Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 138)
TUESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2005
RT HON
BARONESS SCOTLAND
OF ASTHAL
QC, MR ROGER
MCGARVA,
MR GUY
BOERSMA AND
MS JANE
ANDERSON
Q120 Chairman: The north-west offender
management project has been cited to us in evidence today as a
reason that the fundamental changes are not necessary. In other
words, you can achieve huge success. I wonder if you had considered,
following Mr Winnick's question, using the powers that you are
suggesting here as, if you like, powers of last resort? Because
if a Probation Board is not able to deliver a satisfactory service
then clearly there must be a case of: can we input it under new
completely management? But could you say a little bit more about
why you are so convinced that you have to do the whole of the
system rather than perhaps use these powers to deal with manifest
failure.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The
first issue is, of course, that contestability could not be rolled
out right the way across the country in a period of one year.
We are looking anyway at a period of gradual introduction. I think
there is a figure of about 12% of the work which could be amenable
to contestability at any one time. You already have certain practical
limitations with that. Legislation will be necessary to enable
full contestability to be rolled out, as I have already indicated,
and that of course is dependent on the timetable. In the meantime,
you will know that the Regional Offender Managers come fully into
being in April next year. We will continue with the north-west
pathfinder type issue and try to make other opportunities to test
out how best this can be done on a practical level as we go on.
The options include further improvement in diversifying the service
provider base. We are going to produce a prospectus next year
setting out what the offer may be to wider service providers to
come on board. We will be able to develop through using those
models a more nuanced understanding of the position.
Q121 Chairman: On that final point,
Minister, there was some criticism in the health reform because
the original independent treatment centres were paid about 9%
more than the NHS to deliver operations, and the argument was
that the new providers needed extra money upfront to pay the capital
of providing the services. Can you assure us that there will be
no question of paying a new private provider, a voluntary sector
provider, a premium rate in order to encourage them into the market
place?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: All
I can say to you is that has not featured in the current thinking
at all, but I need to emphasise that this is not driven by an
ideological fixation about contestability, it is driven by a desire
to satisfy unmet need.
Q122 Chairman: I understand that,
Minister, but, as you more or less implied, potential providers
are not necessarily out there—obviously they cannot be out
there delivering the services at the moment because they do not
currently exist. I am just trying to get an assurance that it
is not part of the Government's plan to pay them, as happened
in the health service, 9% or 10% more for their services for,
say, the first five years in order to encourage them into the
market.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: All
I can say to you, Chairman, is that is not within our current
contemplation. But I also have to be brutally frank about the
fact that we are looking at the market, looking at who we have
got, looking at how we need to build that forward. We have nothing
of that sort on the table now.
Q123 Chairman: If the private sector
or the voluntary sector came to you and said, "Look, we will
go into this market, but not unless you pay us a premium rate
that reflects the costs of setting up a new business" is
that something that you would be open to doing? Or is it something
you would want to rule out in principle?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I
cannot say I would be open to do it; neither can I say I would
rule it out in principle. The reason is that it is a needs-based
assessment. We have to look at what are the needs that are currently
unmet and how best can they be met in the lowest cost-effective
way. I say cost effective, not cost efficient, because cost effective
for us means reducing recidivism, reducing re-offending, and that
has to be our goal.
Q124 Chairman: So it has to be a
possibility.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The
moon being made of blue cheese has to be a possibility.
Q125 Chairman: Indeed. Is it of that
sort of order of likelihood?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: No,
I am not saying that. All I am saying to you is that in coming
to this Committee I intend to be brutally honest and frank, and
therefore I cannot say to the Committee that which has not been
contemplated is ruled out or ruled in, because that would be unfair.
Chairman: Thank you. That is a very fair
answer.
Q126 Mrs Dean: You appear to be saying
that you will need to stimulate the private or voluntary sector
to take part in the process of carrying out the fundamental role
of probation officers now. Do you have any companies or organisations
in mind as to who might come forward with that? Are they likely
to take their staff from the current Probation Service?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The
first thing to say is that traditionally there have been a number
of not-for-profit and other agencies who have expressed interest
in doing offender management, and, indeed, working with offenders,
particularly in intervention. You can see that from a broad spectrum.
There has not always been the opportunity to do that. We are seeking
now to create the opportunity to make sure that they can come
in and assist in the way that we have just indicated. That, we
think, will stimulate a great deal of interest and opportunity
for us. There are a number of public sector bodies who would wish
to help us to do that. The early evidence that we have had from
Northern Ireland indicated a 23% provision coming from the voluntary
sector, so that is one of the areas we have. We want to grow about
1,000 voluntary organisations in England and Wales. It will probably
help us deliver what we have been talking about in terms of local
flavour, local need in the way that is more likely to meet the
acute needs of the people we are trying to serve.
Q127 Mrs Dean: Delivering interventions
is one thing; providing core probation services, such as assessing
court assessments, is another.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I
do not think we can really say where it will come from. If there
were to be any transfer of workers from the public sector to the
private sector it would be under TUPE. In terms of preservation
of their rights and opportunities, that would be preserved. If
there were to be a benefit, it might, for instance, be the advancement
of different management and other skills, but it would not necessarily
undermine the terms and conditions which public sector workers
would be seeking or have the right to expect.
Q128 Mrs Dean: If I could turn to
the issue of women, there is no diversity champion within NOMS.
The Fawcett Society claims that women's needs will "continue
to be marginalised". The society also expresses concern that,
if not carefully thought through, the marketing of probation services
would make prisons even more attractive to rehabilitating women.
What reassurance can you give that in a contestable environment
more expensive women's services will be of an acceptable quality?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: This
is to reassure you that Christine Knott, who is the National Offender
Manager, is in fact the diversity champion, so that is assured.
These issues are very much pressing on our contemplation because,
of course, one of the things which we would very much like to
better address is the whole issue of the offending pattern of
women, who have very different needs in terms of how we respond
to those than we have for men. If you look at the vulnerability
of the group that we have—the high degree of physical and
sexual abuse that is emphasised in that group, the mental health
issues, the issues in relation to acquisitive crime (which is
repeat offending, quite often low level, not violent, not dangerous
but persistent) and how we better respond to that—are there
better community responses we can make? All of those issues we
think will become a critical part of the Regional Offender Management
assessment of need, which will have to be better addressed. Could
I say, while I am talking about sexual and other difficulties
that many of the female offenders suffer, we of course already
use specialist assessment in relation to those specialist provisions,
so the Probation Service do rely on the expertise from voluntary
and other sectors to come in and help them to do that work already.
So they are not asking them to do something materially different
and it would be naive perhaps to present a picture that the public
service sector currently provides all of this. They do not. They
do not have all the skills; they do not have all the opportunities.
But they do have a wonderful capacity to work with others to make
sure the needs of those who do need specialist treatment is actually
secured. We will be recruiting a new head of diversity and we
are fully committed to ensuring that this is followed through
and we will intend to help the new trusts in relation to these
issues too. I absolutely agree with you in relation to the women
we have in our estate, and their needs have to be addressed better,
I think, in the new structure.
Q129 Mrs Dean: Will you ensure that
representations of women and experts in provision for women offenders
will be on the trusts?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We
will certainly try to make sure that all the needs of the people
in the population are reflected. Of course there are other diversity
needs in terms of race, disability, age. Those issues are of considerable
and equal importance. We think they need to be reflected in the
new structures that we have set up.
Q130 Mrs Cryer: You mentioned earlier,
Minister, a needs-based assessment. Has there been a needs-based
assessment so far as training and standards are concerned. At
the moment there are no proposals in a consultation paper for
the provision of training or even the setting and maintenance
of standards. How would you be dealing with this?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Training
is an issue which, as I mentioned to you, has been flagged up
on the early feedback in terms of consultation. Training, I know
you appreciate, Ann, has been a big issue for us right the way
through our administration. How do we make sure we have better
trained, more focused, specialist focused attention? The training
needs are something that we are looking at very carefully. But
we are working with other departments too in relation to training.
You know, for instance, that Health will now become responsible
for the primary health care component. Education through the Education
and Skills Learning Council are going to be responsible for education.
We are going to work together with them to see (a) how we can
make sure that their expertise is fed into our system, but (b)
how we can participate with them in making sure that we get the
workforce that will do this, appropriately trained in whichever
spectrum they happen to come from. Training has become a big issue
for us, as you all know, for quite some time. Of course one of
the advantages we have and that the Regional Offender Manager
will have is that they will be able to buy services and prescribe
the standards which those services will have to attain. If you
look at the contracts that will be let out, those contracts can
have within them the sort of criteria that we would wish to see
reflected in the services that we provide to offenders and victims.
Nick Herbert: One of the concerns that
was put to us earlier this morning about contestability—which
does seem to me to be fundamentally different from privatisation,
because it does not involve selling your assets—but that
is another matter—
Mr Winnick: You have an ally there.
Q131 Nick Herbert:—was the
effect on the voluntary sector, firstly because the voluntary
sector may not have the resources to be able to participate in
the bidding process in the same way that private sector organisations
might have, and secondly that the voluntary sector does not just
provide services itself, it also innovates, has ideas and so on,
and the sector is, perhaps you are aware, concerned to ensure
that it can still do that. How do you answer those two points?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: One
of the most effective ways in which the private sector and the
voluntary sector are currently contributing is working together
with the public sector. So if you look in a number of areas you
have initiatives which have within them now public sector, private
sector and voluntary sector. Lots of the partnerships that have
come about are as a result of harnessing those things that each
sector brings. For instance, the innovation, the opportunity,
the understanding of the local area and delivery is quite often
what the voluntary sector brings; then the private sector may
bring certain managerial and other input; and the public sector
may provide expertise in terms of professionalism and delivery.
We are seeing increasingly now that the bids going forward are
not necessarily simplistic, straight, competitive bids from the
private, voluntary and public, in a way that you would have in
a pure competitive market. We are seeing—which I find fascinating
and actually encouraging—that some of the bids that are
coming forward are themselves multi-faceted, so they will have
a public component, a private component and a voluntary sector
component. When we set out the contracts, we are seeking to enhance
the opportunity for bids to be multi-faceted bids. They do not
have to be simply from the public, simply from the private, or
simply from the voluntary sector. You could have a bid which would
incorporate all three sectors if they are addressed towards meeting
the needs of the client group that they have identified. That
is why I say the needs-based assessment is what is going to drive
this, but it is also going to drive offender management and Regional
and National Offender Management too. We are going to try to harness
this collaboration.
Q132 Nick Herbert: If you have a
purchaser/provider split and the voluntary sector is therefore
focused only on the providing side, do you not lose their ability
to participate in and invest in the creative ideas and the development
of new services. Innovation finishes at the point where the contract
is signed, is one point that has been made to us in the evidence.
Should there be a separate fund or some way of ensuring that that
creativity can remain?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Firstly,
to take up your point on creativity, if you look at the contracts
that have been let in the past, they were pretty inflexible and
rigid. The consequence of that was said to be stifling innovation
and stifling creativity. The challenge for us is to structure
a contract which enables sufficient accountability but also sufficient
flexibility not to stifle that innovation, so, instead of concentrating
on input, it has to concentrate on outcomes. We are saying in
the contract: What outcomes do we aspire to achieve? What are
you going to have to commit to deliver in order to satisfy? If
you turn it from input to outcome, it enables you to have that
flexibility which will still enable innovation, because you will
not be putting on a stranglehold and saying to people, "The
only way you can deliver this is this way." We are saying,
"This is the outcome, you can think up any sort of way of
delivering it, as long as you deliver an outcome"—and
the outcome in the main for us in the main is going to be reduction
in recidivism, helping people to overcome some of the pretty entrenched
difficulties that are stumbling blocks to their rehabilitation.
That is one. We also understand that the voluntary and community
sector will need appropriate entry pressures, so they will not
be bogged down by red tape. We recognise that. That is one of
the things we have to try to incorporate in the way in which we
structure the contracts. The voluntary and community sector tell
us that they are keen to discuss joint bidding with the public
and/or private sector. We have already seen some evidence of that
happening. If that takes place, I think we will create a different
concept of market—and I almost want to find a different
word for market because we are trying to generate through the
contracts, through the way that we will structure this, an incentive
to work in partnership. We do want people to be competitive but
we want them to be competitive about delivering a better outcome,
not necessarily competitive about the way in which they deal with
each other. The other thing we have learned is that the way in
which we have been able to generate success has been generating
that partnership commitment and recognising that one size does
not fit all: we are not all good at the same things but we have
to harness that which the different sectors are good at and get
them to work together to deliver the better outcomes. That is
part of the challenge that I see the contract is going to have
to deliver. There is going to have to be a different, more flexible,
more reflective, more sensitive model which will deliver what
we need. So it is a different form of contestability.
Q133 Mr Clappison: We heard other
concerns this morning about dealing with high risk offenders,
particularly sexual and violent offenders. Have you given any
thought to excluding them from the Commissioning process?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I
think we need to be clear as to the specialist services we currently
use to try to protect the public, and, indeed, victims, from these
high-risk offenders. At the moment, as I have said to you, in
terms of sexual offending, in particular, we have had to use some
fairly specialist input to assist us in that. That is already
talked about: marrying that specialist service with the Offender
Management Service. I will not say to you that there is going
to be an area which is going to be totally excluded, because we
will need the different forms of expertise to manage these particular
people. I think this Committee will agree that the MAPPA arrangements
we currently have, which are multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary,
have been proved to be fairly successful in better containing
some of the risks for the public.
Q134 Mr Clappison: One of the areas
in which concern was expressed this morning was in the event of
trust failure and what would happen with the supervision and management
of this type of offender. Could you say a little bit more about
trust failure? Are we in a moon of blue cheese territory here?
Is it something you think might happen? If it does, what happens?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: One
of the things you have to be aware of is that across the piece
there is a variability of factors. There are some areas which
are, frankly, fantastic and they are delivering superb, high quality
offender management, good risk assessment, high quality interventions.
There are other areas which are more challenged, which find it
more of a struggle. One of the issues is: How do we make sure
that we get that right the way across the piece? One of the things
we have had to contemplate—which is not anticipated now,
because even those areas which are perhaps doing less well are
still meeting the needs in an appropriate way—so we want
everyone to do better, but currently they are meeting the needs.
But we have to contemplate what will happen in the event that
in doing this needs-based assessment, doing this quality control,
the decision comes that a trust is just not meeting the needs
of the people they are serving. In that instance, what should
happen? It is at that stage that we say it would be appropriate,
when you are going out to see who else could do it, for the Home
Secretary to be able to set up a shadow trust, maybe from public
trusts near that area, to say they could bid for the work.
Q135 Mr Clappison: Do I take it then
that we are not talking about a remote possibility here?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I
do not know how remote it is. I think we have to be realistic
and contemplate the possibility that there may be other providers
as time goes on who could do a better job, clearly do a better
job. There may be a trust which is failing to meet the needs of
the people they are serving. That may happen. If that happens,
if the trusts do not meet those challenges, what then do we do?
There the possibility must be that that work could go to other
providers. In the event it could go to other providers, how do
we make sure that the public sector has a proper opportunity to
bid for that work and does not simply get counted out? That is
why the shadow trust comes in, so that the Home Secretary of the
day can put together a shadow trust which would be able to bid
on behalf of the public sector to take over the work that has
currently been done by that trust. We know in prisons that the
public sector has been able to bid for work which was previously
done by the private sector and they won it back. So we have to
make sure there is that opportunity.
Q136 Chairman: That is very helpful,
Minister. Could I clarify one final point related to the question
about high risk sex offenders. As you say, a number of different
agencies might currently be involved at the moment in the management
of offenders, but the crucial decisions about the management of
those cases is currently entirely with the public sector. You
said earlier that you do not rule out the possibility of the actual
function of management of offenders being put out to a private
or voluntary sector. Can we take it from that that you do conceive
of the possibility that the management of high risk offenders
might in future be in the hands of a voluntary organisation or
private company? You have not ruled that out.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I
think it is in the same way that in the current default powers
in terms of the National Probation Service, we have those default
powers that have been in since the 2000 Act, so we did not rule
it out then either. But we just have never used them in fact.
Q137 Chairman: You are now introducing
extensive contestability. You could choose to rule it out in this
much more developed system of contestability, I think we take
the fact that you are not ruling it as meaning that it is, in
Mr Clappison's word, "a distinct possibility" that in
one part of the country or another the management of high risk
sex offenders will be run by a private company or voluntary organisation.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The
reason I find this difficult—and you have to appreciate
I am burdened by being a lawyer—is that if you ask me: Can
you rule this out as a possibility? the answer to that is: Absolutely,
no, I cannot. Do I think it is likely? I have to posit this question:
MAPPA has been what I believe to be a real success, we have struggled
to find something that works—
Q138 Chairman: Then why not rule
it out as a matter of policy? You could do that.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We
are not going to rule it out as a matter of policy, but I would
say: Why change something that actually works? I cannot currently
see any reason why it would need to change. However, in crafting
a system, you always have to allow for the improbable and the
unlikely. That is what we have done in the past and that is what
we should prudently continue to do in the future. I anticipate,
just as with the current default powers that we have in relation
to the National Probation Service, it is highly unlikely they
will be used, but: should they be there? Yes, I think they should.
That is what a good prudent Government Minister should do.
Chairman: Minister, Thank you very much
indeed. I am sorry if Mr Winnick was uncharacteristically prompted
to be provocative. It is not the sort of thing we ever expect
from him at these sessions. Thank you very much indeed for your
help.
|
