Written question asked by Jeremy Browne (Liberal Democrat) on Wednesday, 18 April 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 20 April 2007. It was answered by Gerry Sutcliffe (Labour) on Wednesday, 25 April 2007 on behalf of the Home Office.

Intermittent Custody

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the average travelling distance from home to intermittent custody centres is for women prisoners subject to (a) a weekday and (b) a weekend intermittent custody order, broken down by centre;

Answer: The two intermittent custody pilots at HMP Kirkham for male offenders and HMP Morton Hall for female offenders came to and end in November 2006. Each centre accommodated up to 39 offenders.During the pilots we did not hold records on travelling distances for offenders to the IC centres. However, the IC evaluation found that the geographically larger female pilot catchment area meant that women spent longer travelling, usually by public transport, to the IC centre than men.On 23 April 2007 there was one female prisoner currently recalled at Morton Hall serving an intermittent custody order. The total number of intermittent custody orders during the pilot was 456; of these, 384 offenders were subject to weekend custody, and 72 offenders were subject to weekday custody.These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Secondary information