Offender Management Bill

I shall deal with that question head on. It is not surprising that an organisation such as ACEVO, which represents some of the country’s biggest charitable organisations in this field—or that the CBI, which represents some of the biggest companies in the country—should prefer the convenience of bilateral relations with the Secretary of State for Justice or one of his subordinates. That subordinate could be the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, or it could be one of her subordinates—namely, a regional offender manager who is directly responsible, up the chain of command, to the Secretary of State. Such a system would be preferable for the organisations that I have mentioned, because they would not have to go through what they regard as the expensive administrative inconvenience of having to deal with the more than 40 probation trusts that will come into existence under this Bill, or what are now known as probation boards. I can understand that. If I ran an organisation such as Turning Point or one of the other grant farmers—and I use the expression in a descriptive rather than pejorative way—that operate in the field, I would find it altogether more convenient to deal with the smallest possible number of contracting partners. I received a fairly apoplectic letter from Mr. Bubb during the Bill’s Report stage in this House, and a rather less apoplectic one the other day. The latter was addressed to ““Dear Edward””, and it was couched in identical terms to letters that were sent to every other Member of Parliament. I suspect that each letter addressed its recipient by his or her first name, but Mr. Bubb is employed to advance ACEVO’s interests and I do not criticise him for that. However, I am employed by my constituents and the public as a whole to try to produce the best possible legislation, and to ensure that it best suits the purpose of improving the supervision of offenders and protecting victims. To be honest, the Minister’s arguments contain nothing that supports the contention made by the Attorney-General in the other place that the Bill is designed to achieve those aims. The Government’s objective in seeking to overturn the amendments is fairly straightforward: they want to concentrate the power of contracting into a few, centrally located hands. I debated these matters at a meeting of the Local Government Association not long ago with the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), when he was Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Justice. He said, quite candidly, that the line of responsibility of a regional offender manager would not be to the local community, or to the local probation board or trust. Instead, the chain of command would go up the line and back to Whitehall: it used to be to Peel house and the Home Secretary, although it is now to Selbourne house and the Secretary of State for Justice. Unless the Government understand why there is so much cross-party objection to the model, the argument will go on for quite some time. It may or may not be a dialogue of the deaf. The Minister must understand that there is a need for, and a genuine purpose in having, commissioning at a local level. For goodness’ sake, most crime is committed locally. Yes, I fully understand that there is a problem with international, cross-border and cross-regional crime. However, most of the work that is done in the Crown courts—I declare an interest as a Crown court recorder who occasionally has to read probation officers’ pre-sentencing reports and has to seek the advice of such people when considering sentences—and certainly most of the work that is done in the magistrates courts is locally derived. It therefore seems to us that the best response to local crime, in terms of community sentences and what is required in the supervision of offenders—both offenders on community sentences and those who have been released from custody—is one that is derived locally. The local judiciary, local councillors, the local magistracy, local probation officers and staff, and all the other interlinking agencies, such as social services, education authorities and others—all of whom have a common interest in reducing offending in the local area and supervising offenders in the most effective way—are the best reservoir of information and knowledge about how to organise things. No matter how good the motives of the Secretary of State or the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service and her regional offender managers, that is putting the cart before the horse. I urge the Government to think carefully about how they wish to take this matter forward. If one reads the letter sent by the Secretary of State for Justice to me and no doubt others in the House, one can see evidence of the constant desire to pull things back into Whitehall and to control. I am sure that the Minister will have cast an eye over the letter before it was sent out from his Ministry. The Secretary of State writes:"““The aim of the Bill is to improve the delivery of probation services so as to reduce re-offending and better protect the public.””" That is not controversial. The letter continues:"““To achieve this, the Bill removes the exclusive existing role for local probation boards, and establishes probation trusts as the public sector providers with whom the Secretary of State may contract. Regional Offender Managers…acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, will commission services.””" So, even in the third paragraph of the letter, we can see the direction of travel. The letter continues:"““Commissioning will be an activity taking place at national, regional and local levels. Instead of the current situation, where 42 probation boards are managed directly from the centre, local lead providers will work under contract to ROMs for the delivery of services in a probation area.””" So, we are going to have members of ACEVO and the CBI coming to deals with the ROM about how best to carve up the national cake. The matter will be dealt with at a regional or national level and any crumbs that fall off the edge of the regional or national table and which ACEVO or the CBI do not want will be allowed to be picked up by the smaller fry, who will be permitted to have their share. The letter goes on:"““The lead provider will concentrate on the delivery of offender management, while sub-contracting much of their interventions work to other providers based on what is most effective, and who is best placed to deliver, in their local community.””" I pause there to comment that the person who is going to decide who is best placed to deliver is not somebody who is based locally, but the Secretary of State, via his subordinates. He will look from on high with his telescope at the worker bees getting on with such work as he condescends to give them, whereas I would rather the worker bees contracted directly locally, taking into account what is relevant and works in particular constituencies. The letter continues:"““Where interventions can be delivered more effectively across a region, ROMs will contract directly with providers, but this will be so as to complement, not replace, the local arrangements.””" Hon. Members can believe that if they will. Later on in the letter, the Secretary of State mentions accountability and local links, and says that he wants"““to use the powers in the Bill to devolve power to the local level. In particular, we will strengthen the existing local and regional arrangements for reducing re-offending across a range of partner organisations.””" Well, guess where those organisations will come from. The letter continues:"““We have demonstrated this on the face of the Bill by amending it to ensure that the duties to agree, and have regard to, Local Area Agreements transfer from the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill, along with the commensurate duties to co-operate with the relevant local authority overview and scrutiny committees. The boards of probation trusts are now required to include a local authority councillor””—" this is an interesting point—"““where practicable.””" Guess who will decide when it is practicable for a local authority representative to become involved: it will be the regional offender managers, the chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service, the Secretary of State, or even the Minister. We can see that the whole philosophy behind the Secretary of State’s argument is to pretend to give with one hand, but actually to control and to retain with both hands, so I look on what the Government propose with the greatest scepticism. Due to time constraints, I will not argue in support of the points that Members in the other place made in favour of their amendments, which I seek to retain in the Bill. Those of us who are interested in the subject will have read with care the arguments of my noble Friend Baroness Anelay, the noble Lord Ramsbotham, and Liberal Democrat, Labour and Cross-Bench Members in the other place in support of the arrangements that I wish to see retained in the Bill. The Minister will have studied them, but clearly he was not persuaded by them. However, I urge hon. Members to be persuaded by them, first, because those arrangements are right; secondly, because they will work better; and, thirdly, because, ironically, I suspect that they fit better with the ideas and philosophies of the Labour party. They would enable us to do better what the Attorney-General asked us to do: to improve the supervision of offenders, and better to protect victims. With those words, I urge the House to sustain the amendments introduced in the other place, which come under the heading of commissioning by probation boards and probation trusts.