To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his latest estimate is of the cost per year per inmate of (a) local authority secure units, (b) secure training centres and (c) young offenders' institutions. [99797]

[holding answer 28 February 2003]: The juvenile secure estate comprises Prison Service Young Offender Institutions, privately-operated secure training centres and local authority secure units. The different types of establishment vary in the age and vulnerability of the offenders they hold, and in the levels of staffing and types of regime. Responsibility for commissioning and purchasing places in the secure estate rests with the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales which estimates that the average annual costs of detaining an offender aged under 18 in these establishments are as follows.