Offender Management Bill

Clause 12 confers a power on the Secretary of State to repeal Clause 4, either partially or in its entirety, by means of an order. The order-making power under Clause 12 will be used if—and I emphasise if—at a future date the Government decide that it is the appropriate time to open up all or part of this area of work to non-public sector providers. An order under this power will be subject to the affirmative procedure by virtue of Clause 33(3)(b) to ensure that such a decision is subject to the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. In practice, this means that the Secretary of State will not be able to contract with providers from outside the public sector without further votes, both in this place and in the other. As I have said, we would bring forward such a proposition only if we were fully satisfied that appropriate safeguards were in place, and we would have to convince both Houses that this was the case. I hope that in the explanations we have had throughout today and earlier in Committee we have all recognised that these proposals represent a significant change in the way that probation services are delivered. By these proposals, I mean the ones set out in this Bill. While we are eager to reap the benefits that the changes will bring, public protection remains our number one priority. Nothing must interfere with the day-to-day management of offenders. We intend therefore, as I have said on a number of occasions already, to proceed cautiously and carefully. The new arrangements will be introduced in a phased and measured way to achieve that. Part of the process of getting this right is to ensure that we listen carefully to all those involved in implementing the proposals. One of the most consistent concerns expressed has been in regard to the work that probation does in relation to courts, especially in preparing reports. That has been echoed throughout our debates but it was strongly there in debates in the other place too. Therefore it is imperative that we retain the confidence of the court in the report writer. The courts rely, as a number of noble Lords have said in earlier debates, on the expertise that probation staff can bring to bear in assessing the risk posed by the offender, the circumstances of the offence and the appropriate disposals. This bond of trust is an integral part of ensuring that the offender receives the most appropriate sentence. We fully sympathise with these concerns and we have listened. I hope that I have explained as clearly as I can that we will not seek to open up the core offender management work to competition until at least 2010. However, we recognise that there are particular issues around the work that probation does in relation to courts. While we do not rule out for all time the possibility of some of this work being done in the voluntary, charitable or private sectors, we recognise that those in the public sector are currently the experts and it will take some time before providers in other sectors are in a position to deliver this service to the standard that we require. So we agree that it would not be appropriate to open up this part of the work to other providers until such time as we can be sure that the necessary safeguards are in place.