Clause 3
Offender Management Bill
12:15 pm
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
I do not see any need for new measures. There has to be consistency in examining all contracts and all performers of contracts to militate against such a situation arising; it is also necessaryto monitor the performance and well-being of contractors. I do not see any need for greater involvement. The framework is in place: in exceptional circumstances—for example, if a probation board goes out to the private sector and problems arise—the Secretary of State has powers to deal with the situation.
The length of contracts would be a big issue. If the private sector were to be involved, it would take aview about the length and viability of a contract. Contracting already exists; there is currently a multiplicity of contracts between the different boards. We believe that replacing annual funding regimes with multi-year contract terms, to develop and maintainthe longer-term capacity, will help to increase sustainability and achieve some of the things that we want to see.
Budgets have been top-sliced and that has affected subcontracting figures. Probation boards can still do more, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow said that boards worked with the voluntary sector and other providers. They do, but not with the right level of consistency. One board has contracted out 1.29 per cent. to the voluntary sector; another has contracted out 5.6 per cent. When we had a target, it was reached. When it was removed, the work was not contracted out. There is currently no consistency in working with the voluntary sector. My hon. Friend talked about community work and the payback scheme, which is an excellent scheme of which I have seen wonderful examples throughout the country. Community sentencing is not work on the cheap; it is testimony to how we can tackle offenders.
In Salford, the community has identified projects that they want carried out, the magistrates have sentenced offenders to work on those schemes and they have been delivered. Everybody wins and the community sees that the work has improved the area. Such schemes do not provide jobs on the cheap, but I question whether trained probation officers have to follow them all the way through. Cannot NACRO, or some other body, deliver that service? NAPO seems to be saying that a probation officer has to deal with everything.
The hon. Member for Hornchurch raised an important point about staff and staff training. We expect every organisation that employs staff to work with offenders to invest in skills and professional development. All providers will have to provide sufficient training for the services that they deliver. We will ensure that they do so through a process of accreditation appropriate to the type of service and contractual value. We need to continue to develop staff to deliver services in the new offender management environment, which is why NOMS is examining training provision to ensure that offender managers are able to deal with the types and range of offenders that we are talking about.
I am sad that, after 25 years, people feel that there is no future for the probation service, as in the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. It is a tragedy that a person with that much experience is leaving because there is a lack of clarity about what the future holds. I want to say loud and clear that the future for probation workers, whether probation officers or probation support officers, should be rosy, because the Bill will raise the profile of their jobs and responsibilities. We know that they do a difficult job, but when it comes to dealing with offenders they do not have the public confidence that I would want them to have. That point goes right to the heart of why we are creating the probation trusts rather than keeping the existing boards. Offender management affects all our communities. Reconviction rates cost the country almost £11 billion. We should respond to that with a holistic solution. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornchurch for reading out the LGA letter to hon. Members about how it sees things. The “Neighbourhood by Neighbourhood” document is the first time in my recollection that local government has accepted its responsibility for dealing with offenders.
It is only by widening participation, whether in business, in the private or voluntary sectors or in the wider community sector, that we will answer the problems of offender management. Probation officers will then be held in the esteem that they should be and will not be subject to scurrilous attacks from the daily newspapers when something goes tragically wrong. The clause sets out our opportunities: we want to see the probation service grow and we want to offer opportunities to a wider range of providers.
I turn now to the amendments. The implication of amendment No. 11 is that contracts should be made by probation boards or trusts rather than the Secretary of State. In fact, probation boards are already able to subcontract and there is no need to create probation trusts for that purpose. There are several difficulties with the current arrangements, as I have made clear. The first difficulty is that, although probation boards are legally able to subcontract at the moment, in practice they do not do so enough and insufficient use has been made of what other providers have to offer. That is why probation boards now have a target of subcontracting 10 per cent. of their budget by 2008. That is crucial to developing partnership working and a better fit with local needs. However, we need to go further than that. We need to be able to commission across geographical boundaries and across the prison gate. We need an element of choice to ensure that we have the right provider for the job. Restricting contracting to probation areas would remove those options.
Amendment No. 12 would restrict the services that can be contracted out to providers other than through the public sector. I understand that hon. Members are concerned to ensure that those services, which are so important in reducing re-offending and protecting the public, should be delivered to the highest standards. I am surprised at the suggestion that the continuation of a public sector monopoly is the best way to achieve that. I do not understand why we should use primary legislation to say that only one provider may deliver a particular service, regardless of what other options might exist. That is an outdated argument, not only in theory but in practice, given that up to 25 per cent. of prison and probation services are already provided from outside the public sector. However, public protection is our No. 1priority and we will proceed cautiously.
I envisage that the work relating to the management of offenders—the work of advising courts and supervising orders—will remain for the next two or three years in the public sector, which has inherited the expertise in the field. We will increase the involvement of the charitable and voluntary sector and of the private sector, especially in interventions, which will work alongside the public sector to develop expertise and strengthen partnerships so that a more diverse range of provision is available in due course.
Finally, amendment No. 25 would place a statutory duty on providers to avoid conflicts of interest. I do not believe that that is a matter for legislation, although I understand what the amendment is driving at. The issue has been raised with me on several occasions. I find it hard to see why hon. Members find it so problematic. There is already potential for a conflict of interest, and with the current monopoly arrangements the public sector is responsible both for advising courts on sentencing and for supervising the sentences that are passed. Boards have targets to meet, for example in the numbers of offenders who undergo certain interventions. Strict guidelines are in place to deal with that, and nobody has suggested to me that they do not work. Ultimately, decisions on sentencing remain entirely at the discretion of the sentencer. If concerns are raised, they can be appropriately dealt with.
We have had a good opportunity to consider all the issues. I am interested by the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford in the second half of his speech about what we should consider. I am prepared to consider that and I shall come back at a later stage in the Bill to see what detail we can put forward.
We have had an important debate that goes to the heart of what we are trying to achieve. The measure is not about privatisation but about expanding the range of providers to ensure that we tackle re-offending, and I hope that the hon. Member for Hornchurch will withdraw his amendment and support the clause.