My Lords, this is a probing amendment drafted by the Prison Reform Trust, reflecting a great number of concerns put to it by practitioners. Although there is general approval of and welcome for the intent of the Bill, as has been voiced throughout this Chamber today and on the previous Committee day, there is concern that we do not know a great deal
of the detail. Based on experience, those of us who have been involved in the criminal justice system in one way or another are concerned that it is the very lack of detail that it is likely to inhibit the advance of whatever is proposed. The amendment therefore does not aim to put a spanner in the works—far from it. Like many other noble Lords, I want to see the Bill come to fruition. I want something to be done about this terrible reoffending rate, if that indeed is the right term. What is more, I want whatever is introduced to be sustained and not a sort of one-day wonder.
At the heart of a lot of what of being proposed is the introduction of payment by results. I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group. We have been involved with the drug and alcohol recovery pilots, eight of which are currently running. They went live in April last year and are being run by the NHS. There was a long two-year period before they were introduced and they are being academically evaluated over three years by Manchester University and Birkbeck University. I think that they are very relevant to what is being proposed for the criminal justice system because they involve practitioners in the field. Those monitoring these pilots in the National Health Service have looked at the payback mechanism straw-man proposal for this Bill which, like all the papers we have before us, was published only last month. Although saying that in some respects what is proposed looks promising, they point out that it raises questions, many of which relate to the absence of numbers or qualitative weighting—or, indeed pilots—which does not give one a great deal of confidence in what is alleged.
In addition, they are concerned that there is no mention of the overlap and tension for both users and providers involved with other payment-by-result schemes such as the Work Programme, the NHS alcohol treatment programme, the NHS dual-diagnosis programme, the troubled families programme and indeed, in the case of the Ministry of Justice, the drug and alcohol recovery programme, all of which are connected with the offender rehabilitation programme and some of which could impact on the plans made and payment claimed for an individual who is subject to more than one payment-by-results programme. There does not appear to have been any resolution of that.
Various concerns suggested by other payment-by-result initiatives do not seem to have been fully addressed. For example, there is considerable concern about what is referred to as gaming—the public’s private sector providers playing games with the payment, the assessment or the people they actually put forward for it. To get over that, the National Health Service has put in place a mechanism called the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System, which has treatment outcome profiles and local area assessment and referral services, because it found that unless it does that, there is a great danger of it being taken for a ride, which it cannot afford.
There is also something proposed called the learning-curve discount scheme that nobody seems to know much about because we do not know whether providers are going to be able consistently to reduce costs and/or improve performance and therefore come up with something earning a discount. Also, there is no mention
of the significant transition costs of payment by results, which other people have found both in establishing the data management systems for managing the outcomes and the substantial bureaucracy required to manage them. If they are being managed by the current system, which is working flat-out to manage current offenders, I wonder how it will cope with the problems of the payment-by-results schemes. There is also the problem of verification of outcomes which when they are delayed can cause problems with cash flow and therefore the whole payment-based system. I mention those not to be a Jonah but to say that I hope that all these have been taken into account by the Ministry of Justice, which, not having pilots of its own does not have the advantage of practical experience. I hope that it is cashing in on the experience of others to make certain that it does not fall into the same trap.
I admit to two other doubts which I must voice. The first is about costings, and I refer to an answer given by the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on Amendment 7A when he said that,
“competing the community payback contracts in London saw a £25 million saving over four years”.—[Official Report, 5/6/13; col. 1214.]
It is true that the Serco bid undercut the probation service bid by £24 million for a four-year contract. However, that started only last year and that £25 million does not include the costs of running the competition which went on for more than two years and must have been substantial. We also have to consider, when looking at value for money, that the contract has only been running so far for less than a year with three years to go. The probation service is very sceptical that someone such as Serco will put in quite such a low bid next time when recompetition comes up based on actual experience of running the thing. It would regard its bid as being more realistic based on its experience. So the jury is out and I am concerned that too much emphasis is being placed on savings that have been made when a contract has cost less when we have not yet seen the outcomes. The Prison Service has a bad track record on this. I remember complaining once when it excluded central administrative costs from a competition bid with the private sector to run a prison and then claimed that it had won. When the National Audit Office looked at it on a level-playing field it found that the bid had not been put in correctly.
My second doubt concerns time. I refer to the chart on page 34 of the White Paper, which sets out the Government’s timetable. This says that the new probation service, which presumably will include the 77% of privatised elements, will be introduced by autumn next year, after which the new competed services will go live.
If it took two years to compete the London community payback, and if it took two years for the National Health Service to set up its eight pilots for the drug and alcohol recovery schemes, I wonder whether it is realistic to expect that, in the one year between now and then, the Ministry of Justice will be able to complete all the contracts, all the recruiting and all the training of all the people who are needed to carry on with what is proposed while, at the same time, with the same staff, conducting the essential work that has to be done now with offenders. As I say, it is not that
I doubt the intent but I question the practicability. I therefore wish that we would be given a more realistic timetable based on actual possibilities rather than the allegations we have been given on page 34.
My last request is that the Minister, who said that he hoped to have the new impact assessment with us by Report, will make certain not only that it is with us by Report, but that it is with us in plenty of time for us to consider it before Report, to make Report a more meaningful exercise.
That is why I am asking the Secretary of State to produce an annual statement of how all this is working out. Certainly, if I were the Secretary of State, I would want such a document on my desk every year anyway. Therefore, rather than asking for something additional, I am asking for something which I presume will be produced to be shared with both Houses so that we can keep abreast of what is going on in this hugely important venture which, in intent, enjoys the support of the whole House. I beg to move.