Tulip Siddiq – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people owe money to his Department in criminal courts charge impositions; what proportion of those people were convicted in (i) magistrates court and (b) a crown court; and what the total amount of outstanding debt is owed in criminal courts charges.

Mr Shailesh Vara

Data relating to the criminal courts charge for the period April to September 2015 will be published on 17 December 2015.

Enforcement action is taken against the total amount an offender owes and offenders are often ordered to pay more than one type of financial imposition.

The cost of enforcing the criminal courts charge cannot be separated from the total cost of enforcing all types of court ordered financial impositions.

It is not possible to identify how many people have had a criminal courts charge imposed in magistrates or crown courts or for specific offences without carrying out a manual search of all financial imposition accounts which would incur disproportionate costs.