Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
12 JANUARY 2005
Mr Simon Boyle, Ms Sue Hall, and Mr Stephen Routledge
Q500 Mr Edwards: I recall getting an
invitation to that, yes.
Mr Boyle: As you can see, we have
tried to have a very wide coverage and we certainly had asked
Members of Parliament. I can recall one or other attending one
of the seminars—we have had three—but I cannot be
sure which is which.
Q501 Mr Caton: It is just an omission
from the appendix?
Mr Boyle: I think you are right.
It should be in the appendix.
Q502 Mr Caton: Fine. If that is all it
is, there is not a problem. Can you enlarge a little bit on how,
when you had the consultative group seminar, the board addresses
the issues that have been focused on in that seminar.
Mr Boyle: I can just explain it
to you like this: this time a year ago when we were looking at
our plan for the financial year we are in we had about 45 action
points under the main goals, which I mentioned at the beginning,
primarily to do with closing the justice gap and increasing public
confidence. After we had this seminar we ended up with 78 actions
because there were another 30-odd points that people raised which
we felt were valid and needed attention so we added them. Hopefully
the number of action points will diminish as we gradually tick
them off.
Q503 Mr Caton: Thank you very much. Moving
to South Wales, you refer in your evidence to the Criminal Justice
Board conferences which you hold and you say that apart from the
Criminal Justice stakeholders, race and diversity groups and members
of the public attend. Can you expand upon who has actually been
to these conferences?
Ms Hall: I would have to refer
to Stephen as I was not chair then.
Mr Routledge: Hopefully it expresses
in the paper that there has actually been one conference that
we have held to date, so not a series of conferences. We have
a conference on the launch of the Board whereby we invited key
stakeholders and members of the public and we have, as Sue will
reiterate, discussed holding another such conference again to
reflect on where we are now and to sort of communicate the work
we have been doing and also use it as an opportunity to get questions
from the public and find out their feelings and opinions on crime.
Q504 Mr Caton: So who was invited and
attended that first conference?
Mr Routledge: It was before my
time, I had not actually started, but I am under the impression
that it was obviously representatives from each of the Criminal
Justice agencies, diversity organisations, other sort of non-statutory
partners would have been invited, but over an above that I could
not say with any certainty. But certainly I could provide a list
of them.
Q505 Mr Caton: Could you send that to
our clerk? That would be very useful.
Mr Routledge: Of course, yes[1].
Q506 Mr Caton: You mentioned a little
earlier the South Wales Citizens Panel and you suggested you would
be able to expand upon that at some stage. I think this is probably
the stage at which you can do that.
Mr Routledge: Yes. It is not a
totally revolutionary initiative. I think county councils and
other organisations have used them before, but I think it is new
to a Criminal Justice Board. Because public satisfaction and confidence
is such an amorphous kind of subject it is so difficult to tell
if we are making gains. As I said, it is about a 6% improvement
target. We need to know that what interventions we are doing are
actually making a difference and actually improving confidence.
So we are doing it as a trial really this year. We had some money
available and we decided to set up a panel using a professional
research company. They have recruited a panel of approximately
between 1,000 and 1,500 people. They have got representation from
across South Wales according to gender, trying to make sure that
under-represented groups such as the disabled, ethnic minorities
or the young, who often do not get represented or have a say,
are involved in this. So the panel is, hopefully, fully representative
of South Wales. It will need to be replenished as time goes on.
Obviously some people will come off the panel and others will
come on the panel to avoid stagnation, but primarily the purpose
of the panel will be to undertake about three or four postal surveys
per year. They will be on a variety of subjects. We have actually
just sent out the first one and the results are due back during
February. Supplementing the postal surveys, we will also use focus
groups if the public are willing to come and meet with us and
elaborate on some of the things they have said. For instance,
in our first postal survey we have asked if people have experienced
crime within the last year and if they have did they report the
crime. If they did, what was the response to that, and if they
did not—particularly if they did not because there is a
lot of under-reporting of crime and a lot of victims and witnesses
of crime never come into the system—so if they did not we
would like to know why, with a view to obviously making interventions
wherever possible. But as I say, it is a new initiative. We have
two surveys this year and hopefully some focus groups and we will
see whether we continue that panel throughout the course of time.
Wayne David MP, Paul Murphy MP, Huw Edwards
MP, Don Touhig MP, David Havard MP.
Q507 Mr Caton: Thank you. In section
7.3 of South Wales' evidence it is noted that the Criminal Justice
Board and Community Safety Partnerships are working closely at
a strategic level. Can you tell us a bit more about how in practice,
that is both in Gwent and in South Wales, you work with the Community
Safety Partnerships?
Ms Hall: There has been a lot
of concern, I think both at Community Safety Partnership level
and at Local Criminal Justice Board level, that we have not until
fairly recently found a way of trying to work more closely together.
I think in the early days of the Criminal Justice Board, Community
Safety Partnership could not really see the value of what LCJBs
were doing for them because a lot of the work we were doing was
about the Criminal Justice System and making it more efficient
and effective, but that was not work that really was the focus
of Community Safety Partnerships' plans. More recently we have
begun to recognise that there is a lot of areas of overlap and
in particular the prolific and other priority offenders initiative,
which requires the LCJB and CSPs to work together, similarly domestic
violence and persistent young offenders. All of those areas are
ones where we have got responsibilities and CSPs have got responsibilities.
The way that we have found through it—and actually it is
still trial and error—is that I attend the overarching leadership
group within South Wales both in my role as chief officer of probation
and as chair of the Local Criminal Justice Board and some of the
other members of the Local Criminal Justice Board who are members
of that group attend. At the moment we are using that as the conduit
to bring issues and papers where we are trying, I suppose, to
influence a more consistent South Wales response which brings
the seven local authorities together. The one which so far has
made most progress is the prolific and other priority offender
scheme, where we now do have a South Wales wide steering group
which has representatives of all seven CSPs on it as well as other
relevant CJS organisations and the crime reduction director from
the Welsh Assembly Government also sits on that group. That group
is actually chaired by the Criminal Justice Board but involves
the CSPs and I think this is a very important development. We
are trying to establish something similar in relation to domestic
violence and that is currently under discussion with the CSPs.
So our strategy at the moment is really doing it in relation to
issues which affect both the CJB and the CSPs rather than our
initial plan, which was to have some sort of joint group. In the
end we felt it was more effective to focus on specific issues
and try to work out a way of moving forward. As a result of that
sort of early work that we had done last year around this sort
of approach we are now finding that CSPs are beginning to invite
the LCJB representatives to come and talk to them to try and increase
awareness and understanding. So it is early days but it does feel
there is more understanding working together over the last six
months than there has been in the past couple of years.
Mr Boyle: In Gwent, Chairman,
we have a similar thing. We have five local authorities, therefore
five CSPs, and there is the question of how to link with them.
We have not actually done it yet but we have just agreed with
the chief officers group in Gwent of the five local authorities
that members of the Criminal Justice Board in addition to the
Police and the Probation, who are already going regularly, will
attend a meeting and try to agree a joint strategy, as Sue has
said, to deal with schemes of common interest like the POPOs and
domestic violence, so a very similar approach.
Q508 Mr Caton: This is not actually to
do with the consultation process but it is something you mentioned,
Ms Hall, the persistent young offenders. We have had at least
one submission where there was some concern that our shift in
dealing with a lot of these issues is targeting young people specifically.
I know that the Home Office has set you this agenda, but are you
worried that young people are increasingly being seen as the problem?
If you are a persistent offender it does not matter whether you
are young, middle-aged or old, I would have said that you are
a problem to society. Do you see any problem with focusing so
much on young people, as we seem to these days?
Ms Hall: It is interesting actually
that the prolific and other priority offender scheme is not necessarily
focusing on young people. That is saying that CSPs should identify
those offenders who are causing them the most problems and the
way those offenders are identified is a combination of using the
Police National Intelligence Database and local knowledge. That
scheme should not be focusing on the very low level young offenders,
who perhaps are not really the ones who should be coming into
the Criminal Justice System. This initiative is focusing on people
who are getting into trouble, who are being convicted, and actually
it can include people up to the age of ninety; it does not have
to be young offenders.
Q509 Mr Caton: But you identified persistent
young offenders as another category, did you not?
Ms Hall: Well, persistent young
offenders were an initial priority for Criminal Justice Boards
in terms of ensuring that anyone who is identified as a persistent
young offender was brought to justice within seventy-one days.
That is the PYO pledge which was made by the Government and South
Wales has been successful in ensuring that those young offenders
are fast-tracked. Where developments have, I think, taken a turn
over the summer with the introduction of the prolific and other
offenders scheme (which is a mouthful) is that the shift is now
not just on processing people who have got a certain number of
convictions, it is saying who really is causing a problem for
the community and what can we do either to deter them, to convict
them, or if they have been convicted to resettle and rehabilitate
them. In a way it has taken a bit of the attention away from young
offenders, if anything, and saying it is wider than just young
people around bus stops and hanging around streets.
Mr Caton: Thank you.
Q510 Mrs Williams: I would like to ask
a question on funding. How is the Criminal Justice Board funded?
Ms Hall: We receive a budget in
South Wales of £115,000 and on top of that we receive the
salary of a performance officer.
Q511 Mrs Williams: Is the performance
officer's salary paid in full?
Ms Hall: Yes, indeed.
Mr Routledge: At the moment it
is paid in full, yes.
Q512 Mrs Williams: On top of the figure
you have mentioned?
Ms Hall: Yes, indeed. Next year
we are guaranteed the same levels of funding, although we do not
know exactly what yet, but the performance officer's salary will,
I think, be paid by—
Mr Routledge: Centrally by the
Home Office next year.
Q513 Mrs Williams: For how long?
Mr Routledge: It appears that
whilst we were initially employed by the Home Office we have recently
transferred, but our line management is by a local agency. So
I am actually seconded from the Probation Service and I am now
managed by Sue as Chair of the Board. That was a decision which
was taken by the Home Office, but the Home Office have said that
they will fund the performance officer's salary next year but
after that Criminal Justice Boards will be given a lump sum each
year and it is up to them what staff they appoint, if necessary.
Q514 Mrs Williams: So it is difficult
to plan ahead in that sense?
Mr Routledge: Yes.
Q515 Mrs Williams: You are only able
to plan ahead for twelve months or so, are you?
Ms Hall: This is a problem which
is not unknown to those in the public sector, but we have funding
guaranteed for next year. Beyond that, we do not know. We will
make the assumption that we will carry on, but we do not actually
categorically know that.
Q516 Mrs Williams: What is the figure
for Gwent?
Mr Boyle: For Gwent this year
it is £85,000 and we have been told it will be the same next
year, plus the cost of the performance officer's salary. But it
is worth adding, if I may, Chairman, that we currently do not
have a performance officer. The first holder of that post in Gwent
left, partly for the reason that it was so uncertain what the
future was. We do see this as a problem in Gwent. Obviously all
the public service budgets are never confirmed except year by
year, but most of the public sector agencies have a vision beyond
one year. The Criminal Justice Boards really should have the same
longer vision if the Government believes they should continue,
because otherwise it is very difficult to recruit and retain people.
Mrs Williams: Thank you.
Q517 Julie Morgan: I am going to ask
about the justice gap and public confidence, but before I do that
I wonder in South Wales what you do to involve the elected representatives
in the activities of the Criminal Justice Board, because I think
we have had a response from Gwent. I just wondered whether you
did anything or whether you plan to do anything.
Ms Hall: I am going to have to
hold my hand up really and say that the Board to date has been
undeveloped in the way that we have consulted with partners, with
the Welsh Assembly Government and with elected members and we
recognise this. We have had actually a huge change of personnel
on the Criminal Justice Board. I think every single member of
the Board has changed in the last six or seven months, as a result
of which we really have refocused and done a lot of thinking about
where we should be going as a Board. We have got an awayday next
week and one of the topics for that awayday is about participation,
community engagement and involving people. We recognise it is
a gap and we have not done enough yet on that score.
Q518 Julie Morgan: I think the elected
representatives would welcome the opportunity to become involved.
You mentioned the change in personnel and I think that is a big
issue in any groups which try to coordinate, work together and
plan. How long are people on the Board for? Is it fixed?
Ms Hall: Yes. Your membership
of the Board links to your role, therefore the Chief Constable,
the Chief Officer of Probation, the Area Director for the Prison
Service, the Chief Crown Prosecutor and the Area Director for
the new unified Court Service are all on it as of right.
Q519 Julie Morgan: Indefinitely?
Ms Hall: Yes. All of those organisations
have had a change of head over the last year or so and that is
why the change has happened on the Criminal Justice Boards.
1 There was confusion over whether MPs had been invited
to the Gwent CJB's consultative seminars. I can confirm that the
following Gwent MPs were indeed invited to the last seminar in
October 2004 (though unfortunately omitted in error from the list
of invitees shown in Annex 3 of our written evidence to the Committee): Back
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