Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I am glad to have this opportunity to debate the Bill in such distinguished company. Many noble Lords with whom I would normally agree entirely have spoken about outcomes in the criminal justice system, but today I have some disagreement with them. However, I also have some queries about the Bill which I shall set out shortly. I start from the premise that something needs to be done about offender management. Too much is going wrong and thus failing to contribute to the rehabilitation and care of offenders. Reoffending is at unacceptable levels and radical change is needed to tackle it. More prison places are not the answer. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that the prevention of such misery should be paramount. ““Management? is a key word in the Bill and has been tossed around frequently today. We need a process to make change happen. The current system will not change things sufficiently. The challenge is for the Government to focus on positive change while still promoting local involvement. How is this to be done? I would welcome further comments and clarification from the Minister on the issue of local involvement. Let me draw inferences here from drug treatment, and I declare an interest as chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. When I first became involved in drug treatment about five years ago, I was surprised and in some cases shocked at the lack of management. That resulted in a deal of neglect of those seeking or in treatment. Commissioning was often carried out on the basis of historical accident or vested interests. The national treatment agency was set up to structure management and oversee quality through regional managers and a central office—the ““and … and? referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale. One of our PSA targets was to double the number in treatment by 2008. We have achieved that target two years early, as well as improving staffing numbers and reducing waiting times. There has been an increase of 113 per cent on the 1998-99 baseline of 85,000 people in treatment. We have also improved reporting systems, IT systems and introduced better performance management. It is recognised in the drug treatment field that the services have improved and service users are getting a much better deal. As the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, said, ““Start with the client?, a point echoed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester. This success has been achieved through the collaboration of a number of structures, including the voluntary sector. There are some similarities between what has happened in drug treatment services and the intentions of this Bill. Offender management needs good case management with a key worker, assessment of need, a good evidence base, co-ordinated interagency action to support case management, wraparound services, quality assurance, user and carer involvement and attention to diversity. All these issues had to be considered when we were establishing the national treatment agency, and they are the points emphasised by my noble friend Lord Carter. In particular, interagency work at the local level and sound commissioning have been essential. I was in Coventry recently, and our regional manager in the Midlands set out some models of working within the criminal justice system in relation to drugs. He emphasised the need to avoid duplication of activity and build up the potential to case-manage the system. I was impressed. They are making a system work. They have been able to do so because they have done an immense amount of work to involve partnerships and develop wraparound services along with a good commissioning structure. I have no problem with the key proposals set out in the Bill—the restructuring of the Probation Service and the introduction of contestability—but there is a lack of clarity in the arrangements for commissioning offender management services, particularly in relation to community sentences. The proposed commissioning model is heavily dependent on the role of individual regional offender managers working to a national chief executive and the Secretary of State. This appears to run counter to increasing moves to strengthen local accountability and multi-agency working via local area agreements and local partnerships. From the perspective of my organisation, this is important given the emphasis on commissioning wraparound services such as housing, mental health and employment. It is difficult to see how that will be achieved at a regional level. Any loss of meaningful accountability for offender management services may result in those services not being sensitive to the needs and priorities of local communities. A more centralised model of service delivery may introduce inflexibility and hamper responsive partnership working, innovation and sharing of sensitive data at a time when councils, police, health services, employment services and other local agencies are working together closely. An individual regional offender manager would need mechanisms to commission services at a local level, and how that would work needs clarification. For example, the regional offender manager in London would in theory have to engage with all 32 London drug and crime partnerships to ensure that drug treatment arrangements for offenders were fit for purpose. The fear is that there would need to be a large team of commissioning managers, therefore replacing the Probation Service with a new bureaucracy. It is unclear how wedded the Government are to establishing a pure provider/purchaser split. Would it make more sense for the new probation trusts to retain residual responsibility for the interface with the local partnerships—for example, representation on local joint commissioning groups and local strategic partnerships? Perhaps the Minister could comment on that as well. There are some good things in the Bill for young people. I am grateful to the Youth Justice Board for its comments on this. I always focus on issues to do with young people from the point of view of Every Child Matters and its five desirable outcomes, which have already been translated into legislation. Those outcomes are: physical and mental health and emotional well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the child’s contribution to society; and social and economic well-being. Children in trouble with the law are children first. I welcome the proposals to expand the range of youth justice accommodation and the greater flexibility around the release of young offenders, although we need a clearer definition of ““youth detention accommodation?. We also need clarity on the issue of co-terminosity of services. Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on each local authority and its specified partners to co-operate with a view to improving the well-being of children in the area in terms of the five desirable outcomes. This is the framework that underpins children’s trust, and it includes probation as a partner. Probation trusts will be linked with the local area but, as I understand it, could provide expertise to another area. More clarity would be welcome on that. The power of search and custodial duties in young offender establishments has long worried me. I hope specific safeguards will be in place to ensure the protection and welfare of juveniles, I hope the training of those in charge of young offenders will be looked at, and I hope the conditions and treatment of children during transportation from court to custody and between establishments will be re-examined. With some clarifications, this Bill can be improved and will improve offender management. As I said at the beginning, management is key to any system, and we must examine how management and systems can be improved. I am sure that with the expertise in your Lordships’ House, we can improve the Bill even further than it has been already.