Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I recognise the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, to ensure that the voluntary sector plays a key role in the new arrangements we are proposing. That has been echoed by all noble Lords who have spoken today, and I fully share that desire. Indeed, it has been one of the key drivers of the Bill. That is why we have been working very closely with the sector and are so heartened by the support for the Bill from many voluntary sector providers, such as Nacro, Rainer and Turning Point. I have already mentioned the positive response that we have had from these bodies and I am very happy that we are working with Clinks. The reason that I cannot accept the imposition of a target for the amount of work that should be contracted to any one sector has already been explained. I share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that a required percentage could very quickly become a ceiling that is met with difficulty without any real effort to go further and look at the people who can deliver the work. At the moment, approximately 75 per cent of contracts and grants are with the third sector and 25 per cent are with the private sector. The target for 2006-07 was 5 per cent of each board’s main grant; the future target is 10 per cent of each board’s main grant for 2007-08, and probation boards are in the process of preparing subcontracting plans for their regional offender manager, setting out how they will reach the 10 per cent target in 2007-08. Some boards will hit those targets, but the average is likely to be around 3.5 per cent in 2006-07 and 6 per cent in 2007-08. We hope we will be able to accelerate that. By the end of 2008, when the trusts come into being, we hope that the10 per cent direction of travel will be well established, and we wish to see that go further. That is, of course, dependent on outcomes; it is why it is so important that contracts are outcome focused so that those who produce those outcomes are likely to succeed in getting the contracts. We understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said on this occasion, but I hope that, with some of the standard contracts we are working on, we will be able to deal with the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton: the need to reduce paperwork, to have standard contracts, to have sustainability built in through longer terms and resilience, and to be able to assist smaller organisations to take advantage of the system without being burdened. We are going in the right direction, and I hope that at Third Readingthe noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and others will feel happier that we have built in a sustainable process through which we can all be more confident that we can deliver on the things that we want to. That is why it is so important that we have Clinks and others helping and working with us to see how we can deliver this better.