Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether community rehabilitation companies in England and Wales received any funds over their agreed contract during the (a) 2015-16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017-18 financial year; and if he will make a statement.

The following amounts were paid to Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) above their agreed contracts; £0 in 2015/16, £41.01m in 2016/17 and £51.92m in 2017/18. These payments were made for a variety of reasons and cannot be broken down by CRC because the information is commercially sensitive. Furthermore, some concessions were agreed with CRCs on a case-by-case basis to enable them to re-invest contractual payment deductions in key areas of the business and improve services.

We changed CRC contracts in summer 2017 so that payments to providers are more reflective of the costs of delivering services to offenders. CRCs continue to be paid based on the activities they deliver to offenders and their performance in reducing reoffending. They have not received additional one-off payments as a result of these contract changes. The number of cases allocated to CRCs and the volume of work resulting from sentence requirements are lower than had been originally forecast, reducing expected CRC revenues.

I refer the Hon Member to the statement made by the Hon Member for East Surrey 19 July 2017 (HCWS81).