§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average time is for fingerprint evidence to be processed in(a) England and Wales and (b) Thames Valley Police in each year since 1997. [73142]
§ Mr DenhamFigures for the average time for fingerprint evidence to be processed are not collated for England and Wales.
Thames Valley Police Fingerprint Bureau has a target that fingerprint evidence should be processed within 14 days. For 2001, the 14 day target started from the point where the request to process the evidence is received by the Fingerprint Bureau. In 2002 the 14-day target starts from the point when the request has been allocated to a fingerprint expert within the Bureau. Thames Valley Police have only compiled statistics on the time taken to process fingerprint evidence for the last two years, their figures are:
2001: Out of 622 cases, 97.9 per cent. of cases processed within 14.days.2002 (to date): Out of 354 cases, 99.2 per cent. of cases were processed within 14 days.
§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much has been spent on Identikit support in each police authority area in each year since 1997. [73143]
§ Mr. John DenhamThis information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.