Probation Service

Debate between Meg Hillier and George Mudie

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mudie]

The hon. Lady anticipates page 2, which I am just about to start.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the previous intervention, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is the premise on which the Government are making their judgments? On 9 January 2013, The Guardian reported that the Secretary of State for Justice had said that

“a radical overhaul is needed to tackle the high reoffending rates with 58% of short-sentenced prisoners reoffending within a year and half a million crimes committed each year by released prisoners.”

The actual reoffending rate of those subject to state supervision—they are not short-term prisoners but those sentenced to more than 12 months—has dropped by 1.55 percentage points to below 10%. Does that not underline the wrongness of the Government’s approach?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mudie]

I agree with my hon. Friend; this is a bad example of a politician and a Department feeling right in proceeding on such a sensitive matter involving so much public risk. If the Minister feels that I am being unfair, the Select Committee and I would welcome it if he produced the evidence to justify the risks inherent in the policy changes.

The more the proposals are scrutinised, the more apparent it becomes that giving the majority of work to the private sector is the major objective. To my mind, it is also a major cause of the opposition to the proposals and of some of the difficulties in the consultation paper. I said earlier that I saw nothing amiss in involving the private and voluntary sector—it is, of course, already involved, and such arrangements have grown and are appreciated—but the scale and spread proposed are entirely different. The proposal to hand over 70% of the work load of existing probation officers so quickly to firms untrained in and unused to the work raises obvious questions.

The division of the work distribution—low and medium-risk to the private sector, high-risk to the probation service—looks clear on paper but ignores what professionals in the service say happens in real life. Medium-risk individuals can move dangerously quickly to being high risk. If the signs are not spotted immediately, high risk may escalate into dangerous behaviour with harm to individual and general public safety. That is a reality that experienced probation officers live with every working hour, and it is a tribute to their skill and dedication that it does not happen on a wider scale.

It would be wiser to introduce the private sector, if it must be introduced on this scale, to deal initially with the low-risk group alone. Even if that were seen as weakening the proposals’ profitability for the private sector, it would have the opportunity to take on the new work load of prisoners serving less than 12-month sentences. That would create a clear division and stop the overlap, which will certainly cause a problem. It could also help with the vagueness of the relationships and objectives of the differing cultures.

The private sector has the responsibility to ensure that court or licence agreements are adhered to. Obvious situations arise when individuals are in breach, and they are processed by the probation officer, but in areas of work where trust and relationships are all-important, the probation officer will have to accept the judgment of private sector personnel and haul the offender back to court. On the one hand, we have a public servant—a professional—who has no monetary motivation and whose only objectives are public safety and working with integrity with the person on probation. On the other hand, under the proposals, we will end up with large private companies tied to a scheme of payment that will pay largely on results.

Is it impossible that, to protect or maximise payment, the person on probation who could be a difficulty and a danger to that payment might necessarily be passed back to the probation officer? The probation officer would then have to pick up the relationship and process the matter through court.

If the Minister does not accept that argument, he should at least consider the divisions of the responsibilities proposed. A more distinct role for the private sector is needed, but one that allows distinct accountability, which is paramount in this sector. Every day, there is the possibility of something going wrong, and any ambiguity in responsibility is unwelcome.

Another reason to suggest that privatisation is uppermost in the Secretary of State’s mind is the winding up of the 35 trusts. Why are they being wound up? They have just been praised as excellent; they have been doing the job for 10 years; they have built themselves into the area and built up their relationships; but now they are being converted into 16 or perhaps six geographical areas, with all the dangers to the relationships that lie with that. Can the Minister spell out the reasons for cutting the trusts and the agreed criteria for the number of replacements?

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend touched on the benefits of having longevity in a service, so that the contacts are built up over time. Longevity should never be unchallenged by those of us who are public scrutineers, but it builds up valuable expertise, as his own service has shown. One of my concerns is that the reducing offending and supervision hubs—in the emerging jargon, ROSHs—could be open to competition every three or five years. Surely, different organisations will therefore run the hubs every few years and the connections locally will be broken when they have to start again. Is that a good thing for local public safety?

[Mr Mudie]

It is a very harmful thing. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point and allows me to take further chunks out of my speech. I will not go further into the relationships, but I worry about how the contracts will be procured and the effect on the existing small companies and voluntary organisations that work with the probation service. I warn them that small companies and voluntary organisations often cry out for privatisation or for procurement or break-up of public services, in the belief that they will get the work, but they are dreaming. The Minister has provided some arrangements and money to assist small companies to bid, but the reality is that the big international and national companies will get the contracts, while small companies will be pressed to the margin.