§ Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional cases he estimates will be brought to courts in London as a result of the enforcement uplift project; and how many of these cases he estimates will be dismissed. [124968]
§ Paul GogginsLondon Probation Area's uplift project is intended to bring their performance on enforcement in lire with National Standards so as to ensure that offenders who fail to comply with the requirements of an order or licence are returned to court quickly.
Latest sample monitoring (for the period April to May 2003) shows that London are meeting the enforcement standard in 53 per cent. of relevant cases compared with the national target of 90 per cent. The uplift therefore requires an improvement of 37 percentage points, or an increase of 59 per cent. in the number of cases currently enforced in order to meet the target. This would equate to approximately 250 additional cases per month.
Rigorous enforcement leads to greater compliance, so the number of cases brought to court would reduce as levels of compliance increased.
Based on statistics for London courts for the year 2001 (the latest for which data are available), we would estimate that few if any cases brought before the courts for breach of a community sentence would be dismissed. The 2001 figures for London and for England and Wales are given in the table.