Lord Hanson of Flint
Main Page: Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hanson of Flint's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
That is a good reminder. The former Home Secretary Charles Clarke and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) are articulating the same point, which is that there is an enormous amount that non-Government actors—not just the private sector, but the voluntary sector—can bring in terms of innovation, efficiency and delivering very good services.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Volumes for offences were 48% lower than expected; community rehabilitation companies had losses of £294 million when they were expected to have profits of £269 million; and the figures relating to the reoffending of individuals were 22% up: who signed off these projections and who is accountable for this delivery failure?
Rory Stewart
These questions of accountability are quite difficult for me to answer. Normally, I answer by offering to resign; I am not about to do that again, but I would say that these things are related. On the question the right hon. Gentleman raised about the caseload shift, as the NAO pointed out, a 2% case load shift was predicted, but a 48% case load shift happened, directly impacting the second issue of the income coming to the companies. That prediction is a question we are really trying to look into and understand. This is to do with the fact that more violent and sexual offences were committed than previously, and the Crown courts managed to make different decisions in terms of sentence length and not giving accredited programmes. The question is, how do we predict that type of social change? Could we have predicted it; was it predicted; and how do we act on it?