Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 14: 14: Clause 1, page 2, line 25, at end insert— ““(6) Regulations made under this section may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”” The noble Lord said: The amendment stands in my name, as well as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. I shall speak in particular to the regulatory powers sought for the Secretary of State in relation to the provision of probation services. Before speaking to the amendment, I thank the Minister for the large package of information which was transmitted to us at 5.42 pm on Friday. I was grateful for it, although I must admit to her that I was enormously disappointed when I saw what the corporate allowance was all about—of the 26 organisations, several were charities, two were hotels and one a garden centre. I had rather hoped for more than that. I freely admit that the basis for the amendment is the concern that a number of us have about an action taken last September, when a statutory instrument was introduced that changed the composition of probation boards and removed magistrates and members of local government from them by stealth, to be honest, because we were given no warning. We did not have time to go through it before it was introduced. Therefore, we are seriously concerned that that might happen again in relation to probation services. I am particularly concerned at the moment about the introduction of probation trusts, about which I wish to conclude. I spent a considerable amount of time over the weekend going through in great detail what was said last Wednesday, particularly by the Minister. I shall, if I may, replay some of her words to her. I think that we are absolutely at one on the intention behind so much of the Bill; it is the method and the detail that cause concern. First, she said that, "““we could do better on reducing reoffending””." I think we all agree that we would like the figures to be better, but we will talk about what reoffending means later in our consideration of the Bill, so I do not propose to do so here. Secondly, the Minister said that, "““we are talking about two different systems: the system of commissioning services and that of the provision of services””." However, commissioning enables provision, so we are talking not so much about two different systems but about two complementary systems. The Minister went on to say that, "““we are introducing a process of commissioning””.—[Official Report, 16/5/07; cols. 225-26.]" Anyone reading that could be forgiven for thinking that commissioning was brand new, but of course commissioning has been in place ever since 1907. The commissioning of services, whether by a probation service or the voluntary sector, has actually happened. The Minister says that the Government are introducing a ““process of commissioning””, which is not the same thing at all: we are talking about a different process, not about commissioning itself. It is the process of commissioning being introduced that is causing concern. There is more stealth in this, as I shall outline. That is what causes us concern, because it is what the Government say they want to do rather than what may be necessary. Here I come to the necessary bits. I was very interested in what the Minister said about what the Probation Service was already doing. She said: "““All the things alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham,””—" in my amendment about the principles— "““are already part of the framework of what the Probation Service does””." Noble Lords will remember that that included the partnership between the private, the voluntary and the public sectors in the provision of probation, working in conjunction with local organisations. The Minister went on to say that the Probation Service, "““has gone right to the centre of the criminal justice system””." If the Probation Service is already at the heart of the criminal justice system, what else do we need from it? The Minister continued: "““Now the Probation Service sometimes drives change and welds the criminal justice system together, an important cultural shift””.—[Official Report, 16/5/07; col. 269.]" If the Probation Service is already at the heart of the system and is welding it together, what change are we talking about that justifies such an upheaval in the method of commissioning? The Minister then said that, "““compliance with court orders … is an area in which probation performance has improved beyond recognition in recent years. For example, enforcement action is now taken swiftly in over90 per cent of cases””.—[Official Report, 16/5/07; col. 273.]" If I had a 90 per cent success rate in what I was doing, I would be extremely pleased. We talked so much about the need to improve enforcement and about compliance with court orders being at the heart of what the probation services are doing, but, according to the Minister, a great amount of it is already being done, so what are we actually talking about? Of course we must improve performance. It seems to me that the Bill is not so much about improving performance but about changing the method by which some of that performance is commissioned. That is not necessarily terribly wise, if everythingis currently working as well as the Minister tells usit is. Having said that, I have three questions for the Minister. The Minister has said: "““We … need to collocate relevant services on a regional basis to provide as efficaciously as possible easy access for those who need it. It makes sense to commission such services more regionally””.—[Official Report, 16/5/07; col. 271.]" How does the Minister propose to collate private and voluntary sector services on a regional basis when there is no way for the Government to direct the deployment of such services in that way. I think that the Minister means that you need to have local services working together on a regional basis, but that is not the same as collocating them. At col. 270 on 16 May, the Minister referred to the duty of the Probation Service to provide courts with details of the sentence plan to help them to come to the sentence. With respect, I do not think that that is correct. Until the sentence has been passed, the assessment on which the sentence plan is made cannot happen. The sentence plan cannot be provided before the sentence. Advice is needed by the courts, but a sentence plan cannot be provided as part of the pre-sentence report. My final concern is that the Minister mentioned that there would have to be personal officers in prisons who would be contacted by offender managers over the supervision of prisoners. I know that there are personal officers in prisons and that that system is under huge stress from overcrowding. Not many prisoners have personal officers, whose job is nothing to do with offender management or sentence planning. I merely question those matters. This Bill is about a very serious matter—the proper management of offenders and the protection of the public. I am deeply concerned that too much in this Bill is not sufficiently detailed and thought through in order to enable it to happen. You cannot just let it go. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, put it extremely well when he said: "““I am disappointed, but I hope that she will go away and reflect on what we have been saying … and see whether some adjustments can be made to the Bill to send a clearer signal about its strategic purpose””.—[Official Report, 16/5/07; col. 249.]" I entirely agree. We also need detail—by that, I mean not just this House but also probation boards and probation staffs. My concern is that those probation boards which wish to be considered trusts have to apply by4 June. We are told that they will be identified by the end of July and the first trusts will be formed on1 April 2008. But I have also consulted the probation boards to find out what they think about this, which I have done in the spirit of what I reported at Second Reading; namely, that 638 of the 648 dissenting—or at least critical—verdicts of the so-called consultation paper about probation were against or had some alternative view, and they have been airbrushed. In addition, a very disturbing comment was made by a senior official in the Home Office to the effect that it did not consult senior probation officers on this matter because they were too junior. The probation boards were asked about this consultation because they are the people who have to put themselves forward. They replied to the Home Office on 17 April 2007. They said: "““We are pleased to provide a response but before addressing the question there are two overarching points we would wish to make. First, we believe that there is a fundamental lack of clarity as to the nature of a trust and how it will be different from a local probation board in real terms and, second, the proposal for ""trusts to be established in waves is potentially divisive, resulting in two concurrent probation governance regimes that would confuse stakeholders and be bureaucratic and extensive to resource””." They went on to talk about integrated assessment, on which they were invited to comment.