Offender Management Bill

I hope that I will be able to give the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the clarity that she seeks, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, reassurance. I suppose that I should not be surprised by the degree of scepticism and concern, but I reassure the noble Lord that what we are seeking to do is proportionate and, I would argue, well thought out. I hope that I will be able to explain to him how it will work. We had the opportunity to put quite a lot of flesh on the bones during earlier Committee sittings, where I tried to detail how the trusts would work, but I am very happy to take this opportunity to put even more flesh on the bones. I hope only that no one will think that the analogy will be obese by the time I have finished adding to its substance. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, gives me an opportunity to do that. Under the Bill, as noble Lords are aware, local probation boards cease to exist in their current form. I entirely accept that that has caused anxiety, as the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, says. Clause 8, however, makes formal provision for this. Under Clause 3: "““The Secretary of State may make contractual or other arrangements with””," a range of providers, including those from the voluntary, charity and private sectors. That does not mean, however, that we are privatising the Probation Service, which is one of the things that has been feared and talked about in the past. Far from it, because, as the noble Baroness pointed out, Clause 5 gives the Secretary of State the power to establish probation trusts as the public sector provider with which he may make these arrangements. Provided that their performance meets the requirements, probation trusts will become the lead provider in their probation area, acting under contract to their regional offender manager. Chief executives of probation trusts will no longer be line-managed by the director of probation in the National Offender Management Service headquarters, but will, under this construct, be managed locally by the chairs of the probation trusts. A degree of local autonomy in that regard will therefore be retained. We want public sector probation services to step up to the challenge of making a real success of end-to-end offender management in probation and prisons. Probation trusts will concentrate on the delivery of offender management while commissioning much of their intervention work from other providers, based on what is most effective and who is best placed to deliver in their local community. As we have always made clear, we want to introduce these changes cautiously and in a measured fashion. Some have suggested that we are being too cautious and too measured, and that we should go much faster. I hear that even before it is said, but we think that this proportionate stance is the better way forward. Our aim is to provide the right mix of challenge and support to enable all probation boards to become probation trusts, in the next three years if possible. We see this as a collaborative process, which is why we will invite—I emphasise ““invite””—probation boards that meet the criteria on which we have just consulted to apply to become probation trusts. The criteria will combine assessments of each probation board’s performance with consideration of its underlying capability. The first wave of probation trusts will come into being in April 2008. The second, much larger wave will follow in 2009-10, with the final wave following in 2010-11. We imagine only a very small number of probation boards making the transition to become probation trusts in this first wave. With public protection and the reduction of reoffending at stake we have to get this right. We will aim to select a geographically representative range of probation boards, with a mixture of urban and rural, and large and small. We will prioritise applications from probation boards which can demonstrate how they would use their status as probation trusts to deliver real improvements to service delivery. As this is all about partnership working, we will want to see how they would disseminate their learning in order to support further waves. We believe that that is a cautious and sensible approach. There will inevitably be lessons to be learnt from establishing the first wave, but under our approach these can be readily incorporated into the later stages. This gradual approach will also allow areas performing less well sufficient time to improve their performance prior to becoming probation trusts. Clause 5 enables us to establish probation trusts by order, which will set out the name and purposes of the trust. It is envisaged that trusts will continue to be linked to and named after their local area, but the order will not limit their activities to that area. So, for example, a trust with a particular expertise in one aspect of service delivery might deliver that service in other areas as well as its own. The detail of this will not be specified in the order but will be a matter for the contracts that will be delivered in due course. Clause 5(1)(c) also enables the Secretary of State to dissolve a trust by order. There are two main sets of circumstances in which this might happen. The first is if a trust fails to secure contracts. The second is if two or more trusts agree that they would be more effective if they merge their operations. But we expect such an initiative to come from the trusts themselves; there are no plans for mergers from the centre. Subsection (6) enables the order establishing a probation trust to be amended by a subsequent order. These order-making powers are not subject to any parliamentary procedure. Perhaps I may pray in aid what my noble friend Lord Warner said about how this is done. There is a real business case for doing it with a facility, particularly in the circumstances I describe, where a probation board may come forward saying, ““We are ready to do this. We would like to become a trust””. It would seem incredibly burdensome and arduous to demand in that situation that we go through the parliamentary process. We believe that this is appropriate because a trust may need to be established also for commercial reasons; for example, to bid for a contract or because a contract is lost. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee acknowledges in its immensely helpful report, for which I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks, this is similar to the procedures for establishing NHS trusts. It has asked for more information on how probation trusts will work in practice. Now that I have had the chance to set this out in more detail, I hope that noble Lords will be satisfied that the arrangements relating to establishing and dissolving probation trusts are subject to the appropriate level of scrutiny. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and other noble Lords who have spoken, particularly those from the Liberal Democrat Benches—the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire—will think that this is an appropriate way forward. I thank the noble Baroness in advance for her implicit assent to Amendment No. 129, tabled in my name. Clause 5(3)(c) gives the Secretary of State power to establish trusts by order, which must set out the purposes for which the trust is being established, and Clause 5 sets out what those purposes should include but gives the Secretary of State power to extend the purposes in regulations. The power to make regulations is currently subject to the negative procedure. As the noble Baroness indicated, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has recommended that this power should either be limited in the Bill or subject to affirmative resolution. On reflection, we are persuaded by that and happy to accept the recommendation. For that reason, Amendment No. 129 will apply the affirmative procedure to this power. I was also asked whether in effect the 42 trusts are simply going to be replaced by the 42 boards. I hope that, by talking about the tiered approach, I have made clear the expectation that by the end of the process the 42 trusts will be capable of being converted into probation trusts; but that depends on their being able to demonstrate that they meet the criteria for conversion. There are high-performing probation boards that one can envisage will do so with greater ease than others, and they are most likely to be in the first wave; those which are solid but perhaps still a little challenged might comprise the second wave; and the most challenged in performance, one can anticipate, may take a little longer and therefore are likely to be in the third wave. The boards will be awarded trust status when they have demonstrated their ability, but under these provisions, if they are not able to do so, we will be able to make appropriate changes to meet that eventuality.