Offender Management Bill

My Lords, as noble Lords may know, including the Minister, I have had worries about this Bill since it was first proposed. My main concern was that it would abolish the National Probation Service as we know it and replace it with a competitive market—and in so doing, would remove local contacts and replace them by regional services. That, in turn, would inevitably water down one of the strengths of the current system—the local knowledge and expertise of those working in the system. I also felt that this was a form of privatisation by another name and I still have my doubts on this issue; but perhaps, as I am an ex-trade union official, your Lordships would not be surprised about that, because some of us tend to be a rather suspicious breed on occasions. I have no problems with the Government’s ambitions to reduce reoffending or with end-to-end management; nor do members of the Probation Service, who are not only committed to those goals but work towards them every day of their working lives. The probation services are central to the criminal justice system—a point that has been highlighted by the recent announcements about the establishment of a Ministry of Justice, which will include in its remit the National Offender Management Service. I welcome the new ministry, having long believed that the Home Office was too large and unwieldy. I also welcome the number of amendments that have been made to the Bill and I pay tribute to those honourable Members in another place who fought hard for them. I also pay tribute to the Home Secretary for the concessions that he has made so far, which have paved the way for debates on the Bill in this Chamber. The Bill has been greatly improved by them. In particular, I welcome the preservation of some local accountability in the probation trusts by the involvement of local councillors, as we have already heard, and through local area agreements. I welcome the proposed strengthening of national standards, although we have yet to hear what qualifications will apply to them. The agreement that core offender management will remain in the public sector for three years is extremely helpful, but clarification is needed as to what the ““public probation sector? actually is and exactly how it will function. The Home Secretary gave a commitment also to look at existing schemes based on the best provider and best value, and to build on them. He gave an undertaking that there would be scrutiny and transparency in the contract-letting process, an undertaking that there would be a duty on probation boards to co-operate and share data with local authorities, and a commitment that the process of reform would not be rushed. All those are to be greatly welcomed, although I would like to know when those concessions are to be implemented. Despite the amendments that have already been made to the Bill, what the Probation Boards’ Association describes as ““grave concerns? still remain, especially regarding the erosion of local accountability. The PBA has pointed out that crime is a predominantly local phenomenon—as has already been mentioned in the Chamber—with local causes and solutions. A recent poll by YouGov demonstrated that the public views local rather than national services in a particularly positive light and wants public agencies to co-operate. It is essential that probation works flexibly and responsibly with the police, local authorities and other local agencies. A regional or national model could undermine important public protection work with those significant local partners. Indeed, the work of the Smith Institute in 2006 highlighted the need for greater local devolution. Along with other public sector services, the Probation Service has an over-riding need to involve local communities in its work if public confidence is to be a priority. It is critical that the membership of probation boards or trusts represents the whole community and not just business. To that end, they should surely contain, as well as local council representatives, other locally based individuals: for example, partnership agencies, particularly the police, courts and health services; sentencers, both magistrates and judges; and the voluntary sector, especially Victim Support. Although the Home Secretary agreed in another place that boards would reflect local communities, as I understand it, a statutory instrument tabled in November last year removed the statutory need for boards to contain local councillors and magistrates. The statutory instrument, therefore, will need revising. Perhaps my noble friend could comment on this in her response. I turn to the justification for a competitive market. Ministers have maintained that the Probation Service’s performance has been poor, but that does not appear to be backed up by the evidence. The March 2007 Home Office figures show that the service is performing better than ever against its 30 government targets. For example, on enforcement, 92 per cent of relevant cases were enforced within 10 days and, when a new compliance target of 85 per cent was introduced in 2006-07 to measure the proportion of appointments that an offender attends in the first six months of the licence, between April and December 2006 82 per cent was achieved—not 85 per cent, but it is not bad going. The service was set a target of 70 per cent for orders reaching the halfway point without any breaching of conditions. That was achieved in 72 per cent of cases—above the target. There was also a target to complete 90 per cent of risk-of-harm assessments within the required time, and that target is now being exceeded. Last year, the Probation Service supervised 14,000 individuals where the risk to the public was considered to be high or very high. The latest statistics show that only 0.44 per cent in this category were charged with a further serious offence. Given the group’s characteristics, the offences that people in this group have committed and the fact that the vast majority are on parole, this is a surprisingly low statistic. Surely this performance can hardly be regarded as poor. The National Association of Probation Officers believes that the Government’s aims could be achieved by other means. As the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater of Butterstone, pointed out, Scotland has rejected the notion of a national offender management service and of competition, and has opted instead for the establishment of a statutory duty on probation and prisons to consult each other and the voluntary sector on the provision of offender services. The Scottish Executive have also accepted the argument that services for offenders should be as close to the point of delivery as possible. Accordingly, the community justice authorities, comprising locally elected councillors, have produced plans on how co-operation will be realised and how service delivery will be enhanced. However, in England and Wales, we are where we are with this Bill, so I now turn to its first three clauses, which still cause me concern. Clause 1 paves the way for the abolition of the National Probation Service. The work of the service is reduced to ““probation purposes?. This clause establishes core tasks but there is no reference to local probation areas. The core tasks are assistance to the courts; the supervision and rehabilitation of offenders; giving information to victims about persons charged with, or who have committed, offences; and providing hostel accommodation. Clause 1 also establishes the aims of the Probation Service, which are described as protection of the public, the reduction of reoffending, the proper punishment of offenders, ensuring that offenders are aware of the effect of their crimes on victims and the rehabilitation of offenders. Those are all laudable, but I believe that the aims should also reflect in a more positive manner the need to reintegrate offenders into society and the need for effective supervision to maximise public protection, and that they should ensure compliance with any court order and challenge criminal behaviour to bring about change, thereby reducing reoffending. Additionally, stress could be placed on partnership—working with all sectors—in the interests of public safety. Clause 2 assumes that the Probation Service will be abolished and that there will be multiple suppliers, and it establishes the Secretary of State’s responsibility for ensuring adequate provision of probation services. Napo believes that there should be an independent audit of these powers to ensure that services are of a high quality and that those who provide them are properly trained. It also believes that a clear duty should be placed on the Secretary of State to ensure that probation boards are adequately funded to carry out their tasks. Clause 3 removes the commissioning role of the probation areas and confers it on the Secretary of State to allow others to provide and run probation services. It formally abolishes the National Probation Service and allows the contracting out of any probation function or, indeed, any probation area, including public protection work and work with dangerous offenders in conjunction with the police. The clause will lead to multiple suppliers, which in turn could lead to chaos, to less rather than more co-operation between agencies, and to the creation of numerous—I shall not use the word ““silos?—compartments in the area. Additionally, public protection could be compromised. Indeed, it appears to me to work against the notion of a seamless sentence. The system could be overtly bureaucratic and very difficult to manage, and private sector involvement could severely damage service delivery, independence and work with high-risk offenders. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some reassurances on these points in her response. I have other queries regarding supervision in the community, enforcement and unpaid work—formerly known as community service—to which I shall return as the Bill progresses. However, I wish to raise four queries with my noble friend now. Can she give any indication of how those serving on the new probation trusts will be recruited and what their remuneration will be? There are to be officers of providers of probation services—OPPSs. How will these people be trained and to what standard? The Inspector of the National Probation Service is to become the Inspector of the Probation Market. Will this create more bureaucracy as the inspectorate tries to inspect multiple suppliers? The Bill allows for the privatisation of hostels. Currently, 104 hostels are catering for approximately 2,500 places for those primarily on parole, two-thirds of whom are convicted of either sexual or violent offences. Will the staff of these hostels be as experienced and receive as much training as those currently involved? I hope that my noble friend can help me with these queries. Finally, I thank two unions with members involved in the Probation Service, UNISON and Napo, for their briefings on this specialist area of work and, in particular, the assistant general-secretary of Napo, Harry Fletcher, who is noted for his expertise in the field. I am sure that our debates on the Bill will be interesting and I look forward to them in the weeks to come.