| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
16 Oct 2008 : Column 1431W—continued
Criminal Records
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make it her policy to ensure that unproven allegations against an individual where no charge has been made or conviction secured are not registered on the Criminal Records Bureau's database. [226559]
Meg Hillier: The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) only operates a central database in order to record transactions that occur during the disclosure process, where an applicant's personal data, provided on an application form, are compared against information held by the police, the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Enhanced disclosures also contain relevant non-conviction information provided by local police forces. Non-conviction information of this sort is referred to as “approved information” and is released under Section 113B (4) of Part V of the Police Act 1997, which states that:
“Before issuing an enhanced criminal record certificate the Secretary of State shall request the chief officer of every relevant police force to provide any information which, in the chief officer's opinion (a) might be relevant for the purpose described in the statement under subsection (2) (the positions eligible for Enhanced Disclosure) and (b) ought to be included in the certificate”.
Therefore, the police have a duty to disclose information which they believe may be relevant and should be disclosed.
The chief officer of each police force is Data Controller, under the Data Protection Act 1998, of all information placed by that force on the PNC or retained in local force records. Therefore, only the chief officer of any given force or his nominee has the power to amend or delete the approved information relating to an applicant and neither the CRB nor the Home Office has any influence over such decisions.
The CRB does operate a disputes process, which enables an individual to challenge the accuracy and relevancy of any information shown on their Disclosure.
Criminal Records Bureau: Standards
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people contested details held on record by the Criminal Records Bureau in each of the last five years. [225388]
Meg Hillier: The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) do not hold criminal records but do release information held on police records and other data sources.
The total number of disclosures where the details released by the CRB were contested by the applicant in the last five years is detailed in the following table. These are referred to within the disclosure process as disputes and the CRB has procedures in place to allow an applicant to dispute the information provided.
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | |
Departmental Marketing
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of the cost-effectiveness of Government-commissioned advertising in the last 12 months relating to matters falling within the remit of her Department. [226525]
Mr. Woolas: All Home Office advertising media buying is placed via the Central Office of Information (COI). Aggregation of government expenditure ensures that media bought via COI is cost-effective and delivers value for money. The prices that Government pay for media spend are benchmarked against those of private sector advertisers by independent media auditors and this demonstrates significant savings for the taxpayer.
Departmental Official Hospitality
Damian Green:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which (a) dining, (b) cultural and sporting and (c) hospitality events (i) Ministers in her Department, (ii) officials in the UK Border Agency
and its predecessors and (iii) officials in the Identity and Passport Service and its predecessors have attended which were funded by (A) Government and (B) private sector companies with contracts to work for her Department in each of the last five years. [223843]
Mr. Woolas: The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Deportation
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were deported from the UK in each of the last 30 years. [226548]
Mr. Woolas: The following table shows the number of persons removed, including voluntary departures, from the UK in each of the last 30 years.
Further National Statistics on removals from the UK are available from the Library of the House and Table 6.1 of the Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2007 bulletin
| Removals and voluntary departures( 1) from the United Kingdom, 1978 to 2007( 2) | |||||
| Asylum cases, principal( 3) | Asylum cases, dependants( 4) | Asylum cases, total | Non-asylum cases | All removals and voluntary departures | |
| n/a = not available (1) Prior to 1989 figures exclude EC (European Commission) nationals refused entry at port and subsequently removed. Since 1994 figures include persons removed from juxtaposed controls. Since 1999 figures include persons leaving under Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes run by the International Organization for Migration. Since 2005 figures include persons who it has been established have left the UK without informing the immigration authorities. Since October 2006 figures include persons leaving under Facilitated Return Schemes. (2) Figures rounded to the nearest five and may not sum to the totals shown because of independent rounding. (3) Persons who had sought asylum as some stage, excluding dependants. (4) Data on dependants removed are not available before April 2001. (5) Figures may include a small number of dependants leaving under Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes. (6) Provisional figures. | |||||
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |