§ Mr. EvansTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how much outstanding debt is held in the Preston courts. [155403]
§ Mr. LesliePreston county court issued 4,472 claims for money in 2002 and 4,215 in 2003. All civil county courts have a computerised record system. The system, however, is unable to collate a figure to show how much debt claims have been issued for. As the debtor has to make the payment direct to the creditor there is no access to information of the value of debt outstanding to creditors within the court. The only way to access up to date information would be to extract the court files from Preston county court and to contact each creditor individually to ask how much debt is outstanding. This information could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.
At the end of 2003, the total outstanding debt at Preston magistrates court for financial penalties was £1,631,433.00. This figure includes the Crown court fines, costs, Crown Prosecution Service costs, Legal Aid and compensation that is collected by the magistrates court. The figure does not include civil financial orders (maintenance, forfeiture of recognisance etc.) as no data is collected on civil matters.