| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
30 Jan 2008 : Column 384W—continued
Crime: Fraud
Andrew Selous: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether each individual instance of money stolen through the cloning of debit and credit cards is counted as a distinct crime in local police crime statistics; and if she will make a statement. [182269]
Mr. McNulty [holding answer 25 January 2008]: From 15 January 2007 a revised system of recording plastic card fraud was introduced with agreement from the Association of Payment Clearing Services, Association of Chief Police Officers and police forces. The first stage was the introduction of a less bureaucratic method of recording crimes based on the numbers of accounts defrauded as opposed to the number of individual fraudulent transactions on an account; this also reflecting the fact that in most cases the financial institution where the account is held stands the financial loss rather than the separate parties to individual transactions.
The 2(nd) stage introduced from 1 April 2007 was to give financial institutions a network of single points of contact within each police force where they can report cheque and plastic card fraud which will appear in local police statistics.
Where individual account holders or traders are not refunded moneys lost through fraud on plastic cards by their financial institution, they can also report the matter to police, where it must appear in local police statistics on crime based on the number of accounts defrauded.
Full guidance issued to both police and financial institutions is contained within the Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime (which is a public document available online at:
Crime: Victims
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance is given to police forces on the requirement to record the ethnic origin of victims of crime before crime numbers are issued. [182294]
Mr. McNulty: The National Crime Recording Standard and Home Office Counting Rules provide guidance to forces on how they record and classify crimes. There is no requirement under either of these policies for police to require the ethnic origin of victims of crime before crime numbers can be issued.
Crimes of Violence: Females
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research the Respect Task Force has conducted on violence against women. [182676]
Mr. Coaker: The Respect Task Force has not undertaken any research (nor planned any future research) which specifically relates to violence against women.
Criminal Records Bureau
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average time taken was by the Criminal Records Bureau to process a records check in 2007, broken down by police force area. [170025]
Meg Hillier: Data concerning the average time taken by the Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) to complete a Disclosure by police force area are not collated by the bureau.
The CRB operates to a set of published service standards (PSS) which include to issue 90 per cent. of Standard Disclosures within 10 days and 90 per cent. of Enhanced Disclosures within 28 days. The CRB has exceeded the PSS for Standard Disclosures for several years and has exceeded the PSS for Enhanced Disclosures since April 2007.
Forces performance can be affected by a number of factors; the volume of cases sent to a force to process in any given month, the number of staff available to process the checks and the IT resources on hand to forces. With these variables, performance can fluctuate within individual forces from one month to the next.
The CRB has been supporting those forces that have encountered problems in meeting their targets by a range of measures including the provision of additional resources, monitoring performance, providing demand forecasting data and assistance in introducing new IT initiatives.
A revised service level agreement came into effect in April 2006 between the CRB and the 43 police forces of England and Wales. This new agreement, which was agreed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) places an additional focus on delivery and the responsibilities of chief officers and ACPO to ensure that the obligations within the service level agreement are met. Monthly performance figures for each of the
police forces for their part of the disclosure service are now published on the CRB website at:
Domestic Violence: Asians
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent estimate she has made of numbers of Asian women subject to domestic violence in the (a) UK, (b) North East and (c) Tees Valley in the most recent period for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement. [182535]
Mr. Coaker: The Home Office does not routinely collect this data. However, the Government is aware of the specific issues faced by black and minority ethnic victims of domestic violence (including forced marriage, female genital mutilation and honour based violence), and is currently developing a cross-Government work plan (in conjunction with the Association of Chief Police Officers) to take forward work in this area.
Forced Marriage
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the number of forced marriages which took place in the (a) UK, (b) North East and (c) Tees Valley in the most recent period for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement. [182534]
Mr. Coaker: The Forced Marriage Unit was established in 2005 as the Government's one stop shop for dealing with domestic and international aspects of forced marriage casework, policy and projects. Recognising the need to prevent forced marriages from taking place in the UK, in 2007 the Unit issued specific guidelines for registrars.
The Forced Marriage Unit received 5,000 enquiries and handled approximately 400 cases in 2007, 167 of which involved repatriation to the UK. We do not collate statistics on where forced marriages take place, but a new system to capture data on cases is being implemented this year.
Identity Cards
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans her Department has to publish the Gateway review on identity cards carried out by the Office of Government Commerce; and if she will make a statement. [169582]
Meg Hillier [holding answer 29 November 2007]: There have been a number of Gateway reviews on identity cards, the National Identity Scheme and/or specific projects within the scheme.
The Identity and Passport Service has no current plans to publish the reports on the Gateway reviews.
National Identity Register
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether she expects that data on the National Identity Register will be required for audit purposes by the National Audit Office. [174006]
Meg Hillier: The National Audit Office has full access to all Identity and Passport Service data as our external auditors. The type of data required to routinely audit Identity and Passport Service accounts however, is unlikely to specifically include National Identity Register data.
Once the National Identity Register is established, the Identity and Passport Service and the National Audit Office will agree what data may be required for audit purposes.
Passports: Lost Property
Ms Keeble: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 10 December 2007, Official Report, column 90W, on passports: lost property, how many such passports were reported as lost in the post in each year. [179764]
Meg Hillier: The figures given in the answer of 10 December 2007, Official Report, column 90W, on passports: lost property, for passports reported lost are drawn from reporting arrangements introduced in December 2003, which allow passport holders to advise us of passport losses and thefts. It is not possible to identify the number lost in the post from this data.
The numbers of passports lost while on delivery from IPS for the last five years are as follows:
| Number | |
Prior to 2004 new passports were delivered by Royal Mail (standard first class mail) but February 2004 saw the introduction of Secure Delivery, with the delivery of passports undertaken by Secure Mail Services, a courier service. All losses are added to the database of lost or stolen passports, and further measurers are in hand to reduce losses still further.
Police
Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 28 November 2007, Official Report, column 468W, on police, how many police constables left the service in each age band in each of the last 10 years. [172181]
Mr. McNulty [holding answer 10 December 2007]: The available data which have been collected from 2002-03, are for police officers who leave the force from 2002-03 onwards, and are given in the following table.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers in each police force are aged (a) under 25, (b) between 25 and 34, (c) between 35 and 44, (d) between 45 and 54, (e) between 55 and 59 and (f) over 60. [183053]
Mr. McNulty: Police officer age is collected within specific age bands only, and the available data are given in the table as follows.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |