28 March 2012
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Support and subsistence costs of control orders
Date: Tue Feb 12 08:48:37 GMT 2008
31 individuals have been subject to control orders since the commencement of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Of these 31 individuals, 13 have received one or more of the following: asylum support, subsistence (including payments and accommodation), the payment of Council Tax bills and other necessary utilities, telephone line rental (including VAT) and phonecards.
We assess that, since March 2005 (when control orders were
introduced under the Prevention of Terrorism Act) the Home Office
has spent a total of £292,900 (rounded to the nearest £100)
on providing individuals subject to control orders with asylum
support, subsistence (including payments and accommodation),
the payment of Council Tax bills and other necessary utilities,
telephone line rental and phone-cards. This is a total of the
following annual spends per calendar year: Year 2005 = £9,500;
Year 2006 = £71,300; Year 2007 = 196,700; and Year 2008
(so far) = £15,400. These figures include the VAT that
was paid on these items.
A small proportion of the total is based on estimated costs (from
our knowledge of average rates paid for accommodation at the
time) rather than exact costs. The Home Office does not hold
the information in such a form that allows the cost of accommodation
and utilities to be separated from this total figure. The additional
cost of controlled persons for the taxpayer/Government in respect
of accommodation and subsistence payments is significantly lower
than this assessed headline figure given they would have received
most of the support/accommodation with or without the control
order being imposed upon them. In addition, to further contextualise
the headline figure, based on the total number of control orders
ever in force (31), this total would equate to each individual
having received approximately £65 per person per week (though
of course the support/subsistence etc was not spread evenly and
not all the individuals have been subject to an order since March
2005 when the legislation came into force).
Source: Home Office
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