Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 136: 136: Clause 38, page 24, line 15, leave out subsection (1) and insert— ““(1) Subject to subsections (1A) and (1B), Part 1 of this Act comes into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument. (1A) No order may be made under subsection (1) until the end of a period of six months commencing with the laying of a report before both Houses of Parliament under subsection (1B). (1B) The report to be laid under subsection (1A) shall contain— (a) a review of the proposals contained within the report published on 11th December 2003 ““Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime: a New Approach””; (b) the collated responses to the consultation document ““Restructuring Probation to Reduce Re-Offending””; (c) a review of the responses referred to in paragraph (b); and (d) proposals for reform of the Probation Service. (1C) Parts 2 to 4 of this Act come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument.”” The noble Lord said: The genesis of the Bill was the report by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime, which was published in December 2003. The report was based on the assumption that there would be a stable prison population, which simply has not happened. Indeed, the first chief executive of NOMS announced that NOMS as described was undeliverable without a stable prison population. Since then, we have seen a steady increase in the prison population, which has made that assumption seem even less likely day by day. As I mentioned at Second Reading, the Government published their so-called considered response to the report 26 days later, which announced the formation of NOMS without consultation or pilot. Unfortunately, that was followed by a briefing of the prison and probation services on what was intended, which included severe changes to their structure, about which they were not informed before their briefing. That was very unfortunate, because it has tempered a great deal of the responses to the proposals by people who felt not that they were being taken along as members of a process but that something was being imposed on them. I well remember that that was followed soon after by what was called an online consultation, which resulted in absolutely no feedback. It felt like a cosmetic exercise. I asked the first change manager how she would pay for the increased numbers of supervisors of those awarded community sentences under such things as custody plus. I received the reply, ““From the reduced number in prisons””. There seemed to be quite a lot of confusion about where this was going. The Government have made a number of attempts since then to bring in a NOMS-enabling Bill. The Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill was withdrawn during the 2005 election, there was no successor to it in the next Session, and the Offender Management Bill was laid in this Session. Many people have for a long time—certainly long before the current crisis in both prisons and probation caused by overcrowding and lack of resources—been calling for improvements in the way in which offenders are managed. Clearly, reconviction rates in excess of 60 per cent are unacceptable marks of failure if the aim, given by the Government to the criminal justice system, is the protection of the public by preventing reoffending. How is that aim achieved? At the heart of what we have been discussing in Committee for six days is NOMS. I have asked the Minister several times whether NOMS means a national offender management service, which Ministers declared was to provide clear leadership and accountability in the performance of all the correctional services and to reduce reoffending, or whether it was the system through which the correctional services were commissioned and provided. As yet, I have not had a definitive reply. Indeed, the Minister has referred to NOMS both as a service and as a system in this debate. The Committee has been united on a number of key points throughout its deliberations. First, everyone has supported the concept of what is called end-to-end offender management, although several of us remain to be convinced that as described, and however desirable, it is actually deliverable. What is needed is the consistent management of work done with and for each offender throughout their sentence, whether in custody or the community, or both. If called case management, which it is, it becomes more understandable. Secondly, everyone supports partnership working, including the public, private and voluntary sectors, each contributing what it does best. Thirdly, offender management needs to be centrally directed but locally delivered. In other words, we support a national offender management system that includes every agency and individual with a role to play in the management of offenders, and which is an integral part of the criminal justice system. Yet just as the criminal justice system is not an entity but a description of the environment within which courts, police, prisons and probation services work together so, too, the national offender management system is not an entity but a description of the environment within which all those with a role to play in managing offenders work together. Looking at it against that criterion, I hope that your Lordships will see why a great deal about this Bill is currently unsatisfactory. What we have been debating over six days has not been how an offender management system might better manage offenders, but rather a government description of a way in which probation services, in particular, might be commissioned—but not delivered. That is not the same thing at all, and our concern here is exemplified by the number of amendments that have drawn attention to what is not in this Bill when we would have expected it to be in one about offender management. Since Second Reading, there has been yet another sea-change in the organisation of government departments, with the formation of the Ministry of Justice that is now responsible for the management of offenders, and so for the processing of this Bill. Shortly, there is to be another with change between Prime Ministers, the already announced change of Home Secretary and the possibility of a Secretary of State for Justice sitting in the other place. I am one of those who have advocated a Ministry of Justice, under a Secretary of State able to give full and undivided attention to the administration of justice—as opposed to having to divide his or her time between that full-time purpose and homeland security in its widest sense. That support is fuelled by my experience of the difference made to the handling of Northern Ireland affairs by the 1972 separation of its then desk from the Home Office to form the Northern Ireland Office. At the time of the announcement of the Ministry of Justice, I told the House that I hoped the new ministry would seize the opportunity to look afresh at some of the legislation coming out of the Home Office, including this Bill. I said that not because I am opposed to the intention behind the Bill, but because I believe that in its current form it is ““not fit for purpose””, to quote an in Home Office phrase. What is clear is that unfortunately, in its preparation, the Home Office failed to take account of views expressed by those on the ground, having made so-called consultations that were really not worth the name—because it pressed on regardless, determined to do what it had intended in the first place. I also find the regulatory impact assessment extremely disappointing. To find that, under the implementation and delivery plan, it says that, "““plans for the individual measures in the Bill are being developed””," and then to find, when it talks about resources, that, "““A key assumption is that the process of market testing will deliver efficiencies from suppliers, irrespective of whether the process results in a change of supplier””," makes me very concerned that there is no full assessment of whether the private and voluntary sectors will be able to deliver what is actually required of them. Without that assurance, it seems dangerous to launch off into the unknown as far as the management of offenders is concerned. That is not to say that the intention is not good, but I wish that I felt more confident that the affordability case had been examined; already, there are people saying that it is impossible to deliver what is required of them because they have not been given the resources. I am talking about probation, and others. It is no good giving them another demand, or wish-list of things to do, if the resources are not there for that. It seems that people do not know exactly how much resource is required to do what is being asked. I understand entirely why the estimates have not yet been completed, because there is no clear description of what resourcing is required. Unfortunately, an awful lot of this Bill is aspirational at this stage. I could go on about all the points that are missing, but frankly I feel that it is unfortunate. It is asking noble Lords to approve something that is not yet in a state to be taken forward. The purpose of my amendment is not to kill the Bill—far from it, because I am one of those who have advocated for some time that a great deal needs to be done to improve the management of offenders in prison and in the community. Rather, I suggest that the opportunity presented by the introduction of the Ministry of Justice should be seized and that the ministry should be given time to go over the evidence. That should include not only what has been said at various stages of the Bill, but what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, proposed originally and what has been said in consultations and has been disregarded. As part of this process, a proper business case should be prepared to determine whether what is available is ““possible and deliverable””. Those are the words that the Minister used to describe dynamism. I could not agree with her more. That could provide an opportunity to include other proposals that have not been discussed, such as the formation of adult offender teams to look after adults in the same way that youth offender teams look after youths. That would enable trained probation officers to oversee the supervision of low-level offenders in the community, freeing them up to undertake more professional tasks—in other words, to consider the whole operation of probation and not just how parts of it might be commissioned from outside the public service. Originally, in tabling the amendment, I followed the line offered by the excellent Public Bill Office, to whose staff I pay tribute and thanks for their unfailing help and courtesy. They suggested a period of 60 days, but I realised that that would coincide with our Recess. Therefore, I propose a period of six months. I suspect that some noble Lords will object immediately because they will say that that would risk the Bill running out of time in this parliamentary Session. I accept that, but the protection of the public and the well-being of all those charged with the management of offenders are matters too serious to be endangered by being submitted to imperfect legislation that could be made immeasurably better if time and further examination allowed. I am sure that many other noble Lords would be only too willing to be included in that process if they were asked to contribute. In that spirit, I beg to move.