Offender Management Bill

I support Amendment No. 127, tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on local area agreements being developed as a primary means of achieving joined-up working across agencies, to reduce reoffending and to hold those agencies to account. I was very interested to hear what the Minister has already said. As we know, there is already a level of integration between offender management and LAAs, and of course local partnership working is key to tackling reoffending. The Local Government Association is strongly behind this, as are we, not least because it is a means of tapping into an established structure and process, and does not require reinventing the wheel. As I have already argued, the duty to co-operate on offender management between probation services and providers would help move the reduction of reoffending close to the mainstream and change the culture of local partnership activity by integrating offender management with LAAs and LSPs. Importantly, that would also ensure that these services were more accountable to local people. This echoes exactly my earlier Amendment No. 2, in that the detail is vital. More clarity is needed on how this will work in practice, especially on how partnerships will be developed between local agencies and the agencies for the prevention of reoffending, and the targets for the supervision and rehabilitation of offenders. Just as the Scottish model has begun to implement, this will involve joined-up working across agencies, and it echoes our discussions earlier in this Committee and our concern that what must be in place is a coherent strategy generally and properly understood, so that confusion, overlap and fragmentation do not occur. It will also require a certain cultural change that will be both challenging and welcome.