HC Deb 17 July 1985 vol 83 c156W
Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the maximum number of entries in the seen or checked in noteworthy circumstances sub-category of the stolen and suspect vehicle index of the police national computer for each of the months from April 1984 until September 1984.

Mr. Giles Shaw

Statistics of the number of entries in the "seen" category are collected only once a month. For the period requested they are as follows:

1984 Number of entries in "seen" category Number
April 10,330
May 9,246
June 7,757
July 7,506
August 7,383
September 8,539

Mr. Cohen

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will describe the use of the new convictions index held on the police national computer; whether the index will be linked to the criminal names index; what is the projected size of the convictions index, the anticipated access rates and performance of the index; and when the index will be operational.

Mr. Shaw

The convictions file, which will be linked to the criminal names file, is intended to help the police with their operational duties, including the provision of information to the courts. The file is expected to be available to the service in 1987 by which time it is likely to contain details of some 2.5 million convictions recorded since 1981. It is not possible at this stage to provide an accurate estimate of the extent to which the police will use the new facility; response times are expected to be about five seconds.