Clause 36 - Fines officers
Courts Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
This group of amendments is important. I shall not refer to amendments Nos. 47 and 48 now because I should like to hear the debate on them first.
Schedule 3, following its passage through the other place, already introduces several measures, including the new role of fines officer with increased flexible powers, an incentive of discounts for prompt payments and increases for default from fines. There will be a greater onus on the offender to provide a suitable means of information and the opportunity for further sanctions on default, such as vehicle clamping and fine registration.
Last week, the Government tabled the amendments, as well as new schedules 1 and 2, which we will be discussing later, to make it easier to deduct the fine directly from the offender's pay or benefits. To permit the private sector to be brought into the collection of fines, when the courts have been less effective in such collection, we will introduce a new offence of failing to provide details of income and expenditure to allow deductions to be made. For those who are genuinely unable to pay a fine, we will allow the court to convert the fine into a fines payment work order.
We will pilot the new proposals for changes to the scheme with other measures already in the Bill, and look for opportunities for separate pilots of contracting out, should that be desirable. The results of the pilot will be taken into account in drawing up the final arrangements, which will need to be confirmed by affirmative procedure of both Houses. We hope to progress the pilots rapidly following Royal Assent.
The purpose of the amendments is to make the fines collection scheme even more robust. They will ensure that no court imposes a fine on an offender without being certain that it can and will be collected.
Government amendment No. 149 follows in the wake of a recently commissioned independent consultant's report; I think that the consultant was Pannell Kerr Forster—PKF. It was published in June, and it recommended that we introduce more flexibility to the legislation to allow the role of fines officer to be contracted out, should it prove beneficial and cost effective to do so. As a result, the objective of the amendment is to allow more flexibility in the administration of the fines collection scheme. The amendment will allow the role of the fines officer, which under the current Bill must be carried out by an employee of the Lord Chancellor, to be carried out by a contractor. Where courts have been ineffective in the
collection of fines, such flexibility will allow the private sector to be brought into the fines collection process.
The report argued that the draft Bill is too restrictive in insisting that all fines officers' new functions need to be carried out by employees of the new agency. Under current arrangements, some fines enforcement functions take place outside the courts. For example, some magistrates courts committees have contracts with private approved enforcement agencies, and others have contracts with the police. The review also suggested that considerable commercial expertise should be involved in debt collection, but under the Bill as drafted there is little flexibility to draw on outside commercial expertise in the new fines enforcement function. After discussions across Government, we have decided to introduce the amendment to increase flexibility, while retaining the Bill's safeguards against contracting out judicial functions, and also ensuring consultation. Those are important safeguards.
For contracting out, we introduced a safeguard on Lords Report. For work to be eligible for contracting out, it must be specified in an order and the senior judiciary must be consulted on the terms of that order. There is no intention to privatise across the board, or to outsource all fines officers from day one of the new unified administration in April 2005. The amendment simply allows outsourcing of the role, if it appears beneficial and cost effective to do so. I hope that most hon. Members view that as a sensible adjustment to the clause, and I urge the Committee to accept the amendment. I am interested to hear arguments for other amendments in the group.