Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to Mr Paul Cavadino for meeting the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and me last week to discussthe amendment. It makes good progress on the amendment debated in Committee, but the principle remains the same: it is important to ensure that charities are not disadvantaged under the new system of contestability and can secure as much of the contract work as is appropriate given their undeniable skills, commitment and flexibility. I note that the amendment is supported by the two co-ordinating bodies for voluntary agencies working with offenders, the Corporate Alliance for Reducing Re-offending and Clinks, a body the Minister praised in her response to the previous amendment. In Committee I was one of those who expressed concern that, if a minimum required percentage of services to be provided by the third sector were included in the Bill, it might rapidly become the ceiling. That objection has, to a great extent, been overcome by subsection (2) of the new amendment today. The Secretary of State is given the power to increase that percentage by order; that means he could respond to changing circumstances. We are still of the view that the third sector could and should form a minimum of 7 per cent of the delivery of interventions. Indeed, I have always made it clear that I would be happy for the third sector to take the lion’s share of service delivery where it is the right organisation to do so and is in a position to deliver to the standard required. I share Mr Cavadino’s fear that the Government’s methods for rolling out contestability may mean that private and public sector agencies, in effect, get more work than voluntary organisations, not because they are better at the work but because they have more resources to enter the bidding process in the first place. I feel that that is not what the Government intend. When we look at the model contracts, we may find a way through this by Third Reading. At the moment there is no doubt that the public and private sectors could put teams of people on to the intensive process of writing complicated bids, often at very short notice. That is the real world. We need to know from the Minister how the Government will ensure that the third sector is not put at a disadvantage in the bidding process. The third sector is, and must be, a vital part of the delivery of offender management services. So, although I still have a long way to go before I am persuaded fully to support the amendment, I recognise the advances it makes. It is important in that it gives the Minister the opportunity to demonstrate how the third sector will not be disadvantaged.