Welfare Reform Bill

I shall speak also to the other government amendments in this group. In 2001, the Government introduced a pilot scheme in four areas to apply a benefit sanction to those found to be in breach of their community orders. The pilot covers Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, Teesside and the West Midlands and is a joint initiative run between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice. The aim of the pilot was twofold: to link the receipt of benefit more closely to the fulfilment of responsibilities to society, and to encourage greater compliance with community sentences. The scheme applies to those offenders in the pilot areas who are aged between 18 and 59 and receiving jobseeker’s allowance, income support or certain training allowances. The new clause to be inserted after Clause 22 will bring the pilot scheme to an end, and the other amendments are consequential on this. It was always the intention to evaluate the overall impact of these pilots before making a decision to introduce it nationally. Evaluations of the scheme have shown modest improvements in compliance, but any savings made in running it are outweighed by the overall running costs. Additionally, new measures introduced since the introduction of the pilots have proved to be more effective in holding offenders to account for non-compliance of community sentences. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 strengthened measures on compliance and enforcement and courts must hold offenders to account in all cases where they do not comply with their order. This includes the power to send the offender to prison for up to 51 weeks. In weighing up the improvements made with the introduction of other measures against the total cost-effectiveness of running the pilot scheme, we have concluded that it should not be rolled out nationally and should come to an end. I reiterate that the amendment to the first part of the provision that we have been debating is consequential on this new clause. I beg to move.