Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, , pursuant to the Answer of 28 March 2019 to Question 234706 on Offenders: Electronic Tagging, if he will place in the Library a copy of the outcome report on his Department’s GPS pilot scheme.
Answered by Rory Stewart
On 16 February the Secretary of State for Justice announced the national roll out of new GPS tags providing 24/7 location monitoring of offenders and subjects on Court bail. The process evaluation of the Ministry of Justice GPS pilot was published at the same time. It can be accessed online, at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/process-evaluation-of-the-global-positioning-system-gps-electronic-monitoring-pilot
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the maximum number of offenders is who can be tagged and monitored at any one time under the new national GPS tagging of offenders scheme.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The current national rollout of new GPS technology, will help strengthen supervision, enforce exclusion zones and give victims greater peace of mind.
Legislative and policy guidelines determine which offenders and subjects on bail are eligible to be tagged. Within this framework, decision makers will apply normal, reasonableness, proportionality and necessity tests, along with consideration of the practical outcome that the imposition of the tag is aiming to achieve.
Data from the Department’s GPS pilot indicates that in steady state there will be approx 4000 location monitoring starts a year with a maximum of approx 1000 subjects on a GPS tag at any one time.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what criteria will be used to determine which offenders are required to wear (a) a new GPS tag and (b) the older type of location tag.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The current national rollout of new GPS technology, will help strengthen supervision, enforce exclusion zones and give victims greater peace of mind.
Legislative and policy guidelines determine which offenders and subjects on bail are eligible to be tagged. Within this framework, decision makers will apply normal, reasonableness, proportionality and necessity tests, along with consideration of the practical outcome that the imposition of the tag is aiming to achieve.
Data from the Department’s GPS pilot indicates that in steady state there will be approx 4000 location monitoring starts a year with a maximum of approx 1000 subjects on a GPS tag at any one time.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which companies his Department has contracted to deliver electronic tagging services; and what the (a) value and (b) duration is of each of those contracts.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Electronic monitoring is a vital tool in protecting the public by robustly monitoring offenders in the community and defendants on bail. Electronic Monitoring provides a proportionate and value-for-money alternative to prison in support of the subjects’ journey through rehabilitation.
The Electronic Monitoring service is delivered through contracts with the following suppliers:
Supplier | Service | Contract Duration | Contract Value | Forecast spend over the life of the contract |
Capita Business Services | Electronic Monitoring - Field Services (Bridge Services Contract) | 6 years from 01/02/2015 | £309,600,000 | £219,000,000 (Average: £36.5m per annum) |
G4S Monitoring Technologies | G4S Electronic Monitoring Hardware (BAU) | 04/11/2016-03/11/2019 | £15,000,000 | £12,900,000 (Average: £4.3m per annum) |
Telefonica UK Ltd | Electronic Monitoring - Network | 6 years 10 months from 01/08/2014 | £3,200,000 | £3,000,000 (Average: £440k per annum) |
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to increase public confidence in non-custodial sentences.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The sentencing framework gives courts the flexibility to select community order requirements which are a robust alternative to custody, and are tailored to address the specific issues that contribute to reoffending.
Probation services are vital to the effective delivery of community sentences. In July we published the consultation Strengthening Probation, Building Confidence setting out the Government’s vision for improving probation including proposals to promote meaningful unpaid work schemes which both make reparation to communities and equip offenders with employment-related skills and experience. The action we propose to take will ensure that courts and the public can be confident that offenders sentenced to community and suspended sentence orders will be properly supervised, receive the rehabilitative support they need and that appropriate action is taken if offenders fail to comply with requirements.
We continue to actively explore many other options to improve non-custodial sentences, including better electronic tagging.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 13 February 2018 to Question 126471, on Capita, what the responsibilities are of each of those subcontracting companies.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The responsibilities of the Subcontractors under the current Electronic Monitoring Contract (the Bridge Contract) are as follows:
Supplier | Responsibilities |
Vodafone | Task scheduling software for field officers, managed hosting of the services and support. |
G4S | Provision of ICT Managed Service including the provision and management of the ICT infrastructure and telephony system, professional services for specialist support of the EM Software, Case Management Systems, Location Monitoring for Special Cases, Scheduling Systems and Document Management Systems. |
In the Electronic Monitoring and Field Services Contract the responsibilities of the Capita subcontractor are as follows:
Supplier | Responsibilities |
Vodafone | The provision of Hosting Infrastructure (Data Centres) and managed hosting services for Capita, Airbus and G4S. Note Capita are responsible for providing hosting services (through Vodafone) for all Lots requiring Hosting Infrastructure. |
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2018 to Question 126466, on Capita, on how many occasions his predecessor met Capita to discuss the issues raised by the Public Accounts Committee report on outsourced electronic monitoring.
Answered by Rory Stewart
There have been no meetings between the previous Secretary of State and Capita representatives to discuss the issues raised in the recently published Public Accounts Committee report. Contracts are managed by officials and not Ministers.
Electronic monitoring is a vital tool in improving supervision in the community and supports offenders to reform and lead law abiding lives on release.
My officials in the Ministry of Justice hold regular meetings with Capita staff involved in the delivery of the Electronic Monitoring service to hold them to account for delivery of the service. They have discussed with Capita the action being taken to address concerns raised by the Public Accounts Committee.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has produced reports on the effectiveness of the delivery of contracts by Capita for electronic monitoring.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Electronic monitoring is a vital tool in improving supervision in the community and supports offenders to reform and lead law abiding lives on release.
Capita’s performance against the Electronic Monitoring contract’s service levels is published in the Ministry of Justice Community Performance Quarterly Management Information release. The latest information for July to September 2017 is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/community-performance-quarterly-mi-update-to-september-2017.
Capita performance has been included in each of the five releases since July 2016.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which the companies are to which Capita has subcontracted elements of its electronic monitoring contract; what information his Department holds on (a) the counter-parties to, (b) the terms of and (c) value of those subcontracts; and what the responsibilities of the counter-parties are under those contracts.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Under the current Electronic Monitoring Contract (the Bridge Contract) Capita have sub-contracted with two suppliers;
Supplier | Services | Total Contract Value (5 years) |
Vodafone | Field officer scheduling | £3.9m |
G4S | EM IT Systems | £43.4m |
In the Electronic Monitoring and Field Services Contract Capita have sub-contracted with one supplier;
Supplier | Services | Total Contract Value (3 years) |
Vodafone | Hosting infrastructure (data centres) | £7.9m |
Capita must seek commercial approval from the MOJ to enter into any new sub-contract or make any amendments to their subcontracts. There are strict obligations on Capita to flow down the contractual terms with MoJ to their subcontractors.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether and on how many occasions he has met Capita to discuss the issues raised by the Public Accounts Committee report on outsourced electronic monitoring.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
There have been no meetings between the Secretary of State and Capita representatives to discuss the recently published Public Accounts Committee report.
Electronic monitoring is a vital tool in improving supervision in the community and supports offenders to reform and lead law abiding lives on release.
My officials in the Ministry of Justice hold regular meetings with Capita staff involved in the delivery of the Electronic Monitoring service to hold them to account for delivery of the service. They have discussed with Capita the action being taken to address concerns raised by the Public Accounts Committee.