PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

1109W
Written Answers
26 MARCH 2013
Written Answers
1110W
Offenders: Fines
Robert Flello: To ask the Secretary of State for
Justice what steps his Department has taken to collect
offender profile information showing the reasons why
offenders fail to comply with their payment plans for
fines since July 2012; and what plans his Department
has to collect such information in the future. [148432]
Mrs Grant: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given
to Lord Touhig by my noble Friend, Lord McNally, on
12 March 2013, Official Report, House of Lords, column
WA51.
Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS)
does not have access to offender profile information
that shows the reasons why offenders fail to comply
with payment terms.
The information HMCTS holds on offenders is provided
by the prosecuting authorities, by the offenders themselves,
and by using the tracing tools that HMCTS has at its
disposal, such as the Experian credit reference agency
and the Department for Work and Pensions customer
information system. Payment plans are agreed based on
the financial information provided by the offenders to
enable those who are unable to pay in full at once to
complete the payment of their fines over a reasonable
period of time. The information obtained from these
sources does not provide any indication why certain
groups of offenders fail to follow the agreed payment
plans.
HMCTS takes the issue of fine enforcement very
seriously and is working to ensure that clamping down
on fine defaulters is a continued priority nationwide.
HMCTS is always looking at ways to improve the
collection of fines. As a part of the future strategy
HMCTS will be considering numerous ways in which
performance can be improved. This could include offender
profiling.
Personal Injury: Compensation
Meg Munn: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
(1) whether he plans to make an assessment of the
changes being made in April 2013 to the road traffic
accident portal before introducing further reforms;
[149442]
(2) what steps he has taken to improve usage by
insurers of the road traffic accident portal. [149443]
Mrs Grant: There are no current plans to make an
assessment of the forthcoming changes to the Road
Traffic Accident Personal Injury (RTA) scheme. The
Government is prepared to review and assess the
effectiveness of the scheme should evidence be provided
to demonstrate that this is necessary. However, the
Government does not wish to commit to a formal
review at this stage.
As part of the forthcoming extension of the RTA
scheme, incentives have been provided for both insurers
and claimants to keep claims within the scheme through
to settlement. These include provisions in the Pre-Action
Protocols which will support the extended scheme, and
the introduction of a revised and expanded scheme of
fixed recoverable costs.
Meg Munn: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
(1) if he will give consideration to requiring medical
reports before payment of compensation can be made
in personal injury claims; [149444]
(2) if he will bring forward proposals to oblige
insurers to share data to help reduce the incidents of
fraudulent claims; [149491]
(3) if he will give consideration to the accreditation
of medical agencies and reporting doctors in personal
injury cases. [149826]
Mrs Grant: The Government consultation on ’reducing
the number and cost of whiplash claims’ closed on
8 March 2013. The requirement for completed medical
reports prior to compensation being paid, the importance
of shared fraud data and accredited medics were all
raised as issues by stakeholders during the consultation
period. Ministry of Justice officials are now evaluating
all the submissions received and a response outlining
the way forward will be issued in due course.
Prisoners’ Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme
Priti Patel: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
(1) what publicly-funded privileges are available to
category (a) A, (b) B, (c) C and (d) D prison
inmates; and what the cost has been of such privileges
in each of the last five years; [147831]
(2) what publicly-funded privileges are available to
prison inmates serving (a) life sentences, (b)
imprisonment for public protection and (c) detention
for public protection; and what the cost has been of
such privileges in each of the last five years. [147804]
Jeremy Wright: Rule 8 of the prison rules and young
offender institute (YOI) rule 6 requires every prison to
establish a system of privileges which prisoners can
earn subject to their reaching and maintaining specified
standards of conduct and performance. The incentives
and privileges (IEP) scheme does not distinguish between
categories of convicted prisoners or the type or length
of their sentence in terms of the privileges which should
be made available.
The key earnable privileges, which must be included
in local IEP schemes, to the extent deemed appropriate
for the different privilege levels are:
Extra and improved visits
Eligibility to earn higher rates of pay
Access to in-cell television
Opportunity to wear own clothes
Access to private cash
Time out of cell for association.
These are not all directly publicly funded. Access to
in-cell television, for instance, is self-financing from the
rental payments made by prisoners. There are administrative
and staff costs associated with facilitating the other
privileges.
Central accounting systems do not capture data at a
level to specifically identify costs directly linked to
individual IEP privileges. This information could be
obtained only by manual checking with individual
establishments, which would incur disproportionate cost.
I am looking closely at the incentives scheme for
prisoners to ensure the public have confidence in the
prison system. The outcome of this review will be
announced in due course.
Prison Service Instruction 11/2011 is available in the
House of Commons Library.