Offender Management Bill

It would be helpful to hear in more detail from the Minister how the end-to-end offender management will work. My noble friend Lord Northbourne reminded us of a little bit of what we have learnt, which spurred me to think about the relationship between prison officers and the offender managers—normally probation officers. I have noticed in other circumstances where there is a need for close partnership—for instance between children’s homes and schools, children’s home staff and schools, or children’s home staff and social workers—that when there is a great disparity in the professional development and qualifications between the two partners, it is much more difficult to work together. Staff in children’s homes say, ““Teachers don’t respect us””, and teachers say, ““Children’s home staff don’t know anything. We can’t deal with them””. There is a danger of mutual recrimination unless there is a fair degree of parity of professionalism between the two. Has the Minister’s department considered whether further development of prison officers might be in order to take them closer to the degree-level qualification of probation officers? I understand that there has been some progress in such development of prison officers recently and it would be interesting to hear more of that if the Minister has time.