Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 49: 49: After Clause 3, insert the following new Clause— ““Charities (1) In making arrangements under section 3, the Secretary of State shall ensure that no less than seven per cent of probation services, measured by the financial cost of services, shall be provided by charities within the meaning of the Charities Act 2006 (c. 50). (2) The Secretary of State shall be order specify requirements which shall apply to— (a) contractual arrangements which the Secretary of State may make with probation trusts or with any other person for the provision of probation services and for the operation of approved premises; and (b) sub-contractual arrangements made with charities by probation trusts or by any other person with whom the Secretary of State has made contractual arrangements for the provision of probation services. (3) The requirements specified by order under subsection (2) above shall include requirements that payments to charities under such contractual or sub-contractual arrangements shall reimburse those charities for the full cost of the services which they provide. (4) In determining with which persons he will make contractual arrangements for the making of probation provision, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the arrangements made by those persons and their sub-contractors for the promotion of equality in respect of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age and religious belief. (5) An order under this section shall be made by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”” The noble Lord said: I declare an interest in that for nearly 25 years I have been associated with Nacro, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, which has considerable interest in the amendment. Equally, the Government’s emphasis on voluntary organisations effectively means that Nacro would very much benefit if the amendment were to be carried. The new clause requires that at least 7 per cent of probation budgets should be used for services provided by charities, that contracts with charities should provide full cost recovery and that decisions to award contracts should take into account providers’ arrangements to ensure equality and diversity in their operations. On that point, I have no difficulty, given that I have received appropriate assurances from the Minister. At Second Reading, there was unanimity across the House that voluntary organisations play a vital role in the rehabilitation of offenders. In particular, the sector has expertise in delivering high-quality services in accommodation, employment, education, monitoring, addictions, mental health, working with offenders’ families and community engagement. Those services are crucial to the reduction of reoffending. For example, the likelihood of reoffending by ex-prisoners who obtain and keep a job is cut by between a third and a half, depending on which research study you look at. Getting offenders into stable accommodation reduces their reoffending rate by at least a fifth. Ex-offenders with support from a family are reconvicted at a rate of between a half and a sixth of similar offenders without family support. One study showed that offenders who receive educational help reoffend at a third of the rate of similar offenders who do not receive such help. Involving offenders in drug rehabilitation reduces the volume of reoffending by about 70 per cent. These effects are interrelated; for example, it is harder to get a job without basic skills and it is harder to get one if you are homeless. Offenders who are homeless and drifting are less likely to sustain the motivation to complete a drug rehabilitation programme and to change their offending behaviour. NOMS has developed targets to get more offenders into employment, sustainable accommodation and to improve offenders’ education, and to involve them in drug treatment programmes. If these targets are to be achieved, the involvement of voluntary and community organisations will be crucial. Yet, the history of the past few years has shown that the Probation Service has often been reluctant to engage the voluntary sector in partnerships, except when it has been required to do so, either by legislation or by centrally driven targets. Until 2001, the Probation Service had an official target of devoting 7 per cent of its resources to partnerships with the voluntary sector. While it never quite achieved that percentage, the target pushed up the proportion of the service’s budget devoted to such partnerships to around 5 per cent. However, the 7 per cent target was removed in 2001. After that, the proportion of probation budgets spent on contracts with the voluntary and private sectors combined plummeted to less than 2.5 per cent. That cannot be a healthy sign for voluntary sector involvement in probation work and does not project a happy picture. Faced with the threat of contestability, the Probation Service has, somewhat belatedly, begun to remedy this. It has adopted a target of devoting five per cent of its budget in 2006-07 and 10 per cent in 2007-08 to partnerships with the voluntary and private sectors. As a result, the proportion of probation budgets devoted to such partnerships has now increased to around 4 per cent. So we are seeing some progress, but not sufficient to meet the objective set by the Government. However, there are two reasons why it would be preferable to put on the face of the Bill a requirement for a specified percentage of probation budgets to be provided by the voluntary sector. First, the Probation Service’s recently adopted 10 per cent target is not a statutory requirement. There is nothing legally to stop the service from reversing this policy, abandoning the target and reverting to the position where a derisory proportion of its budget was devoted to partnership with the voluntary sector. Secondly, the service’s non-statutory 10 per cent target applies not only to contracts with charities but includes contracts with the private sector. It would be theoretically possible for the service to meet this target by devoting 10 per cent of its budget to contracts with Serco, GSL, Group 4 Securicor, Reliance, Calyx and other private providers and having no contracts with the voluntary sector at all. Many charities fear that private sector agencies will win contracts in preference to voluntary organisations, not because they are better at the work but because they have more resources. This means that they can put teams of people onto the intensive process of writing bids and can produce attractive bids at short notice, which charities cannot, given their more limited resources. By specifying a minimum level of contracts with the voluntary sector, the new clause would guard against the risk of the voluntary sector’s unique contribution being squeezed out through this process. Put simply, past experience shows that the Probation Service is unlikely devote a significant percentage of its budget to voluntary sector partnerships unless it is required to do so—and the amendment would ensure that. The new clause also requires that contracts with charities should reimburse them for the full cost of their services. One problem is that, all too often, statutory funders have been unwilling to reimburse charities for a realistic proportion of their overhead costs, such as financial administration, IT costs, human resources and staff training, which are necessary to provide services effectively. NOMS has recognised the need to remedy this in its policy statements. For example, the NOMS document Improving Prison and Probation Services: Public Value Partnerships included a commitment to: "““Contract terms which recognise the principle of full cost recovery, ensuring that publicly funded services are not subsidised by volunteers or other funding””." Policy statements are all very well, but experience shows that they are not always translated into practice when procurement processes start. For several years now, successive versions of the Government’s compact on relationships between the Government and the voluntary sector have required contracts with the voluntary sector to provide full cost recovery and to guarantee funding for a minimum of three years. Yet the Charity Commission recently found that the majority of contracts between government departments and charities do not provide full cost recovery and last for only one year at a time. Unless a requirement for full cost recovery is written into the Bill, there can be no guarantee that the stated intentions of policy documents will become a reality. Finally, the new clause requires that, in awarding contracts, the Secretary of State should take into account the arrangements which providers make to promote race equality. As I said, I am delighted that we have an assurance from the Minister on that matter. The work done by voluntary organisations and, in particular, Nacro, in assisting in the resettlement of offenders over all these years comes to hardly anything when, over a period of time, insufficient funds are made available and grants are cut at the whim of the Government. We have seen example after example of notices being issued to hundreds of staff who have been unable to maintain a job or provide a service. It will be to the detriment of the Bill and the Government if we are not able to ensure that charities have adequate resources to create an effective partnership in probation work. I beg to move.