Offender Management Bill

I found it interesting that in an earlier answer the Minister said that there is a requirement to give a degree of certainty. One of my concerns about this whole business of trusts is that this clause is all about the contractual details of the trust. I do not argue with that because we are all agreed that there has to be contracting and commissioning. We are not arguing with that at all. However, my concern is that, when reading the Bill, when trusts are mentioned for the first time, one would think that they are for contracting purposes only. In fact, they are not; they are part of the future governance of the Probation Service. Rather than giving certainty, they give uncertainty because the way that probation areas that are due to have a trust will be governed will be different from the way in which probation areas with existing boards are governed. I find this process confusing. I can see the logic of the Secretary of State being at the pinnacle of the National Probation Service, which this Government set up, in exactly the same way as he is at the pinnacle of the Prison Service. He works downwards through a system to the probation officer on the ground or the prison officer on the landing. He does that through his chief probation officers or through a Prison Service chain that I hope we will have time to discuss. However, the chief probation officer is responsible and accountable for the delivery of probation services. It does not matter whether they are commissioned from the public, private or voluntary sector provided they are the best available. However, the chief probation officer needs to have a commissioning authority—whether called board, trust or whatever—that is also in the chain, but if a trust is to be by itself, and according to the legislation it is, he reports to the trust. We have to go back to the certainty required by the people on the ground who are doing the job. This Bill is all about managing offenders; it is not about managing contracts. That is why I so agree with how the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has put the amendment in pointing out the need to have more clarity on the whole process, which includes the developing trusts.