Offender Management Bill

I want to speak to Lords amendment No. 6, on the key issue of who does the commissioning, and at what level commissioning takes place. Throughout our consideration of the Bill, I have been concerned to ensure that we do not destroy the good work done by the probation service and the probation boards. The key probation tasks should still be carried out locally, and should be determined at that level through local partnerships. In the early part of our debates on the Bill, much of the focus was on the issue of contestability and where that was taking us. Some of my colleagues on the Labour Benches and I were extremely concerned that there appeared to be an agenda of privatisation, which was driving the Bill. In addition, there is the idea of allowing much more commissioning that involves the voluntary sector. I want to make it clear—I have had to make it clear several times—that I do not oppose the involvement of the voluntary sector in probation work, where appropriate, but when people pray in aid bodies such as the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and the CBI we have to take it with a pinch of salt. The issue is not just one of convenience, which the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) talked about; a not-for-profit organisation is not above empire building, and I am sure that we have all seen plenty of examples of that. Organisations do not approach the issue as outsiders with a neutral, objective point of view. They have considerable vested interests in what happens—a financial interest if it is a private company, or empire building in the case of a voluntary organisation. I accept that, as the Minister said, some commissioning is best done at national or regional level. I see examples where that is clearly the case, such as hostel provision, which is performed at a national level now. If the hostel is to accommodate sex offenders, it should not be in the locality where the sex offenders come from and where they may bump into their victims in the street. I can see other examples where economies of scale suggest commissioning at national or regional level. Electronic tagging is an obvious case where that makes sense, as only one or two companies provide the service. We do not want 40 probation areas to end up with 40 different contracts. I entirely understand the Minister’s argument. I accept what has been said in the past few days. In the letter that he knows was sent by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to me and other hon. Members, there has been a significant shift in the Government’s approach. The Secretary of State writes that he sees commissioning at national level of some very specialist low volume, high cost services—hostels would be an example—and that the regional commissioners will take strategic overviews for their areas but will work in partnership with local authorities, the National Treatment Agency, learning and skills councils and so on. The most important thing that the Secretary of State said was about local provision. The lead provider, which in general will be the probation board or trust, certainly to start with, will act as both provider and commissioner and will concentrate on delivering the core offender management work. An equally important assurance that he gave in the letter, which my right hon. Friend the Minister repeated, was that provided its performance meets requirements, the lead provider in a probation area will be the probation trust. The lead provider will engage with other partners in the local strategic partnership to agree and implement local area agreements.