On 19 June 2007, the then Lord Chancellor announced the introduction of a presumption in favour of release from custody on licence for prisoners serving between four weeks and four years for the final 18 days of their sentence subject to meeting strict eligibility criteria and providing a release address.
At the end of December 2007, it is estimated that the number of offenders under licence as part of the ECL scheme was approximately 1,350 (data rounded to the nearest 50). This is taken from the latest monthly publication of “End of Custody Licence releases and recalls” (1-31 December 2007), published on 31 January 2008.
This publication can be found at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/endofcustodylicence.htm
The next publication, covering the period 1-31 January 2008, is due to be published on 29 February.
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.