§ Mr. Andrew TurnerTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will list the regional offices of the Legal Services Commission, stating for each(a) the complement of staff and (b) the number of vacancies at the most recent date for which information is available. [89561]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe regional offices of the Legal Services Commission are located as follows, covering the regions denoted in brackets: London (London), Brighton and Reading (south-east), Bristol (south western), Cardiff (Wales), Birmingham (west midlands), Manchester (north western), Newcastle (north-east), Leeds (Yorkshire and Humberside), Nottingham (east midlands), Cambridge (eastern) and Liverpool (Merseyside).
The complement of permanent staff for each regional office, as of November 2002 and number of vacancies as of 12 December 2002 were as follows:
Office Staff Vacancies London 201 6 Brighton and Reading 115 13 Bristol 76 5 Cardiff 68 6 Birmingham 87 0 Manchester 98 0 Newcastle 85 7 Leeds 83 0 Nottingham 115 0 Cambridge 75 1 Liverpool 68 0 The commission also has a processing centre in Chester, which employed 47 permanent staff as of November 2002.
§ Mr. Andrew TurnerTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department on what basis decisions were made on the location of Legal Services Commission offices; and what population number is served by each office. [89562]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe locations of the individual offices of the Legal Services Commission are for the commission to determine. Offices are, in general, located in either the major town or city in each region as 477W detailed in the table. The number, location and size of the regional offices have been reviewed on several occasions, most recently in August 1998.
With the exception of the head office buildings in London, each of the commission's offices is sited within a region (locations denoted in brackets next to the regions in the table). In England, the commission's regional boundaries match those of the Government Offices for the English Regions, with the exception of Merseyside for which there is no separate Government Office. The commission also has an office covering Wales.
Based on figures from the 2001 census, the population numbers served by each region and Wales, are as follows:
Number East Midlands (Nottingham) 4,172,179 Eastern (Cambridge) 5,388,154 London (London) 7,172,036 Merseyside (Liverpool) 1,362,034 North East (Newcastle) 2,515,479 North Western (Manchester) 5,367,766 South East (Brighton and Reading) 8,000,550 South Western (Bristol) 4,928,458 West Midlands (Birmingham) 5,267,337 Yorkshire and Humberside (Leeds) 4,964,838 Wales (Cardiff) 2,903,085