Offender Management Bill

I, too, support the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in his amendment. As the Minister knows, we are all with her in the ambition of what she seeks to achieve, but the question is the method. We have frequently drawn attention to the need to listen to the voice in the field. My contribution is based on six short statements made on 2 May in a keynote speech to the Probation Centenary conference by Ellie Roy, the chief executive of the Youth Justice Board, entitled ““Commissioning—the Youth Justice Experience””. My concern, in line with what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, is that a great deal of this Bill flies in the face of the practical experience of the Criminal Justice Board. I want to read the statements made in the speech, because I think that they explain why. Ellie Roy said that, "““you need as a commissioner to be able to work with your providers to look at how you want to change things, what is actually going to be achievable and you … need to listen to the real operational concerns and operational issues which your providers tell you about and you need to give them discretion in how they actually deliver a lot of the services””." The risk is that, "““you can set out on a process which initiates some huge upheaval in the services that you’re responsible for or that you’re trying to change and you may do that against very weak data and a weak evidence base and you may then not be in a position to make a sound judgement on the results””." She remarked that, "““one of the things that as a commissioner you’ve got to remember is that you do have providers in the field who know their business and know it well, who have experience and expertise and you need to work with the grain of that rather than coming in and thinking that you can tell people exactly what to do and what changes need to be put in place””." She also said: "““As a commissioner you should be able to use contestability to select the best provider who will provide best service for the lowest cost. But again, it’s not as straightforward as it seems. Some of the constraints that we face are, first of all, lack of new money to invest in any transformational change. Everybody knows how constrained the public purse is at the moment and we have to make the money that we’ve got work to change and that gives us some real problems because if we wanted to rebalance the costs across the three sectors””—" that is, the public, the private and the voluntary— "““there are some real issues around that, particularly in terms of the expertise and experience””," that some have, "““and the fact that they deal with the most vulnerable populations … so we have to think very long and hard about that””." She also pointed out: "““It’s very difficult as a commissioner, to judge the ability of competing providers to deliver a quality service. What looks good on paper in a bid is not always deliverable and it is difficult to judge whether too many corners have been cut and some of the bids that come forward … are actually as robust as they seem in the reality. For us, we are actually dependent on monopoly suppliers whether we like it or not and there are some real risks in moving beyond those suppliers””." She sums up: "““The conclusion that we’ve come to””—" that is, the Youth Justice Board, over time— "““is that we really do need to work in partnership with the providers that we’ve got … They … have the experience and we need to work with them, and … build a confident relationship, and … trust between us, if we are gong to see the change that we all want””." I do not think that you could put it more clearly or succinctly than that. If we think that we can push change in a different way, we are deluding ourselves.