

    9.2%

    33.1%

    Bedford

    53.0%

    13.1%

    33.9%

    Earlsfield

    59.3%

    6.6%

    34.1%

    East Putney

    57.9%

    6.2%

    35.9%

    Fairfield

    54.2%

    9.6%

    36.2%

    Furzedown

    68.2%

    6.7%

    25.1%

    Graveney

    60.9%

    7.2%

    31.9%

    Latchmere

    65.6%

    4.2%

    30.1%

    Nightingale

    57.7%

    10.0%

    32.3%

    Northcote

    54.1%

    13.3%

    32.7%

    Queenstown

    58.0%

    6.2%

    35.8%

    Roehampton & Putney Heath

    63.5%

    3.2%

    33.3%

    Shaftesbury

    54.1%

    12.3%

    33.7%

    Southfields

    64.4%

    5.7%

    29.8%

    St Mary’s Park

    58.5%

    5.7%

    35.8%

    Thamesfield

    58.8%

    9.2%

    31.9%

    Tooting

    59.0%

    8.8%

    32.2%

    Wandsworth Common

    64.3%

    7.6%

    28.1%

    West Hill

    67.7%

    3.1%

    29.3%

    West Putney

    69.4%

    3.1%

    27.5%

    “

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-03-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been spent purchasing additional prison places from existing privately run prisons in each month since May 2010.

    Jeremy Wright

    A significant amount of this information is not held centrally, and we would need to interrogate a very large volume of separate files to obtain the information required and then review and collate that information. By doing so we would incur disproportionate costs.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what rules his Department has in place on the (a) proven and (b) alleged criminal actions of potential bidders for the Transforming Rehabilitaiton programme.

    Jeremy Wright

    Final bids to run the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are expected in June 2014, and will be rigorously assessed against robust quality, legal, commercial and financial criteria. In the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, bidders were required to declare that they had no convictions in relation to criminal offences such as conspiracy, corruption, bribery, fraud or criminal offences relating to the conduct of their business or profession and acts of grave misconduct. The MoJ also undertook extensive due diligence of bidders on a range of matters, including integrity and legal compliance issues. As a consequence we have a robust and diverse market and are confident that the bidders who passed the first stage of the competition – the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) – are credible organisations.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners were employed in work in jails on 1 April in each of the last four years.

    Jeremy Wright

    Work in prisons is a key priority to ensure prisoners are engaged purposefully whilst they are in custody. It also gives them the opportunity to learn skills and a work ethic which can increase their chances of finding employment on release, a key element to reducing reoffending.

    The number of prisoners working in industrial activity in public sector prisons increased from around 8,600 in 2010-11 (the first year for which figures are available) to around 9,700 in 2012-13. This delivered an increase in the total hours worked in industrial activities from 10.6 million hours to 13.1 million hours. Private sector prisons have also been supporting this agenda and have reported that they delivered over 1½ million prisoner working hours in commercial and industrial workshops in 2012-13 which provided work for over 1,200 prisoners.

    In addition there are substantial numbers of prisoners who work to keep prisons running on tasks such as cooking, serving meals, maintenance and cleaning.

    Figures for public sector prisons are published in the NOMS Annual Report Management Information Addendum: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225225/mi-addendum.pdf

    Figures for the number of prisoners working in the community are not held centrally and could only be obtained from local records at disproportionate cost.

    “