Offender Management Bill

The amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rightly seek to highlight in the Bill the crucial role that probation plays in reducing reoffending and crime. There has been a lot of concentration in the debate on the reduction of reoffending and the rehabilitation of offenders, which are of course central to probation work. Indeed, the whole of the National Offender Management Service has made an unprecedented commitment to reducing reoffending. The latest results show that we have reduced adult reoffending by 6.9 per cent, comparing 2004 to 1997, thus exceeding our 5 per cent target in the 2000 spending review. However, my noble friend made plain, and I agree, that it is important to make the distinction between the probation purposes set out in Clause 1 and the probation aims set out in Clause 2(4). The probation purposes describe the activities, or services, to be provided under the rest of Part 1 of the Bill. These are essentially the same as the current ones, as set out in Section 1 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which contains the current legislative framework governing the delivery of probation services. The reduction of reoffending and the rehabilitation of offenders, on the other hand, are desired outcomes and, as such, are properly provided for in the probation aims to which the Secretary of State must have regard in carrying out his functions under Clause 2(1) and (2). The aims are accurately and clearly set out in Clause 2(4). The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, seeks to expand on the description of supervision in Clause 1(1)(c), by reference to end-to-end and other support services. The noble Baroness was quite right to highlight this issue, but the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is right in saying that he does it again in Clause 2. I say immediately that I agree with the description by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, of end-to-end management and what it means. The management model that we have developed is intended to provide a consistent and coherent approach to the management of an offender’s sentence from start to finish. Before offender management was introduced, we did not have that. It was like a guttural stop. You have preparation before the matter goes to the courts, which then impose a sentence, but continuity is difficult to guarantee. The whole purpose of the offender management model is to provide that consistency and coherence from the moment the person comes into the system to the moment they leave it, enhancing, one hopes, the opportunity of their not coming back. The key elements of the model are, first, that there is a single sentence plan for the whole of the sentence, including the period in the community. The second is that, at any point in time, a single person—the offender manager—is responsible for managing the offender. We generally call that ““end-to-end offender management””—right through the offender’s sentence. We have focused on what offenders have indicated is the most meaningful for them. One of the biggest problems for them is being passed from pillar to post, telling the same story again and again to people who may not know them, do not understand them and must learn lessons that they have already learnt. End-to-end offender management is therefore an extremely important component. It is also why we put in place a first-rate system for assessing the risk posed by offenders and identifying the work that prison and probation staff must do with them to tackle their offending. The offender assessment system—OASys—has been rolled out across prisons and probation, and is a vital tool in our work to improve public protection. It gives us a good handle on the risks that offenders pose. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, that I do not recognise her description of modern probation officers. If that is what they are doing, they are failing in their duty. Some in the profession would argue that they would not be fit to call themselves offender managers, and certainly not fit to call themselves professional probation officers. A probation officer’s duty is to use the tools given to them with skill and judgment to make the right decisions. It is not an excuse to say that they are simply ticking a box. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that that is not the position.