To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the estimated cost of the P-NOMIS offender management database; why Gypsy, Roma and Travellers are not identified as an ethnic category recorded therein; and when they will be. [HL2651]

The one-off cost of the complete Prison-NOMIS case management system is estimated at £250 million. This system includes a centralised offender management database. The cost of the database is not separately identified in the way in which this system is being procured.

The requirement to capture an additional value for Offender Ethnicity of Gypsy, Roma and Travellers was not in the original system specification but will be captured in a future release of Prison-NOMIS.

Changes of this type need to be made not only to systems but also at the same time to policies and procedures. In addition, the change cannot immediately be implemented as the requirement to capture, record and monitor ethnicity does not only apply to the Prison Service and offenders they manage, but also to all agencies in the wider justice community, as well as staff and victims.

Within each agency, tools and guidance are provided to assist the capture of this information. Within the justice community, it was agreed to use the census categories as the standards for ethnicity.

As the census categories are changing in 2011 to update the ethnicity standards to include a new type of Gypsy, Roma and Travellers, a change request is now with the Ministry of Justice Data Standards Forum to consider the impact of the change on the Cross Criminal Justice System Data Standards.

This request will ensure that the change is implemented in an appropriate and timely manner across the justice agencies, without jeopardising existing interfaces and information sharing agreements. A timescale for this change has not been agreed yet.