Examination of Witnesses (Questions 820
- 839)
TUESDAY 5 MAY 1998
MS JOYCE
QUIN, MP, MR
JOHN HALLIDAY,
MR MARTIN
NAREY AND
MISS CHRISTINE
STEWART
820. We are the top, are we not?
(Ms Quin) In terms of the European Union countries
I think Portugal has a higher rate than we do, but if you compare
that with, say, the situation in the United States, you will see
that there is a huge difference there. It also seems to be the
case, and I am not quite sure what the reason for this is, that
in the English speaking world rates of imprisonment seem rather
higher than in continental Europe, and this seems to be true for
Australia and New Zealand for example. Again, there is a clear
difference between those countries and ourselves on the one hand
and, say, the United States on the other which has a much higher
rate.
821. Which has a much higher rate of criminality,
has it not? One suggestion that has been put forward, Minister,
is the possibility of having weekend prisons, that this may be
a more effective way of dealing with those who have offended and
who undoubtedly deserve a custodial sentence, that they would
carry out their work during the week, perhaps with electronic
tagging and the rest of it so they do not consider themselves
free people as such, but at weekends they would go to prison in
order to serve their punishment but at the same time during the
week they would earn their living and maintain their families.
Do you think that is practical?
(Ms Quin) It may be. The Government certainly has
not taken a hard and fast view on this.[1]
What we are trying to do at the moment is look at the various
options that are available in terms of a mix between custodial
and non-custodial options. Although we tend to see these things
as alternatives to each other, it is possible to combine elements
of both. Indeed, in the Crime and Disorder Bill the Detention
and Training Order for example looks at having both a period served
in custody and a period in the community. Certainly tagging, which
you mentioned, also provides flexibility in this sense, to somehow
not have such a clear distinction between custody and non-custodial
options. We are looking at these but we have not come to any firm
conclusions yet and are unlikely to do so certainly before your
inquiry concludes and therefore the findings of this Committee
may also be findings that we would want to take into account when
deciding how to move forward with such ideas.
822. I appreciate that and the purpose of the
inquiry has been explained to your office; indeed you knew it
well beforehand when we started the inquiry. Do I take it when
you say your Department is looking at various alternatives that
there is a unit within the Home Office at present, within your
section of the Home Office, that is actively looking at alternatives,
quite apart from this particular inquiry?
(Ms Quin) I think it is fair to say that various units
in the Home Office would have an interest in such issues and would
want to put in their ideas before submissions were eventually
made to Ministers in a specific way. Obviously, the Criminal Policy
Directorate, and the Sentencing and Offences Unit, would be candidates
to be interested in this, but at the same time the Prison Service
itself would be interested and indeed the Probation Unit. All
those parts of the Home Office would have an obvious interest
but I will ask Mr Halliday to comment on that.
(Mr Halliday) The machinery of the Home Office is
one where on sentencing issues my Directorate would take a lead,
working closely with the Prison Service and with the Probation
Unit which also happens to be in my Directorate, and indeed any
other interested parties so that the work would focus in fact
in Christine Stewart's Unit, which is part of my Directorate but,
as in a lot of our work, we work across the whole Home Office,
obviously under the direction of Ministers. That is the nature
of the work at the moment that the Minister was referring to.
Mr Cranston
823. I just wanted to ask a supplementary on
the comparative rate of custodial sentences across Europe and
other countries. I think it would be very helpful to me but also
to other members of the Committee to have a note on this because
there are different arguments. You have used a per capita measurement
but some people say if you use a per criminality measurement then
our rates are no higher than elsewhere. I think it would be quite
helpful to have a note.
(Ms Quin) I would be happy to supply such a note.[2]
When we are looking at issues like this there are different types
of measurement that one can look at and I think it probably would
be helpful to have the details in a printed form rather than my
giving top of the head replies.
Chairman
824. One way of reducing the prison population
is obviously to speed up the way in which remand prisoners are
dealt with. I see we have Mr Narey with us who did some work on
delays. Where are we up to on that question?
(Ms Quin) A lot of the areas that Martin Narey highlighted
in his report are measures which feature in the Crime and Disorder
Bill in terms of trying to speed up properly the criminal justice
process and indeed we have introduced such elements as pleas before
venue in order to stop delays between the Magistrates Court and
the Crown Court, and we are also of course implementing via the
Crime and Disorder Bill the various promises that the Government
at the time of the election made (which I know that you are very
familiar with), about tackling time limits in connection with
young offenders. I would say that in a general way and perhaps
I could ask Martin Narey if he would like to come in.
825. Ah, the buck has been passed by Mr Narey.
(Mr Halliday) The buck is being passed because Martin
Narey did this in a previous capacity and of course has moved
on two or three times since that very well regarded piece of work,
so he would claim I think not to be fully up to date with developments.
I am very happy to add to what the Minister has said, that the
Government has accepted almost all the recommendations in the
review. The ones requiring legislation are in the Bill. They involve
a range of procedural measures, as you know, but also some measures
to do with the abuse of bail and measures aimed at speeding up
escorts of prisoners. There is an estimate, and it remains to
be seen of course whether, when all this comes through, there
will be a reduction effect on the remand population of about 500.
826. Out of how many at any given time?
(Mr Halliday) The remand population runs at about
12,000 at the moment.
827. So there is relatively modest scope there?
(Mr Halliday) Yes, because these things are at the
margin, but I think the Prison Service would say everything helps,
especially as remand prisoners are particularly time consuming,
but that is more on Martin's side.
828. Mr Narey, do you want to add anything to
that?
(Mr Narey) No, only to say that 500 is immensely valuable
to us because if prisoners become sentenced at an earlier point
they would be moved much more quickly into training prisons and
500 from the local prisons viewpoint can be quite significant.
Mr Cranston
829. The view has been put to us that 54 is
too many in terms of the number of Probation Services and that
this leads to patchy coverage of national priorities. In fact,
Sir David Ramsbotham even said that there should be a national
Probation Service. What are your views about that?
(Ms Quin) I am sure you know the Government launched
a review into the Prison and Probation Services and the potential
for increased joint working and integration between them. There
will be a consultation paper issued as a result of this review
later on in the spring and there will be a consultation throughout
the summer about the future organisation of the services. Obviously
some people have felt—in fact it has been a fairly widespread
view—that probation can suffer from not having a very obvious
national voice and often the contrast is made with, say, the national
organisation of the Prison Service where the Prison Service tends
to have a high profile in public terms and the Probation Service
does not. The Probation Service may have a good profile in certain
local and regional areas; I know that from my own part of the
country, but none the less it is difficult for it to have that
national profile which I think many of us feel it should have.
Also, in terms of the 54 areas, the argument has frequently been
put forward that very often those boundaries are not coterminous
with any other parts of the criminal justice system and that makes
communication difficult between different parts of the system
and therefore some rationalisation is probably a good idea. What
we do need to do, and I notice that Graham Smith mentioned this
when he was speaking to the Committee a couple of weeks ago, is
strike a balance between the need to have good national standards
and a national profile for the Probation Service on the one hand
and yet allow much of the good local and regional partnerships
that have been built up to continue. It is self-evident that the
Probation Service needs a good, close working relationship with
the Prison Service. We are also very much aware that the Probation
Service needs a good working relationship at local level with
the Police service, with local authorities, social services departments
in particular, health authorities, education authorities and so
on. That partnership work is very much reinforced by the whole
approach of the Crime and Disorder Bill and the work of youth
offending teams where the Probation Service really needs to be
a key player. Although I cannot say today what exactly is going
to be in the consultation paper, I think what I have said gives
you an idea of the considerations which are very important to
us in terms of how the Probation Service does its work in future.
Perhaps, Chairman, I could also add that obviously your inquiry
here is about alternatives to custody but, as Minister for Prisons
and Probation, for me it is a very high priority to see the work
of these organisations complementing each other. Many offenders
may have been both in prison and on probation. Probation and prison
officers work in delivering very effective offender behaviour
programmes in prison. They also work together in assessing risk
and giving information which allows the Probation Service to supervise
people in the community afterwards. I see it as a very important
part of my work to get the Probation and Prison Services working
together effectively so as to re-integrate offenders or, in some
cases, almost integrate offenders for the first time into society
in a constructive way so that the links are made with the work
of both services to the likelihood of the offender getting a job
on release, having satisfactory accommodation and generally being
able to play a constructive rather than a destructive role in
society.
830. That is a very full answer and has anticipated
quite a number of questions that I was going to ask you. It will
be spring, will it, when the consultation paper comes out?
(Ms Quin) Yes, late spring is a fair description.
Mr Corbett
831. This year or next?
(Ms Quin) This year, I can assure you of that.
Mr Cranston
832. You spoke of a lot of the good work that
can be done in terms of co-operation. Can I take you on to another
aspect, for example, preparing people for release and so on? Can
I take you on to the resource point first because the various
representatives of the Probation Service and the national organisations
have put to us that the reduction in the budget of the Probation
Service in recent times was having a significant effect on the
sort of work that they could do and in fact some of them were
quite apprehensive about what might happen in the future.
(Ms Quin) Again as you know, the Comprehensive Spending
Review has been taking place and it has to look at the priorities
of Government and look at the ways of resourcing those priorities.
That obviously includes the work of the Probation Service. We
are certainly aware that the Probation Service's workload has
increased a lot. I think however that sometimes there is a tendency
to see the grass greener elsewhere. I know that in the Probation
Service they have said to me that they sometimes feel that the
Prison Service is more successful in arguing for resources but
I notice that that does not stop people in the Prison Service
lobbying me very hard for more resources for things that they
would like to spend money on. I also think that there are some
ways of getting further efficiencies in the Probation Service.
Some of the ideas in connection with the Prison and Probation
Review are capable of doing that in my view, particularly in terms
of rationalising boundaries. I think also, although it may be
more of a spend-to-save than an immediate saving option, that
a great deal of improvement in information technology could help
a lot in streamlining the work of the Service. We need to look
at these options and not simply say that it is just a question
about getting more money. I notice also that when Graham Smith
was speaking to you a couple of weeks ago there was some discussion
about group work in the Probation Service versus individual, one-to-one
work and while I would not like to over-stress savings on that,
none the less I think there is evidence to show that a lot of
the successful work in the What Works initiative has been
precisely group work and so we do need to bear that in mind as
well.
833. Yes, it was put to us that the group work
could be more efficient.
(Ms Quin) Indeed, yes.
834. May I take you up on one particular point
that you made to us, and that related to recruitment of new entrants
into the Probation Service because it was said that with the change
in the new diploma, splendid though it may be, the effect might
be that none of those graduates could be taken on because the
different Probation Services do not have the resources for new
recruitment.
(Ms Quin) This is an area I am certainly prepared
to look at. We have put a lot of time and energy into the work
of organising the new diploma for the Probation Service and in
general I think this work has been widely welcomed. I was certainly
very surprised when I first became Minister to realise that there
was nothing regarding training because it had been decided by
the previous Government to dispense with the previous system and
yet no new system had been put in its place. We are very keen
to get that new system up and running, and a lot of excellent
work has been done both by staff in the Home Office and by the
Probation Service and the Association of Chief Officers of Probation
in particular, and therefore we need to make a beginning with
that as soon as possible. Obviously, the resourcing of that does
need to be available. It is our intention that probation officers
can start their training in the autumn and will be recruited into
the Service as soon as possible.
835. But there are going to be jobs for them?
That was the point, I think.
(Ms Quin) It is starting on a fairly small scale but
my impression is yes, there will be jobs for them. In fact, the
whole system is designed to link the training in with the likely
demand for jobs in a way that it was not done quite so much in
the past.
(Mr Halliday) I sense that the question is as much
about the concerns over resources from April 1999 onwards.
836. Yes.
(Mr Halliday) We understand from services that they
do have jobs. The question is the affordability of those jobs
and, as the Minister has said, the funding from April 1999 is
part of the Comprehensive Spending review and we do appreciate
that the Services want to know as soon as possible for their planning
purposes what the provision will be.
Mr Howarth
837. I wanted to ask the Minister a quick question,
going on from that point about wishing to see the Probation Service
and the Prison Service working more closely together. One of the
interesting features on probation reports appears to be that they
never recommend custody as being one of the options that the court
should consider. There does seem to be this kind of antagonism
between the two Services. I wonder whether, given that, the Minister
was being realistic in thinking that they will be able successfully
to work together.
(Ms Quin) First, I would like to pick up on your point
that they never recommend custody. I have just been looking at
a case study in the last week where the pre-sentence report had
recommended custody, so I do not believe that they never recommend
it.
838. It is very unusual, though.
(Ms Quin) It is true that on the whole the Probation
Service tend to recommend a probation order, a community service
order or a combination order or whatever. It is also true that
the Services have grown up in different ways. There are cultural
differences between the Services. Having said that, we have certainly
found that the work we have done so far in organising the Prisons/Probation
Review has shown a willingness on the part of both Services to
co-operate in particular areas and indeed the concept of through
care and sentence planning, which certainly has become a more
important concept in recent years, has been a practical way of
getting the two Services to work together. I have been encouraged
on my various prison visits to see probation officers working
in prison in conjunction with prison officers often delivering
joint programmes. I must say that the delivery of those programmes
has been beneficial not only to the probation officers delivering
them but also to the prison officers. Prison officers often make
the point to me that they do not want to be seen as just turnkeys.
They want to have a job which has varied aspects to it and one
of those aspects is the delivery of offending behaviour programmes
and the work that they have done with the Probation Service is
very much valued. What does worry me somewhat, particularly because
of the pressure on resources, is that some of that work has tended
to decrease over the last couple of years rather than increase
and the Prisons/Probation Review and what comes out of that will
I think recreate the momentum for the two Services working more
closely together in the future.
839. I am sure we look forward to seeing the
review when it is published. I was sure we were already into summer
actually, but perhaps late spring and summer are merging together
in the Home Office.
(Ms Quin) Certainly we look forward to the consultation
period. There has been a lot of interest in the process by both
the Prison Service and the Probation Service and at every stage
we have sought to organise events and conferences where the representatives
of both Services, sometimes separately, sometimes together, have
been able already to put ideas into that system.
1 See Appendix 32 Back
2
See Appendix 34. Back
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