Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Martin Narey
RESPONSE TO
QUESTION, QUESTION
584 (MR GIBB)
With the introduction of NOMS, new sentencing
arrangements and the new Offenders Learning and Skills Service,
leaving custody needs increasingly to be seen as a transition
within, not the end of, the offender's learning journey. New sentencing
arrangements such as custody plus! minus and intermittent custody
will see more offenders spending shorter periods in custody, with
more active management of their sentences in the community. In
addition, more offenders will be serving community sentences.
That is an important part of the context in
which we are setting a learning and skills service that will aim
to make more systematic use of individual learning plans, with
more thorough assessment early in the sentence, and with offenders'
learning targets better linked to their needs.
A weakness of the system at present—which
we acknowledge—is the difficulty of attributing achievement
of qualifications to individuals, and tracking their progress.
The introduction of an offenders' learning database, (later to
be linked to NOMIS) will also mean that qualifications gained
by specific offenders will be recorded. Increasingly we shall
be able to track the progress made by individuals at various stages.
Accordingly, we do not consider it necessary
to introduce a blanket assessment of progress at the fixed point
of leaving custody. Were we to do so, this form of re-assessment
of learners would entail significant costs. We estimate that if
100,000 offenders were to be re-assessed for forty minutes each
(an initial screening takes between 20 and 30 minutes) the cost
would be around £1.3 million. This figure has been calculated
on the basis of assessment being delivered in-house by existing
staff in prisons and probation services. It could cost substantially
more if the assessment were performed by contractors. Such a cost
would be at the expense of reducing other learning and skills
provision.
RESPONSE TO
QUESTION 590 (MR
GIBB)
The average sentence length was 12.6 months
in 2003—that is for all courts, all offences (3.1 months
at magistrates' courts and 26.3 months at the Crown Court). That
would suggest that the average time served in prison is about
6 months (half).
2 February 2005
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