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1022936

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Ministry of Justice: Recruitment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recruitment process his Department followed when appointing its Data Protection Officer (DPO); how that position was advertised; how many candidates applied for that post; what criteria were used to assess the candidates' (i) professional qualities and expert knowledge of data protection law and practices and (ii) ability to fulfil the tasks referred to in Article 39 of the General Data Protection Regulation; who was appointed as DPO for his Department; when and where his Department has published its DPO's contact details; and what lines of reporting exist within his Department in respect of its DPO.
tabling member constituency	Knowsley
tabling member printed	Mr George Howarth
uin	200552
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/12/2018 answer text <p>The role of the Data Protection Officer in the Department is at present filled on an interim basis, pending substantive recruitment in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation’s Article 39. The interim role holder previously worked as the Department’s Head of Data Privacy and is a qualified Data Protection Practioner.</p><p> </p><p>In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation’s Articles 37 to 39, the Data Protection Officer reports directly to the highest level of management within the Department, including the Permanent Secretary. The role itself sits within the Department’s Digital and Technology function.</p><p> </p><p>Published details as to how to contact the Data Protection Officer are available on the GOV.UK website through the Personal Information Charter page.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 13/12/2018 17:29:14 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	481 label Biography information for Sir George Howarth

1022938

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Ministry of Justice: Complaints
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what complaints procedure is open to members of the public if they wish to complain that (a) his Department’s Data Protection Officer and (b) any staff of his Department is in breach of the Civil Service Code; how many complaints have been made in each of the last two years against staff of his Department for breaches of the Civil Service Code; when, how and by whom those staff have been investigated; and what outcomes of those investigations have been recorded.
tabling member constituency	Knowsley
tabling member printed	Mr George Howarth
uin	200553
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/01/2019 answer text <p>Members of the public who are dissatisfied with the service provided by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) headquarters or its staff (including the Data Protection Officer) and wish to complain are directed to the complaints procedure on MoJ’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/complaints-procedure" target="_blank">Gov.uk website</a>. MoJ’s Executive Agencies similarly each have a complaints procedure (on Gov.uk) and complaints by members of the public will be addressed by each business area in this way. Data is not held centrally on whether any complaints are related to breaches of the Civil Service Code.</p><p>All civil servants are bound by the Civil Service Code which sets out the core values; integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. If staff feel that they or their colleagues have done or been asked to do something that contravenes these core values, or breaches the Code, they are encouraged to raise these by following the whistleblowing procedure.</p><p>The Civil Service Commissioners provide an independent avenue of appeal for staff if they feel their concern has not been satisfactorily resolved internally, though their legal powers are limited to only investigating cases brought by Civil Servants.</p><p>The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman provides an independent and impartial handling service for complaints of maladministration brought by members of the public that have not been resolved by the NHS in England and UK government departments. Information on MoJ complaints handling is included in the Ombudsman’s report for <a href="https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/PHSO%20Parliamentary%20Statistics%20Report%202016-17_1.pdf" target="_blank">2016/17</a> and <a href="https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/publications/complaints-about-uk-government-departments-and-agencies-2017-18-0" target="_blank">2017/18</a>. This is also included in the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/722537/MoJ_annual_reports_and_accounts_2017-18__web_.pdf" target="_blank">MoJ Annual Report &amp; Accounts 2017-18</a>.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 15/01/2019 10:43:43 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	481 label Biography information for Sir George Howarth

1022940

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Ministry of Justice: Data Protection
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, who in his Department holds the position of Senior Information Risk Owner; when and how that official was appointed; what criteria were used to assess the professional qualities and expert knowledge of data protection law and practices of the candidates for that post; and who has held that position in each of the last six years.
tabling member constituency	Knowsley
tabling member printed	Mr George Howarth
uin	200554
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2018 answer text <p>The role of Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) is currently held by the Chief Digital and Information Officer since April 2018. The Permanent Secretary makes these appointments based upon the official’s relevant skills and experience. Since 2012 the role of SIRO has been held by the former Director General of Transformation, the former Director General of Law, Rights, and Access to Justice, the former Chief Operating Officer, and now the Chief Digital and Information Officer.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 18/12/2018 14:44:42 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	481 label Biography information for Sir George Howarth

1022945

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Contracts
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 November 2018 to Question 194146 on Prisons: Contracts, what the estimated cost is of the production of the public-sector benchmark against which potential operators’ bids will be assessed.
tabling member constituency	North Tyneside
tabling member printed	Mary Glindon
uin	200609
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/12/2018 answer text <p>As set out in my answer to PQ 194146, the Government is committed to a diverse market of prison operators and competition for custodial services remains an important way of achieving that and driving quality of operations and innovation across the system. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) will not be bidding in the competition to operate the new prisons at Wellingborough and Glen Parva but will instead provide a ‘public sector benchmark’, against which potential operators’ bids can be assessed. It is right that the prison service focuses on getting the basics right in prisons, however where bids do not meet sufficient quality or value for money thresholds it will act as the provider.</p><p> </p><p>For the competition for the operation of Wellingborough this work has already been undertaken and informed the specification and affordability threshold for this competition. The affordability threshold is based on the specification that has been set for the competition and an understanding of how the public sector would deliver this specification.</p><p> </p><p>Creation of the affordability threshold and specification was undertaken by the Prison Estate Transformation Programme in conjunction with colleagues across HMPPS, finance, commercial and analytical services and involved staff from a range of grades.</p><p> </p><p>The affordability threshold for the competition for Wellingborough is £299m Net Present Cost in 2019/20 prices. Both the threshold and the specification were published on the Ministry of Justice’s eSourcing portal as part of the competition documentation on 6 December 2018. The specification and affordability threshold for the competition for the operation of Glen Parva will be developed throughout next year.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart grouped question UIN 200610 200611 200612 question first answered 20/12/2018 16:09:24 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4126 label Biography information for Mary Glindon

1022946

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Contracts
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 November 2018 to Question 194146 on Prisons: Contracts, what the estimated timetable is for the production of the public sector benchmark against which potential operators’ bids will be assessed.
tabling member constituency	North Tyneside
tabling member printed	Mary Glindon
uin	200610
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/12/2018 answer text <p>As set out in my answer to PQ 194146, the Government is committed to a diverse market of prison operators and competition for custodial services remains an important way of achieving that and driving quality of operations and innovation across the system. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) will not be bidding in the competition to operate the new prisons at Wellingborough and Glen Parva but will instead provide a ‘public sector benchmark’, against which potential operators’ bids can be assessed. It is right that the prison service focuses on getting the basics right in prisons, however where bids do not meet sufficient quality or value for money thresholds it will act as the provider.</p><p> </p><p>For the competition for the operation of Wellingborough this work has already been undertaken and informed the specification and affordability threshold for this competition. The affordability threshold is based on the specification that has been set for the competition and an understanding of how the public sector would deliver this specification.</p><p> </p><p>Creation of the affordability threshold and specification was undertaken by the Prison Estate Transformation Programme in conjunction with colleagues across HMPPS, finance, commercial and analytical services and involved staff from a range of grades.</p><p> </p><p>The affordability threshold for the competition for Wellingborough is £299m Net Present Cost in 2019/20 prices. Both the threshold and the specification were published on the Ministry of Justice’s eSourcing portal as part of the competition documentation on 6 December 2018. The specification and affordability threshold for the competition for the operation of Glen Parva will be developed throughout next year.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart grouped question UIN 200609 200611 200612 question first answered 20/12/2018 16:09:24 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4126 label Biography information for Mary Glindon

1022947

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Contracts
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 November 2018 to Question 194146 on Prisons: Contracts, how many staff of each grade have been tasked with the production of the public sector benchmark against which potential operators’ bids will be assessed.
tabling member constituency	North Tyneside
tabling member printed	Mary Glindon
uin	200611
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/12/2018 answer text <p>As set out in my answer to PQ 194146, the Government is committed to a diverse market of prison operators and competition for custodial services remains an important way of achieving that and driving quality of operations and innovation across the system. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) will not be bidding in the competition to operate the new prisons at Wellingborough and Glen Parva but will instead provide a ‘public sector benchmark’, against which potential operators’ bids can be assessed. It is right that the prison service focuses on getting the basics right in prisons, however where bids do not meet sufficient quality or value for money thresholds it will act as the provider.</p><p> </p><p>For the competition for the operation of Wellingborough this work has already been undertaken and informed the specification and affordability threshold for this competition. The affordability threshold is based on the specification that has been set for the competition and an understanding of how the public sector would deliver this specification.</p><p> </p><p>Creation of the affordability threshold and specification was undertaken by the Prison Estate Transformation Programme in conjunction with colleagues across HMPPS, finance, commercial and analytical services and involved staff from a range of grades.</p><p> </p><p>The affordability threshold for the competition for Wellingborough is £299m Net Present Cost in 2019/20 prices. Both the threshold and the specification were published on the Ministry of Justice’s eSourcing portal as part of the competition documentation on 6 December 2018. The specification and affordability threshold for the competition for the operation of Glen Parva will be developed throughout next year.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart grouped question UIN 200609 200610 200612 question first answered 20/12/2018 16:09:24 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4126 label Biography information for Mary Glindon

1022948

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Contracts
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 November 2018 to Question 194146 on Prisons: Contracts, whether he plans to publish the public sector benchmark which against potential operators’ bids are to be assessed once the competition process has been completed.
tabling member constituency	North Tyneside
tabling member printed	Mary Glindon
uin	200612
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/12/2018 answer text <p>As set out in my answer to PQ 194146, the Government is committed to a diverse market of prison operators and competition for custodial services remains an important way of achieving that and driving quality of operations and innovation across the system. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) will not be bidding in the competition to operate the new prisons at Wellingborough and Glen Parva but will instead provide a ‘public sector benchmark’, against which potential operators’ bids can be assessed. It is right that the prison service focuses on getting the basics right in prisons, however where bids do not meet sufficient quality or value for money thresholds it will act as the provider.</p><p> </p><p>For the competition for the operation of Wellingborough this work has already been undertaken and informed the specification and affordability threshold for this competition. The affordability threshold is based on the specification that has been set for the competition and an understanding of how the public sector would deliver this specification.</p><p> </p><p>Creation of the affordability threshold and specification was undertaken by the Prison Estate Transformation Programme in conjunction with colleagues across HMPPS, finance, commercial and analytical services and involved staff from a range of grades.</p><p> </p><p>The affordability threshold for the competition for Wellingborough is £299m Net Present Cost in 2019/20 prices. Both the threshold and the specification were published on the Ministry of Justice’s eSourcing portal as part of the competition documentation on 6 December 2018. The specification and affordability threshold for the competition for the operation of Glen Parva will be developed throughout next year.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart grouped question UIN 200609 200610 200611 question first answered 20/12/2018 16:09:24 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4126 label Biography information for Mary Glindon

1022967

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prison Accommodation
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners categorised as suitable for Category C accommodation are housed in Category B training prisons.
tabling member constituency	Leeds East
tabling member printed	Richard Burgon
uin	200702
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2018 answer text <p>It is not uncommon for prisoners to serve part of their sentence in an establishment which can hold prisoners of a higher security category than they are. For example a newly-sentenced category C prisoner will initially begin their sentence in a predominant function ‘local’ prison, which serves the courts and is built to a category B standard, before being allocated to a category C ‘training’ prison.</p><p> </p><p>The number of category C prisoners held in category B training prisons has fallen considerably in the last 8 years. As at 7 December 2018 there were 914 prisoners held in category B training prisons who were categorised as suitable to be held in category C conditions.</p><p> </p><p>There are complex and wide-ranging issues involved in allocation and transfer of prisoners. Decisions must reflect both the specific needs and circumstances of the prisoner, as well as the operating regime and range of services at the receiving prison. We consider factors such as length of sentence, security category and offending behaviour requirements. Closeness to home is one of the key factors considered when choosing where to place prisoners, particularly for those on short sentences or nearing release, where they need to (re)build family ties, secure housing and health services and look for work. These prisoners are prioritised for places in suitable prisons which are closer to home.</p><p> </p><p>Through the Government’s Prison Estate Transformation Programme we are getting the basics right by building decent prisons to improve rehabilitation and create safe and secure environments for staff and offenders. As well as constructing new prisons we are reconfiguring the existing estate so that prisoners will be held in the right place at the right time in their journey and their rehabilitation can be managed more effectively. By matching people in prison to the function that a prison fulfils, prisons will be able to deliver the right outcomes, and people in prison will be better supported to turn their lives around.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart question first answered 18/12/2018 17:12:26 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4493 label Biography information for Richard Burgon

1022968

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Birmingham Prison: Standards
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times HMP Birmingham has been placed in special measures in each year since 2011; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Leeds East
tabling member printed	Richard Burgon
uin	200703
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2018 answer text <p>Unlike public sector prisons, privately managed prisons are not placed in special measures but are instead subject to contractual mechanisms when there are performance concerns.</p><p> </p><p>In the case of HMP Birmingham, we issued two Improvement Notices in March 2018, and Outstanding Issues Notices for each in June and August 2018 respectively. Despite this time, performance at HMP Birmingham remained unacceptable prompting us to exercise our right under the contract to ‘step-in’ in August 2018. HMP Birmingham was also scored as a Level 1 prison, as published in our annual performance ratings for year 2017/18.</p><p> </p><p>We are clear that prisons should be places of safety and reform and are working closely with G4S to improve conditions for prisoners at HMP Birmingham. Details of our action plan to improve Birmingham can be found on the link below:</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/urgent-notification-for-hmp-birmingham" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/urgent-notification-for-hmp-birmingham</a></p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart question first answered 18/12/2018 17:15:09 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4493 label Biography information for Richard Burgon

1022986

registered interest
date	10/12/2018
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Parole
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to give the Parole Board powers to commission independent (a) psychological and (b) other expert reports if the recommendations of the prison and defence submitted reports differ.
tabling member constituency	Dwyfor Meirionnydd
tabling member printed	Liz Saville Roberts
uin	200705
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2018 answer text <p>The Secretary of State and the prisoner are able to submit expert reports to the Parole Board, who assess the evidence presented before them in order to determine whether the prisoner may safely be released. The Board has the power to direct the reports and evidence it considers necessary to reach that decision and can direct any report-writer to give oral evidence and answer questions from the panel if necessary. In some complex cases, a specialist psychologist or psychiatric panel member may be assigned. The Parole Board does not commission additional, independent reports.</p><p> </p><p>In April this year, the Secretary of State announced a review of the Parole Board Rules, which will build on the work we have already done to increase transparency and ensure victims are better supported. The conclusions of this review, including an assessment what evidence should be presented to the Board, will be published in due course.</p> answering member constituency Penrith and The Border answering member printed Rory Stewart question first answered 18/12/2018 17:58:31 answering member 4137 label Biography information for Rory Stewart
tabling member	4521 label Biography information for Liz Saville Roberts