House of Commons Hansard Written Ministerial Statements for 15 Jul 2003 (pt 6)

HOME DEPARTMENT

Prison Service Annual Report and Accounts 2002–03

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins): The Prison Service's latest annual report and accounts, setting out the service's performance during 2002–03 is published today and copies have been placed in the Library.

Youth Justice Board Annual Report

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins): The Youth Justice Board's annual review for 2002–03 has today been laid before Parliament. Copies have been placed in the Library.

The Youth Justice Board for England & Wales is an executive non-departmental public body established under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to monitor the operation and performance of the youth justice system and to identify and disseminate good practice to prevent offending by children and young people. Since April 2000, the Board has been responsible for commissioning services for young people under 18 who are sentenced and remanded to secure facilities.

The Annual Review for 2002–03 reports on the continuing progress in implementing reforms to the youth justice system including a successful reduction in juvenile non-custodial reconviction rates and the

15 Jul 2003 : Column 30WS

continuing delivery of the Government's pledge to halve the time from arrest to sentence for persistent young offenders.

The review outlines a year in which new orders and programmes have been successfully introduced—most notably the extension of Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes to 80 per cent. national coverage (ISSPs) targeting persistent and serious offenders and the nationwide roll-out of referral orders and youth offender panels for offenders convicted for the first time.

Independent Review of the National Asylum Support Service

The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): I am pleased to inform the House that I have today published the key findings from the report of the independent review of the operation of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS). The review was established in March this year to consider the ways in which NASS operates and provide me with recommendations to improve its performance. I am grateful to the review team for the work they have undertaken. The review team found that NASS was established to undertake a much simpler role than the complex one which they now perform. That role is made even more complicated by being a very visible part of the asylum system. Despite that, the review team found that NASS was showing signs of improvement in its operational performance, strategic planning and relationships with partner organisations.

However, they also found that some key issues still need to be addressed. They found that NASS had faced real difficulties in getting on top of its job. External pressures such as Sangatte, an upsurge in asylum applications in 2001 and significant ongoing recruitment and training gaps contributed significantly to NASS's current problems and it had failed to establish a clear strategy to provide purpose, direction and governance of its activities. It had been established as a distinct part of the Immigration and Nationality Department, something which had contributed to a lack of proper integration with other parts of the asylum process and unrealistic expectations surrounding issues such as social integration.

The review team found that there were still considerable gaps in NASS's ability to deal effectively with its external partners such as local authorities or the voluntary sector. Partly, this was a lack of understanding of the roles of these other organisations, but also a simple lack of effective and agreed processes to ensure that issues ran smoothly. The review team also found weaknesses within some of NASS's core operations. IT was critical to the business but was neither fully exploited, nor was it properly integrated with the IT used elsewhere in IND. The Review Team said that specific improvements to processes or resolution of long-standing policy impasses were possible which would provide much needed service improvements. The basic customer service provided to NASS's wide range of stakeholders needed to improve. Within this were concerns such as the difficulties with telephone contact with NASS. The review team supported NASS's regionalisation project and pointed

15 Jul 2003 : Column 31WS

to a need for many more aspects of NASS's business to be handled at a local level. Looking across the range of issues covered, the review team said that for NASS to perform at its best it needs to:

be clear what is expected of it and how its success will be judged;

have the financial and managerial resources to do the job;

have a thorough understanding of its own strengths and weaknesses;

have a clear view of what it needs to do to improve its performance;

understand its impact on the whole end to end asylum process;

sort out some of its key business processes and procedures;

get better at working with the rest of IND in a fully joined up operation.

Since completion of the review NASS's senior management team has been strengthened, as has the Immigration and Nationality Department's ability to deal more effectively with social integration issues. More widely, NASS and other IND staff are currently analysing the proposals contained in the report and will submit an action plan to me shortly. This action plan will form the basis of a major programme of work designed to improve NASS's performance. I shall make a further statement about the action taken in the light of the review in due course.

Firearms Amnesty

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint): I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses details of what was handed in to police forces during the recent firearms amnesty (31 March to 30 April).

15 Jul 2003 : Column 32WS

A total of 43,908 guns and 1,039,358 rounds of ammunition were handed in. This compares to 22,939 guns and 695,197 rounds of ammunition during the previous amnesty in June 1996.

I am particularly pleased to see the high volume of hand-ins of all types of gun and ammunition. The amnesty was a great success and these items are no longer at risk of falling into the hands of criminals.

The guns figure includes 6,529 prohibited firearms (including 5,734 handguns), 10,513 shot guns, 13,974 air weapons, 9,480 imitations and 3,412 assorted rifles and other guns. In addition, a total of 7,093 other weapons, including knives, swords and crossbows, were handed in.

Immigration and Nationality Directorate

The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): I am pleased to announce the publication of the independent Complaints Audit Committee (CAC) annual report for 2002–03. Copies are available in the Library of the House and on the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's website.

This is the CAC's 9th annual report. Their role is to monitor the effectiveness of IND's procedures for investigating formal complaints about the conduct and efficiency of staff in IND. Their findings are a very valuable contribution to the process of continuous improvement within IND.

The annual report highlights a number of areas where IND could improve, together with useful recommendations. IND will use these recommendations to help inform their wider change and reform strategy, one of the key elements of which is to make it a more customer-focused organisation.