My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and I can from the outset assure him, as is clear in all these matters, that the objective is not for any operator to make profit from such work. My understanding of the purpose of the amendment is that it would prevent any offender who is carrying out unpaid work as a sanction for breach of a supervision requirement from doing that unpaid work for any private sector organisation. I would make a number of points in response to the noble Lord.
First, as noble Lords will know, we intend to open up the delivery of unpaid work, along with other services for offenders in the community, to a wide variety of organisations. This will include the private sector. However, the model for private sector organisations’ delivery of unpaid work would, I should make absolutely clear, not involve the offender working directly for them. The private provider would be responsible for organising the community work and supervising the offender’s progress. Unpaid work is intended to be of benefit to local communities. The private provider would make arrangements with a local authority, community group or charity for the actual work to be carried out. The private provider may also subcontract another organisation to deliver the unpaid work. This may be particularly important for women offenders or offenders with particular needs, such as learning disability. In these cases a smaller organisation within the community with the relevant expertise is much better placed to arrange the unpaid work.
However, the amendment might prevent private providers even from making arrangements with other bodies to deliver unpaid work. Consider the case of a private provider with responsibility for supervising offenders carrying out unpaid work and that wants to make arrangements for placements with a local charity or community group. The amendment could prevent the private provider from doing so, although I am sure that this was not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in tabling the amendment.
Unpaid work can fulfil a number of purposes. As part of a community order or suspended sentence it provides a credible punishment, but it can also help offenders to learn new skills or disciplines of work. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised this important issue. Too often offenders are looked at in a particular
way, but some lack the basic ability to turn up at a given time to serve a particular number of hours. We need to help develop these basic skills and mindsets.
Unpaid work is also reparative, allowing offenders to pay back the harm done by their crimes to the wider community. This is equally true of unpaid work carried out under supervision default orders. It is a sanction for the breach, but this is not to say that it cannot also support the offender’s rehabilitation, or allow them to put something back into the community they have harmed.
My point here is that unpaid work needs to be meaningful, whether it is carried out as part of a community order or as a sanction for the breach of supervision requirements. Even if it is imposed as a sanction for a breach, the work needs to be of sufficient quality. This remains true whether the provider is a private sector organisation, a charity or the public sector. For this reason I do not believe this amendment’s singling out of private sector organisations to be the right approach. The key issue is ensuring that whoever delivers unpaid work does so to the appropriate standard. We will ensure that our new arrangements deliver this. For these reasons I hope the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.