HC Deb 29 April 2002 vol 384 cc601-2W
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) complaints and (b) items of correspondence have been received by (a) the Home Office, (b) Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, (c) the Police Complaints Authority and (d) the Criminal Cases Review Commission in relation to historical sex abuse investigations in the UK in (i) 1999, (ii) 2000 and (iii) 2001. [49834]

Mr. Denham

The Home Office does not officially record complaints received in writing or over the telephone—these are incorporated in overall correspondence figures. Complaints and correspondence can be individually addressed to policy units. There is no current way of tracking these accurately. Records for 1999 in relation to this question do not exist. The figures compiled for 2000 and 2001 combine both public and ministerial correspondence on the subject of violent crime/sexual offences.

Figures for the individual areas in each year are shown in the table.

1999 2000 2001
Home Office1 n/a 83 134
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC)2
Police Complaints Authority3 61 64 70
Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)4 1 2 6
1 Figures are based on correspondence relating to violent crime/sexual offences
The subject nature of HMIC correspondence is not officially recorded, hence no figures exist
3 Figures are based on correspondence relating to allegations of sexual assault
4 Figures are based on applications for case review that involved sex abuse in care homes