Offender Management Bill

I thank all those who have contributed, especially the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for raising the issue in relation to the Local Government Association. Noble Lords will know that as the Bill went through the other place, there was intensive negotiation and consideration for a number of partners, not least the Local Government Association, because we very much wanted to clarify the position in a way that would help to give confidence that we meant what we were saying. As the local government Bill was going through the other place, it was a good opportunity to reflect that arrangement here. I very much take what the noble Lord says, and I shall be happy to ensure that there is continuing satisfaction with local government on that basis. Much of what we are now doing is predicated on the work that has already been done with local partners through the local strategic partnerships for the creation of the local area agreements. The LSPs have been very important because they bring together agencies from across the spectrum, which have worked with increasing intensity and with increasing success. Turning to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, the local area agreement will include a limited number of local improvement targets—around 35—which have been agreed collectively across central government and with the local partnership as being the highest improvement priorities for the area. In addition, there will be up to 18 pre-existing statutory educational attainment targets, together with the35 others, which will be called the designated targets and will be drawn from the national indicator set described in the 2006 local government White Paper. That will give the call, but it will allow sufficient flexibility to enable those issues that are germane and pertinent to a local area to be better addressed, better targeted and better understood. I shall deal with the question about PCTs raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. There is a better opportunity, through the local strategic partnerships and the local area agreements, to jointly commission services. I will give an example. The regional offender manager for the south-east, Sarah Payne, is now working with the regional commissioner at four PCTs to look at how they can jointly commission health services to assist those who offend. There is an opportunity to link the local commissioning in a way that will add significant value to it. The agreement, to which I referred, will set out the priorities for the local area agreed between central government and the local area, represented by the local authority and through the local strategic partnership—its key partners—as I tried to make plain. The importance of the regional offender manager is that the manager will be responsible for doing the needs-based assessment to identify with whom he or she will need to contract. The majority of the work is therefore likely to be contracted through the local probation trust. However, there may be regional and national services which it would be more efficacious to commission nationally or regionally. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, gave us an indication of where that might be so—services directly attributable to sexual offending, for instance, where a regional structure may be better able to meet the needs of the client group than a local structure when the local area may have few offenders who fall into a category with that specialist need. You will therefore have to look at commissioning a service in a regionally specific point, maximising the opportunities of a number of different areas having access to it. To take up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, it is not just the subcontracting—although that is important, which is why the contractual terms will be important. Being precise about the contractual terms, to clearly define which role will be provided by which entity, is also important. I agree with the noble Lord that contracting is important. We already have some good examples of how CDRPs are influencing delivery on the ground. Again, I give an example of the CDRP I visited in Sheffield on Friday. I spoke to a number of partners—police officers, local authorities and others—who say that they are looking at things in a different way. The assistant chief constable—the chief constable was also there—told me about how they analyse the education issues, such as where the problem schools are, and correlate with the accident and emergency units. They are pooling this information, so each agency is now taking into account information that it would not hitherto have done, in order to set its priorities. The 44 action areas identified for the CDRPs are looking at the hot spots, which are usually for health, education and crime, and trying to work together. The local area agreements also allow them to do that. I hope that the Committee feels that the ability to work through local strategic partnerships and local criminal justice boards, and using the new local area agreement process, will help us to deliver better services and scrutiny at local level. The scrutiny committees are there to give oversight and a better view. That is why the local government Bill places the partnership authorities under a duty to provide information and have regard to the reports by the relevant local authority overview and scrutiny committees. Our amendment means that both the regional offender manager, as I said earlier, and the lead provider will be placed under a duty to co-operate with the relevant overview and scrutiny committee on the relevant targets in the local area agreements. In most cases, of course, the lead provider will be dealing with that in the first instance. I hope that that clarifies the issues, and that that the amendment can now meet with the Committee’s assent. I hope it is also clear that I do not thinkthat the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is necessary, because it is assumed within the government amendments.