Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans he has to support local specialist BAME voluntary and community organisations in accessing funding for resettlement and rehabilitation work through (a) the HMPPS dynamic framework and (b) alternative procurement routes.

As the Lord Chancellor set out in his statement to the House on 11 June, we want to see greater involvement by voluntary and specialist organisations in rehabilitation services, including by specialist BAME organisations. The Probation Services Dynamic Framework will allow the National Probation Service to directly commission rehabilitative services in a way that encourages the participation of a range of suppliers including voluntary and community organisations.

We are working with Clinks, the umbrella group for third sector organisations in criminal justice, to encourage the participation of BAME community organisations in the Dynamic Framework, including advice on forming bidding consortia.

We intend to assess the proportion of voluntary and community organisations delivering Dynamic Framework services on an annual basis as part of the Probation Reform Programme’s benefits management strategy.

When using alternative procurement routes to the Dynamic Framework, the National Probation Service will have the same guidance on commissioning, including on reducing barriers to entry, and services procured will be subject to the same assessment for proportion of voluntary and community organisations delivering services.