Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 69: 69: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause— ““National standards for the management of offenders (1) The Secretary of State shall continue to publish national standards for the management of offenders. (2) The national standards may in particular include standards relating to the management of offenders held in custody. (3) In exercising his powers under section 3(2) the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to secure, so far as practicable, that the arrangements in force from time to time provide for the national standards to have the same effect in relation to every provider of probation services carrying out the activities to which the standards apply.”” The noble Lord said: This substantial group of amendments deals with the key issue of standards. Let me begin by introducing the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Scotland. Amendment No. 69 seeks to add a new clause to the Bill covering national standards for the management of offenders. It has been clear for some time that real concern exists about the effect of our proposals on the standards of probation services. There have been anxieties that the introduction of commissioning and contestability will lead to some providers cutting corners and diluting standards, to reduce costs and gain a competitive edge. Our ministerial colleagues in the other place and we in your Lordships’ House have consistently emphasised that we want to achieve the opposite effect—that the aim of the proposals is to raise standards rather than lower them—but concerns have remained. That is why we gave a commitment in the other place, and reiterated it at Second Reading in this House, to give statutory effect to those assurances. That is what this amendment seeks to do. Proposed new subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to continue to publish national standards for the management of offenders. National standards for the Probation Service were first introduced after the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. They have been revised twice since, most recently in 2005 in response to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. In their various forms, they have proved a crucial tool in raising performance in the service. The amendment ensures that this will continue. I ought to note that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has proposed an amendment similar to ours, which makes specific reference to, "““the provision of reports to courts and to the Parole Board””." I confirm that those activities are covered by the reference to ““management of offenders”” in the proposed new subsection and that national standards covering those activities will be produced. Proposed new subsection (2) in the Government’s new clause makes clear that the standards may also include those relating to the management of offenders in custody. That will ensure that standards are able to support properly the development of the end-to-end management of offenders, whereby the Probation Service is involved with an offender from the beginning to the end of his or her sentence, including any period spent in prison. However, publishing standards is not enough on its own—we need to make sure that they are applied—so proposed new subsection (3) links the standards to the Secretary of State’s power to enter into contractual and other arrangements with providers. The Secretary of State is required to have regard to the need to ensure that those arrangements provide for national standards to apply to all probation providers, so far as is practicable. In other words, the standards will apply equally, regardless of whether the provider is a probation trust or from the voluntary, charitable or private sectors. We want to encourage innovation and creativity in the way that services are delivered and to maximise value for money. But we also want to see a consistent level of minimum standards across the country. Key to that is the development of contracts that fully reflect and enshrine national standards and ensure that only providers who can clearly demonstrate that they can meet the required standards will be commissioned to deliver those services. When they are enshrined in contracts, national standards will be one of the benchmarks against which performance is assessed by the commissioner. Failure to meet those standards will generally lead to penalties incurred by the provider. A range of sentences will be available, including financial penalties, and termination of the contract will be the ultimate sanction. Stipulating penalties in the Bill will limit the commissioners’ flexibility to implement other sanctions that may be more appropriate in improving the delivery of probation services. By their nature, those services cover a wide range of offender needs, and prescribing penalties in advance may focus the providers’ efforts on ensuring that they deliver against those specified performance measures while allowing the quality of other important elements of the service to slip. Normal contracting arrangements will allow commissioners to incorporate a flexible package of incentives and sanctions that not only cover the wider probation environment but cater for regional and local complexities, which the use of centralised penalties may make more difficult to implement. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, would add qualifications and training to the areas covered by national standards. We made clear the importance that we attach to training when we debated the previous group of amendments, but I remind noble Lords that we explained that we did not think that excessive top-down prescription was helpful. The amendment of the noble Lord profoundly misunderstands the purpose of national standards, which are aimed at practitioners and are all about delivery. They set out, for example, the level of contact required with different categories of offender, how quickly an assessment must be made after the release from custody of a prolific and other priority offender, and so on. National standards are not the vehicle for dealing with training requirements. The addition of our new clause on national standards is a significant improvement to the Bill and puts beyond doubt our commitment to ensuring consistency, across the country and between providers, in the standards to be expected and delivered. I hope that the House will support that approach. I beg to move.