Offender Management Bill

The Government fully agree with the intention underlying the amendment, which is to ensure high standards in the arrangements for escorting young people to and from custody. There is concern that trainees on occasion have a long journey from the court to the custodial establishment and sometimes arrive there at a late hour. I assure the Committee that we are well aware of the issues and that the Youth Justice Board has been active in seeking to remedy them, but as much as we abhor even one occasion when that happens it would be remiss to think that this is the general situation or that it happens a disproportionate number of times. Even if it happens only once, we would want to work hard to eradicate it, so that is by no means to detract from its importance. I know that noble Lords understand that we have made significant improvements in this regard over the past few years. The solution, however, does not depend on additional legislation. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, a provision brought in by noble Lords opposite when they were in Government, places an express duty on custody officers carrying out escort functions to attend to the well-being of persons in their care. Rather the key to improvement is through changes to the contractual arrangements. It may help the Committee if I explain what they are. There are two separate escorting contracts covering young people under 18: one managed by the Youth Justice Board to convey young people to and from secure training centres and secure children homes and another managed by the Prisoner Escort and Custody Service, PECS, to convey trainees to and from young offender institutions. The arrangements specified in the secure training centre and secure children’s home contract are very satisfactory and they are working well. The contract provides for escort in an ordinary unmarked vehicle—a people carrier—in which the young person travels with a team of three custody officers direct to the required destination. There is a minimum of delay because the escort team is usually responsible only for a single young person. The Prisoner Escort and Custody Service contract for under-18s also requires the contractor to have regard to the welfare of the young people being escorted, for example by minimising journey times, providing regular comfort breaks, meals, drinks and where necessary access to medical care; but multi-occupancy cellular vehicles that may call at more than one destination per journey are used. As the majority of trainees are placed in young offender institutions, providing escorts to and from those establishments is much the larger operation and there can on occasion be difficulties in delivering young people on time. The Youth Justice Board has for some time been working to improve the operation of the PECS contract and has spent approximately£5 million a year since 2004 on measures to ensure separation of under-18s from older offenders during escort. Together with other stakeholders in the PECS improvement implementation project, the Youth Justice Board is working to achieve changes to operational arrangements, performance measures and the submission of data by contractors. A new partnership agreement between stakeholders has also been drawn up. The board is working very hard to achieve improvements, and I assure the Committee that we are taking the issue very seriously. I hope that noble Lords will see that the difference will be made through tightening up the contracts, enforcing them and making sure that we can get them to deliver that which we aspire to achieve. I share the concern; we are focusing on the issue and I assure the Committee that we will continue to do all we can to ensure that those honoured by a contract do some honouring themselves.