Offender Management Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I will touch on her point shortly, so I hope that she will bear with me. New clause 2 proposes that probation trusts provide an annual plan. I have already explained our commitment to consultation, and we are similarly committed to transparency in the operation of the new arrangements. We already have arrangements in place whereby the commissioner publishes a regional commissioning plan, which sets out the basis on which he will commission services for the year. Currently, that is an administrative arrangement, but I would be happy to put it on a statutory basis, and we will consider how best to do that. I am also happy to extend the requirement to individual providers, along the lines proposed. I am therefore happy to accept the new clause in principle, subject to any minor technical drafting improvements that might be necessary. That brings me to the amendment on magistrates and councillors—an issue that we discussed at length in Committee. I explained then our desire to allow flexibility in the membership of trusts to suit local circumstances. I fully accept that we need to make sure that local circumstances are considered. We want to work closely with trust chairs to determine the skills that each trust needs to suit its local circumstances and to enable the selection of the best people for the job. The existing legislation, the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, is excessively prescriptive and imposes a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution that we do not wish to carry forward into the new world.