Offender Management Bill

I have listened to the debate with great interest and care. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, touched on what is at the heart of noble Lords’ concerns—to seek further clarification on the way in which the process will work, how arrangements will kick in, how the system will operate on the ground and to reassure those operating in the field how commissioning and the development of a mixed economy of provision in this sector will operate. I well understand that concern. Like the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the debate took me back to a time when in local government I had to deal with CCT, the development of the contracting out of services from the local authority sector and embracing the private sector. Rightly, one of our concerns at that time was that there might be a compromise on quality, given the demand for further economies. We were right to make that argument at the outset. Over time there has been a development of thinking that has established the importance of specifying quality in contracts at the outset; that principle is at the heart of our consideration. That is where we have come to in this debate—the need to understand what quality means when we specify contracts. I understand the concerns that have been expressed in this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, talked of cost-driven cuts and of her concern that they would impact on the way in which the service is developed. It is not our objective simply to drive down costs. That is not what this is about. It is not our objective to seek to cut the service—far from it. If noble Lords look at the history of this Government, they will see that we have invested in the Probation Service. Before we came into office, there had been a period of disinvestment, particularly in training. I argue that we have a good story to tell on training provision, and in the past few years we have invested some £40 million extra in training and reinstated its importance and value—and the Probation Service has access to it. We have used that to ratchet up the quality of services. This is not a cost-driven and cuts-driven exercise. However, there was much in our debate with which I agreed. I understood and agree with the spirit behind the amendment of the noble Baronesses, Lady Gibson and Lady Stern, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. As I made clear during our debate on Amendment No. 49, we are resolutely opposed to the setting of targets for the amount of provision to be made by any particular type of provider. I underline that we are not simply embarking on an exercise of setting targets for the amount of provision to be put out to competition and for contestability. That would run counter to what we are trying to achieve in this Bill, which is aimed squarely at enabling services to be commissioned from the best available provider. In our previous discussion, I quoted what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said on the subject in the other place. His words put our intentions beyond doubt. Indeed, I find it difficult to see how we could justify any other approach, and that is one reason why I am surprised that some Members of the Committee, including the noble Baroness on the opposite Bench, continue to argue for primacy for the public sector. I remind noble Lords of the principles that we want to underpin our approach to commissioning and contracting. As I said, the overriding principle is that we want to commission from the best available provider, but how will we decide who that is? The exact factors will depend on the individual circumstances but I reassure the Committee that ““best available”” does not necessarily mean ““cheapest””. Of course, value for money will be a key factor, and we would all argue that that is right as it is the public purse that we are talking about. However, the overall aim is not to save money but to raise standards and further the aims set out in Clause 2(4), which we debated in considerable depth last time we met. Therefore, we are looking at solutions which improve the quality of services provided to offenders, victims and communities and support end-to-end offender management. We will discuss standards in more detail under a later set of amendments but I can say now that we will expect all providers, from whichever sector, to deliver to the same high standards. That does not mean that we will expect them all to deliver in exactly the same way, because we want to foster innovation and creativity—I think there has been an acceptance from all sides of the Committee today that we need to develop innovation and creativity in this sector—but we will also ensure that there is a basic set of minimum standards with which everyone will comply. The noble Baronesses and the noble Lord propose placing criteria on the face of a statutory instrument. I am with my noble friend Lord Warner and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, here. I do not think that that is necessary or appropriate; it is legislative over-prescription. The overriding aims are already set out clearly in the legislation at Clause 2(4), and we propose to enshrine standards in legislation. We have also made it clear, on the record here in the Chamber, what our overall approach is on targets and best available providers. The amendment also proposes that the Secretary of State should publish a report explaining the basis on which individual contracting decisions are made. I understand why noble Lords might think that a statement of reason should be made but we are already striving for transparency in this regard. In fact, we treat very few elements of a contract as commercially confidential. The main exceptions are specific elements, such as cost models and intellectual property rights, and our approach in this respect is fully in line with normal commercial practice. However, we place unpriced copies of existing PFI contracts in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament, and we have provided, on request, information on areas such as financial sanctions and contract costs, with NOMS currently publishing performance data on private and public sector prison providers, as well as probation areas. The National Probation Service performance report is published on a quarterly basis on the NPS website. It is worth adding that, thanks to the earlier amendments that the Committee agreed, there is now also a requirement for the Secretary of State to publish plans setting out the way in which he proposes to commission services for the following year. Indeed, this requirement will also extend to trusts and other providers in respect of the services which they, too, wish to commission. We are already putting out a lot of information on the basis on which contracts will operate and be led, so transparency is already there with a lot of the detail that is contained in those publications. We do not think it right to over-prescribe in statute how the contracting process will work but we think that, in essence, we have the right balance. We understand that nervousness may exist in some noble Lords’ minds, but we want to provide the opportunity for creative and innovative aspects in the way in which these contracts develop, because we think that there is added value in that. I reject the suggestion that this is a cost-cutting exercise; it is not. It is about enhancing the quality of standards. Over time, costs may rise as a product of this, but I do not want to predict that one way or the other. It is important that we secure value for money, that we become more effective in provision and that the service is fully attuned, however contracts work, to the need to reduce offending and reoffending rates. That is the direction of travel of our policy and that is our objective. Some specific questions were asked. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was rightly concerned about capacity building. We understand that. In the Cabinet Office additional research is taking place and consideration has been given to capacity building in the independent sector. Yes, we shall try to provide some support in that general direction and some of that support is already there. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was concerned to draw, in essence, probably on best example and best practice in commissioning. Yes, we want to ensure that those good practices are widely understood as their value is evident. From my experience in local government, one of the riches that we unlocked through the contracting process and the development of mixed economy of provision was simply that there was a greater sharing of best practice which added value to the way in which services were delivered through different providers. I have dealt with targets. In earlier Committee sittings, we have made it clear that we have no intention of setting targets for the amount of work to be contracted to other providers. We do not see the need for that. Perhaps I can offer a measure of reassurance to my noble friend Lady Gibson. On commissioning and contestability, who ends up with the work is, in a sense, not irrelevant, but misses the point. If the exercise can be directed to raising standards and improving the quality of provision, surely that is the most important overriding objective. Certainly, in the custodial sector, second time around Her Majesty’s Prison Service won three out of the five market-tested exercises for providing prison facilities and custodial services. Bids for Buckley Hall, Blakenhurst and Manchester were won in-house. We could reasonably argue that that had the beneficial side effect of raising standards in those institutions. That points towards one of the profound benefits of the contracting process. I hope I have answered the questions and provided a measure of reassurance. The debate has been useful because it has focused on the key issue, which is using contestability to drive up quality in certain areas of provision. It has also focused on the importance of reducing reoffending and using the drive and initiative in the private sector and the voluntary sector to achieve that overriding objective. Having heard that, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.