Local Probation Boards (Appointment and Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2006

My Lords, as a former member of a probation board committee and subsequently of a probation board, I suppose I ought to declare an interest, although my service is quite a long way behind me now. I had not really intended to speak, but I want to emphasise my absolute support for the speeches that have come before. It is extraordinary to suggest, at this point of the legislative procedure—or at any time—that the membership of, for example, magistrates on probation boards is not essential. The magistrates are able to explain to the many members of the boards how the magistracy works, how it is trained, how it sentences and what the interaction is between the probation service that we are running and the magistrates who are receiving our services. One ofthe recipients of the services of the probation service is of course the magistrates’ court. There has already been an enormous amount of change in the service, and several people have spoken of that already. The only thing that really matters in the probation service is the probation officers. They are the key to the success of the service. You cannot keep on reorganising, refocusing, re-reorganising and re-refocusing those small bodies of people upon whom the delivery of an essential service depends. I draw the attention of the House to item 8 in the paper, which says, "““A Regulatory Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument as it has no impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies … The impact of this Order is purely internal to the Probation Service so there is no further impact on the public sector””." We have been hearing a great deal about the collaborative nature of the work of the probation service in the whole context of the delivery of local government, and I know quite a lot about it myself. Those two sentences show how very little the Home Office seems to understand its own service.