Offender Management Bill

I know that and the noble Lord is right to point it out. However, I am slightly amused that he has tabled an amendment to follow the point through. We are making progress. As with many of the amendments that we have discussed in Committee, there is much with which we agree. As my ministerial colleagues and I have made clear from the outset, we are absolutely committed to greater involvement by the voluntary and charitable sector in the delivery of probation services; that is the key motivation for this legislation. We believe that those organisations have much to offer in the fight against reoffending, and we have been hugely heartened by the support that many organisations have shown towards the proposals in the Bill; that support has been reflected in the content of the debates so far, not least on this amendment. However, we differ from the noble Lord and the noble Baroness who contributed from the Liberal Democrat Benches on some points of principle and, in particular, on this. We do not believe that it is appropriate to set targets for the amount of work that should be delivered by any particular type of provider. We share some of the concerns that have been raised from the Cross Benches on that issue. We think that the guiding principle should be which provider is the best able to deliver the service in question. Our commitment is to a mixed-economy provision: what is best for the service and not from which sector they come. As the noble Lord reminded the Committee, we have targets in place to encourage probation boards to make greater use of alternative providers in the delivery of services where that is more effective. We are doing that in response to the concern that the service is currently doing far too much in-house, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made clear in his comments. That is not a long-term solution, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made very clear in another place when he said: "““In future, we shall abolish the existing targets and replace them with an entirely different type of aspiration. In future, the aspirations—the targets—will not be based on the a priori assumption that there is a level of non-public sector work that must be carried out, whether or not it gives best value or is from the best provider. That would be a dogmatic approach that could unjustifiably force work out of the public sector. No a priori assumptions will be made under our approach””.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/07; col. 1019.]" It is hard to argue with that and I am more convinced of that argument the more I have listened to the debate. I turn to other aspects of the amendment. Subsection (2) of the proposed new clause refers to the contractual arrangements that the Secretary of State may make with probation trusts or other providers and to the subcontractual arrangements that trusts and those other providers may make with charities. The contracts that are let by the Secretary of State will, of course, contain a substantial number of standard provisions. Work is currently under way to draw up model contracts in readiness for the establishment of the first trusts. But contracts are, by their very nature, the outcome of a process of negotiation between two parties in the light of circumstances at the time. For that reason, we argue that it would be entirely inappropriate to seek to impose elements of that contract by means of secondary legislation. The same goes for the subcontracts that trusts and other providers may make with charities, or indeed with providers in other sectors. Subsection (3) has exercised a number of Members of the Committee this afternoon. It relates to arrangements with charities to make provision for full cost recovery. I understand those arguments. I, too, have been involved in charity organisations—I have worked in the voluntary sector—and I entirely understand why noble Lords have drawn attention to this. The Committee will be reassured to hear that we are fully committed to the principle of full cost recovery. Our intention is that that will be reflected in the tendering and contractual process, which means that the voluntary sector will be encouraged to submit bids that recover the full costs. Subsection (4) would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the arrangements made by contractors for diversity issues. I heard the note of caution sounded by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. We have already discussed the importance that we attach to this matter and the fact that the relevant duties will be placed directly on providers by the legislation. I confirm that potential providers’ records on these issues will be considered as part of the process of assessing bids. That is a powerful statement, because we would be able to look at and measure the record of those who aim to enter this provision area. To summarise, the Government are very much opposed to the idea of targets for which services should be delivered by which sector, but we are firmly committed to greater involvement of large and small organisations in the voluntary and charitable sectors and we are working hard to ensure that the right systems are in place to enable them to make a full contribution. It is only fair to record that the voluntary sector is helping us to get this right and is fully engaged through our various stakeholder and advisory groups, including the voluntary sector and faith alliance. We are developing a strategy for building the capacity of the third sector to shape and deliver services and we are working with government departments to remove barriers by simplifying and streamlining regulatory and reporting requirements. Often the complaint is that those requirements are too constraining. We aim to deal with that issue. Our National Provider Network will inform commissioners of existing and potential providers and enable us to communicate opportunities to providers as they arise. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made another point, which I may have missed. I believe that he expressed concern that, without a target for subcontracting for the voluntary sector, the Probation Service simply will not do it. I understand that point. It is why we are using the commissioning structure set out in the Bill, so that the Secretary of State can use his powers, either to contract directly with other providers or to ensure that trusts and other providers do exactly that. We can tackle that important issue. With the powers that the Secretary of State will have vested in his office, it will be possible to make that critical intervention, thus ensuring that the subcontracting process for those services is effective in reaching out to other providers and in involving them more fully, so expanding that role, as the noble Lord argued. I hope that the noble Lord will now feel able to withdraw his amendment.