Offender Management Bill

moved AmendmentNo. 8: 8: After Clause 3, insert the following new Clause— ““Model contracts (1) The Secretary of State may produce model contracts for the purposes of seeking tenders for and agreeing contractual arrangements under section 3(2) above. (2) If the Secretary of State exercises his power under subsection (1) he shall produce different model contracts for private and voluntary sector providers. (3) A model contract may be amended or withdrawn at any time other than during the course of tendering. (4) There shall be published in the London Gazette— (a) a copy of any model contract produced under subsection (1), (b) a copy of any model contract amended under subsection (3), (c) a notice of the withdrawal of any model contract.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, we tabled Amendment No. 8 because representations had been made to us that a number of non-governmental organisations find overwhelming the vast and complex forms that accompany the bidding process, and that this is a barrier to the sort of mixed economy that we would like. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, talked about two visions for the Bill. I think that there are two visions for the public service. One, which I have heard from a number of people on the new Labour Benches, is for an American-style process of contracting out, but without the great benefits to the United States of its very sharp decentralisation to states and local authorities. England is the most centralised country in the democratic world. That is partly why we want structural change; so that we can move away from that. We have a different vision, which is based very much on the Nordic model of a mixed economy. I wish that we had more evidence-based studies of how well that model operates. It operates very locally and very effectively, and I note that 60 to 70 per cent of the population votes in local elections in Norway. There are no obstacles to structural change there, and no centralised governments having to impose on Conservative local authorities. Nor do we share the concept of a monolithic third sector, co-ordinated by the director-general of the third sector and the Cabinet Office, which means that only very well funded large-scale non-governmental organisations can manage the complex biddingand negotiation process. We therefore wanted to emphasise that, if one has an effective mixed economy, we must treat the private sector—the for-profit sector—and the voluntary sector rather differently. Through the amendment, we want to tease from the Government how they will handle that. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, for her letter on this point. We received it just as the debate was starting, so we have not yet had the chance fully to absorb it. However, I note that, under the heading ““Contracts””, it says: "““This is still a draft list … We are consulting at the moment … Draft contracts have been shared with Probation Boards via the Probation Boards’ Association””." It would therefore be appropriate at this stage for us not to press the amendment, but perhaps to return to it at Third Reading. However, we ask the Government to recognise very clearly that if we are to have the sort of mixed economy that we on these Benches want, retaining the autonomy and diversity of the not-for-profit sector—and, indeed, helping that sector to develop rather than moving towards the sort of private sector national provision which the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Filkin, seem to prefer—we need to know rather more about the contracting process and how we will handle these different not-for-profit and for-profit providers. I beg to move.