Probation Service

John Healey Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).

I speak as a trained probation officer and as someone who was perhaps least offended when the Secretary of State talked about ideologues, as I think that ideology often gets a bad press. However, being ideological does not remove from the Government the responsibility to provide protection for their citizens. These dramatic changes within our criminal justice system place the 120,000 men, women and children I represent in this place, as everybody else represents their constituents, under threat, and we must therefore speak out against them.

The stated aim of the Government’s plans—we have heard this articulated several times—is to address their concern about reoffending levels. Recidivism should be of concern to all of us, but up to this point neither the probation service nor anyone else has had any responsibility for the vast majority of reoffenders. Nobody in this House disagrees that petty criminals who leave prison after serving short sentences need extra help and support, and we have already heard how that should be done: extend the remit of the probation service to cover such people. Why abolish the probation service and privatise out of existence the successful group of people who have proved that they have the expertise to make a difference to the lives of those people, and why exclude them from the Government’s bidding process? It is absolutely barmy.

Anyone listening to this debate would not think that crime has been falling for the past 20 years under Governments of both stripes. West Yorkshire probation service deals with offenders in my area, where reoffending is down by 14% over the past five years. The situation is in many ways better, not worse, than it has ever been. The probation service is leaner, fitter, better and more focused than ever—certainly compared with when I worked as a probation officer—so we have the opportunity, should we wish, to extend support to people through a proven organisation.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

South Yorkshire, like west Yorkshire, has one of the best-performing probation trusts anywhere in the country and it already works with people who are convicted and serve a term of fewer than 12 months. Is it not the case that all of the probation trusts have said they will do this extra work at no extra cost? The question for Ministers, therefore, is: why on earth will they not back the probation trusts, which are already doing the job and doing it well in most cases?

[Mike Wood]

My right hon. Friend makes exactly the right point, but we know that the reason why that will not happen is ideological: this Government believe that private is good and public is bad. We also know that they are not really convinced that these changes will make any real difference to reoffending rates or save money.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood).

Earlier this afternoon, I had a chat with my father, who was a justice of the peace for many years. When I told him that I would be speaking on behalf of the Dorset probation service this afternoon, he said without any hesitation what huge respect he had for all the members of the probation service he had met in his many years as a JP.

Dorset has 10 probation officers and a small administration group based in Weymouth. They handle a case load of 350 offenders at any one time. The pressure is intense. When I visited the team, I was deeply impressed by their professionalism and dedication. They told me that they were concerned about some of the changes that the Government are proposing. It would be wise for us to listen.

I should emphasise that some of the changes are broadly welcomed by the probation team. They are pleased about the extension of statutory supervision to those who are in custody for fewer than 12 months. We have heard about that proposal today. They also welcome the development of seamless through-the-gates resettlement provision. However, the seamless resettlement service will work only if there is active engagement between the probation officer and the offender for at least three months prior to release. Crucially, family ties have also been shown to be vital to the successful reintegration of offenders into the community.

With the closure of Dorchester prison, which until now has been the dedicated resettlement prison for Dorset, offenders and probation officers must meet at Exeter prison, which is some 90 minutes away. That inevitably reduces the number of times they can meet and the amount of useful time that they can spend together. Furthermore, it takes the offender further away from home and his or her support network. It also affects the probation officer’s ability to deal with the intense work load that they leave behind.

If those changes are due to cuts, as must be assumed, they are a false economy. Spending nearly four hours on the road is not a good use of time or money. It also has a knock-on effect on the service and the courts. If the resettlement is truly to be seamless, we must ensure that Dorset probation officers can spend time with Dorset prisoners in Dorset. I ask the Minister to look again at the provision of a dedicated resettlement prison for Dorset.

There are also questions over the part-privatisation of the probation service that need to be answered. At the top of the list of concerns is the potential impact of the split between the national probation service and the community rehabilitation company. The NPS will be publicly run and manage offenders with a high risk of harm, as we have heard. The CRC will be run by commercial bodies and will manage those who have a medium or low risk of harm through a series of interventions and programmes. The problem is that offenders do not usually remain low, medium or high risk; many factors can mean that an offender moves from low risk to high risk, not least if they revert to a drug or alcohol habit.

The new system would mean an offender being passed from the CRC to the NPS, and potentially back again. Will the Minister comment on the continuity of care under such a scenario? That issue matters because research has shown that the relationship between an offender and their probation officer is crucial to whether—once released—they succeed on their licence or order. That continuity is so important that, as I understand it, a change of probation officer for an offender is investigated by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, and every effort is made to ensure that the prisoner keeps the same probation officer throughout. As a result of the split between the NPS and the CRC, probation officers are concerned that that relationship could be affected, with serious consequences for both the offender and wider society.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech and a strong point, about which the Minister was shaking his head. Is it not the case that one in four offenders in any one year moves between medium and high-risk categories? They therefore risk yo-yoing between the agencies, which must involve extra cost, extra bureaucracy and extra risk to the public.

[Richard Drax]

I hear the statistics from the right hon. Gentleman, and on my right, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), says that they are wrong. I was expressing the concerns of my constituents that there will inevitably be some potential confusion between the two organisations. I have been told by probation officers that what is vital and successful at the moment is the fact that they can keep an eye on someone and there is no need to think, “What happens if they go there? Who is going to deal with that? Will they slip through the net?”

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[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I will be brief, because I cannot disagree with anything already said from the Opposition Benches. We have heard the expert opinion of people who really know what they are talking about.

No one thinks there is a silver bullet that will stop reoffending. If we think there is one answer, and that it is either in the private sector or the public sector, we will be looking for it for an awfully long time. As we all recognise, everyone in the House wants to reduce reoffending rates as far as possible, protect society and turn criminals into law-abiding citizens, not just for their own sake, but to save money for the public purse. The big question is: how do we do that? Most people, certainly in the Opposition, believe that the public sector, in the form of the probation trusts, has demonstrated an ability to innovate and make improvements. Certainly, that is the case in Derbyshire, and we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins). There has been some astonishing innovation and really fantastic improvements and results.

[John Healey]

And in South Yorkshire.

[Natascha Engel]

Yes, and in South Yorkshire. Obviously, I cover a lot of South Yorkshire as well.

How can we best cut reoffending? We can talk about private, public, a mixture of both, about the involvement of charities and so on, but our big concern, and the concern of the chairs of the probation trusts, including in Derbyshire, is that these reforms are being so hurried—they are to be implemented in one year—that the safety of the public could be at risk. Opposition Members have talked about the amount of work, the staff and buildings and everything that needs to be transferred, and 12 months simply is not long enough, so will Ministers please consider pausing and piloting these changes properly? Why is that not possible?

What would we lose that is working well at the moment? With any dramatic change, there will be things lost that work well. We need to protect those services that are working excellently, not throw them out with the bathwater.