---

Home Office

Answer

Mr. Paul Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to introduce a national database of missing persons. [88186] Mr. Denham: There are already arrangements nationally to record missing persons. Details of all missing persons should be recorded on the Police National Computer (PNC) as soon as possible and in any case within 48 hours of their disappearance. Notification of all outstanding missing persons should be sent to the Police National Missing Persons Bureau (PNMPB) within 14 days. Most missing persons are found locally within this period. Forces will not, however, be precluded from forwarding information to the PNMPB in a shorter time if a particular case appears to warrant more urgent attention. The National Missing Persons Helpline (NMPH) also maintain a database for all missing persons reported to them and these files are not closed until there is a definite resolution to each case. The Home Office is currently working with key stakeholders within the area of missing persons, which includes the police and the NMPH, to increase co-operation and information sharing between Government Departments, and statutory and non- statutory agencies. £810,000 has been made available from the Invest to Save Budget (ISB), to put in place a new system for handling missing person cases. The aim of the project is the establishment of joint working arrangements between the United Kingdom police service and NMPH, together with improved recording and information sharing, to improve the service to missing persons and their families and to inform our understanding of the problem and develop strategies to address it. One of the key objectives of this project is to establish a unified national database of missing and unidentified people reported either to the police or to the NMPH.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

88186; 397 c312W;397 c312-3W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Databases Missing persons

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk