Offender Management Bill

I hope that noble Lords have now explored the issues that they want to explore so that I can respond. I do not really think that we are at odds. I absolutely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby: some of the finest magistrates happen to come from the business world. Therefore, does one say that they are qualified to sit on a trust as a magistrate or as a business person? The one does not disqualify the other, so they are not mutually exclusive. I remind the Committee that the provision states that a minimum number of members need to form a probation trust. The number is four and it is not the maximum but the minimum. Therefore, it will be for the trust to determine according to the challenges, needs, complexion and complexity of its local area how many people are needed to develop the work, what skills those individuals should have and how matters will be balanced between them. The provision sets the minimum, not the maximum number. I say to the noble Baroness as gently as I can that I would prefer a minimum of four because it would mean that the number could not go lower than that but would have to go higher. I do not see that there would be a huge advantage in changing the number. I shall turn to some of the other issues and hope that I will be able to quieten the concerns of a number of noble Lords. Amendment No. 64 proposes that each probation trust should be chaired by a High Court or Crown Court judge and it sets out the extra member proposed. I have tried to deal with how the members should be chosen. Amendment No. 60 states that they should be chosen from a list of four eminent professions and that the membership of a trust should be representative of the population as a whole. All that can be done in targeting the people who are needed on a particular trust. I should declare an interest in relation to Cheshire. As noble Lords may know, I am the sponsor Minister for the local criminal just board in Cheshire, so I know it quite well. I am now also the sponsor Minister for Thames Valley and Liverpool. I have seen the advances and changes in the dynamics at Liverpool, which has been wonderful, so I know that a huge contribution can be made to the skills. I think that I have already addressed the proposed requirement for the chair of the probation trust to be a judge. Even the judges who disagreed with our proposals agreed that it would be inappropriate for them to be members. On the issue of prescribing a list of members, of course I accept that a member of the police authority or a qualified psychiatrist would bring extremely useful skills and influence to bear on running a probation trust. But I hope we all agree that it is for probation trusts to determine the priorities in their particular areas. Chairs may decide that it is more important to have members with experience in the housing, employment or drugs rehabilitation sectors, depending on the local circumstances. I do not think that it would be sensible centrally to seek to impose or prescribe an arbitrary list in this manner, because a trust may need a different skill which is individual to that trust but which may not be as important to another. Amendment No. 64 also suggests adding a requirement for the trust’s membership to be representative of the local population where practicable. This is similar to the requirement in the current legislation for probation board members to live or work in the board’s area. We removed that altogether from the Bill simply because it seemed unnecessary. We are absolutely committed to maintaining local links, and we will make it clear that we expect trust members and chairs to continue to be drawn largely from the local area. After all, it will be crucial for the trust as a whole to have a good understanding of its area of operation. We will ensure as far as possible that members are representative of the local population. We remain absolutely committed to diversity in the selection of trust members and, indeed, we have a good record in this area. But we must allow for the fact that other skills and experience will also be needed and that they may be more relevant for an individual appointment. It does not seem sensible, for example, to prohibit a probation trust in an area with a high unemployment rate from recruiting a member from outside the local area with extensive experience of finding work for offenders. I am sure that noble Lords will agree with that assessment. Amendment No. 61 proposes adding a requirement that the membership of a probation trust must also contain a magistrate. I hope that I have been able to give an assurance on that. I believe we all agree that the expertise that a magistrate could bring as a member of a probation trust would be invaluable. But we must ensure that members are appointed because they are the best people for the job, rather than simply engaging in a quota-filling exercise. In many cases, this will mean that a magistrate will in fact be a member of a trust, and it may also mean that a number of the trust members will happen to be magistrates. A member may happen to be a psychiatrist who happens to be a businessman who happens to have a history of having been a lawyer. We can put together many different constructs. It is important to note that in many cases more than one member will be a magistrate. The evidence from the recent recruitment round for probation boards bears that out, with the vast majority recruiting at least one magistrate to serve as members of the board. However, those magistrates were recruited because they were the best people for the job rather than by virtue of their profession. Local sentencer liaison is of course crucial but this is a different task from that of running a probation trust. We think that more effective ways can be found of carrying out formal local liaison with sentencers than simply having a member who happens to be a magistrate. As we have already discussed, that is why we have worked hard to ensure that arrangements are already in place for liaison with sentencers. These existing and effective local liaison arrangements allow sentencers and probation managers to meet to discuss local issues and address local operational difficulties. These will, of course, continue under the new system, and work is under way to adapt them to the new arrangements. I remain convinced that this is the right approach. I hope that noble Lords will bear that in mind and that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment. I do not think that there is anything between us. This system gives local accountability and local flexibility in accordance with clear criteria which will deliver real excellence.