Clause
10
Disclosure
for offender management
purposes
Mark
Hunter:
I beg to move amendment No. 32, in
clause 10, page 6, line 40, at
end insert—
‘(h)
representatives of local authorities’.
The amendment seeks to ensure
that local authorities are included in the important exercise of data
sharing. I would like to explain why I think the amendment is needed
and would improve the Bill. All hon. Members would agree that sharing
data among relevant organisations is an excellent idea, not least as an
essential step towards joined-up service delivery at the local level. I
know that joined-up thinking and service delivery is an issue close to
the Government’s heart. I also hope that it is not contentious
to say that local government plays a vital role in the rehabilitation
of offenders, but to perform that vital role effectively it needs to be
fully involved in the system.
In 2005, the Local Government
Association surveyed local authorities and discovered that
only3 per cent. of them were informed when prisoners were
released into the community, which is a very worrying statistic. Such
information on prisoner release is vital if local authorities are to
perform the effective role in offender management that I am sure we all
want to see.
Many
local authorities provide excellent services that help offenders with
housing, advice on benefits, treatment for drug and alcohol addiction,
employment advice and training opportunities, and all those services
can help to reduce reoffending. The 2005 report by the LGA,
“Going straight”, found, not surprisingly, that being in
employment reduced the risk of reoffending by between one third and 50
per cent. Having stable accommodation also reduces the risk of
reoffending by a fifth. Once ex-prisoners are in stable accommodation,
over three times as many find employment as those without an address.
However, the report also found that only a third of offenders have
stable accommodation on release, and they canface significant
difficulties—as we would all acknowledge—in securing it.
That figure needs to rise and, without the integration of local
authorities into the probation system, that will not happen. I ask the
Minister to respond to the point about the value that local authorities
offer in the current probation system, and how that value will be
preserved.
Education
and training are equally important, but half of all prisoners do not
have the skills required by 96 per cent. of all jobs. Although the
Learning and Skills Council now funds all post-16 education, except for
university education, local authorities still contribute considerable
amounts to adult education, and most of them deliver a wide spectrum of
adult education services under contract to local learning and skills
councils.
To
establish what education service provision is needed in each local
authority area, information about offenders is necessary. Again, the
importance of involving local authorities in the sharing of that
information is paramount, if rehabilitation is to happen effectively
and reoffending rates are to fall.
The situation regarding
education is mirrored by that regarding employment. Two thirds of
people enter prison without jobs, and two in three of those with a job
lose it—again, not surprisingly—when they enter prison.
Local authorities need to establish what employment advice they can
offer to offenders, for whom such help is most needed. Without being
integrated into the probation system, local authorities will struggle
to provide that advice to the level thatwe would all desire.
Unless the vital sharing of
information that is outlined in clause 10 is extended to local
authorities, their services cannot be targeted and effectively planned
to include the numbers and needs of offenders. Local authorities also play an
important role in local strategic partnerships, often acting as the
central point for other organisations to become involved. Although
voluntary groups, where they act as probation providers, and the
police, who are often included in these strategic partnerships, are
included in the list in clause 10, local authorities are not. There
seems to be no reason for their exclusion and I would like the Minister
to address that issue, and reassure us that it is not the intention for
local councils to be
excluded.
If local authority
representatives will not included on the list of those organisations
that can share information on offenders, as outlined in clause 10, how
can the system ensure that information about offenders is passed on to
local authorities to ensure that the services that local authorities
provide are properly planned to create the provision needed in each
local
area?
2.45
pm
Mr.
Sutcliffe:
Once again, I find that I have a lot of
sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. As he has said, the amendment would
add representatives of local authorities to the list of persons among
whom information can be shared for the purposes specified in the Bill.
Local authority representatives typically need information about
offenders for whom they are providing housing or to carry out social
service department responsibilities—as he has said, there are
also other reasons. However, that need differs substantially in terms
of the quantity and nature of the data required from the needs of those
listed in subsection (2), whose core business is the day-to-day
management of
offenders.
The
intention behind clause 10 is to put beyond doubt for the main parties
involved in managing offenders with whom and for what purposes data can
be shared. The amendment raises the question whether adding
representatives of local authorities to the list would be valuable, or
whether it would confuse and distort that intention. The clause
includes provision to meet any future need by including additional
parties such as local authority officers. Subsection (2)(g) allows the
Secretary of State to lay regulations before the House specifying
additional persons to be included in the list. It would not be sensible
to include other organisations at this stage on the basis that they
might need to be included in future.
We recognise the unique
position of local authorities and their responsibilities in offender
management. In particular, they have the established and important role
under the multi-agency public protection arrangements of the proper
consideration of housing and the safeguarding of vulnerable groups.
That role might make it sensible to include local authorities in the
Bill. However, we are concerned that a reference to
“representatives of local authorities” would be too vague
and that the ambiguity would have unintended and unhelpful
consequences. I nevertheless believe that the amendment and the hon.
Gentleman’s points merit further consideration. I undertake to
reconsider the
matter and to return on Report with a considered view. With that offer,
I hope that he will withdraw the
amendment.
Mark
Hunter:
I am grateful to the Minister forhis
considered response to my argument. He has graciously undertaken to
consider the sentiment behind the amendment and said that he
understands my point and has sympathy with it. I look forward to the
Government’s proposals. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Mr.
Garnier:
I beg to move amendment No. 19, in
clause 10, page 6, line 41, after
‘information’, insert
‘of a nature that the Secretary of
State shall by regulation
define’.
By
means of this amendment, I intend to extract from the Government more
clarity on the sort of information that they intend to be shared by the
persons listed in subsection (2). Subsection (3)(b) states that
disclosure of information to those listed can take place only if it
is
“necessary or
expedient for any of the purposes mentioned in subsection
(4).”
We are familiar
with those purposes, except that subsection (4)(c) adds information
for
“any other purposes
connected with the management of offenders (including the development
or assessment of policies relating to matters connected with the
management of
offenders).”
That is
delightfully vague and suggests that greater explanation than can be
gained by reading the Bill is appropriate. Until we see the model
contract, which I mentioned in the previous discussion but one, and the
various as yet undrafted regulations behind the Bill, with which the
Home Secretary is going to come forward, the public and those who take
an interest in this aspect of public policy are in something of a
difficult area.
If
the provision of information is, on the Minister’s say-so, going
to be reasonably clear and to a purpose, what will happen with the
unlawful or unauthorised disclosure of information? Will that be a
matter of contractual discipline, administrative discipline or criminal
penalties? If, for example, a private operator or charitable body which
can hold information—such a body would come under the
heading
“any other
person specified or described in regulations made by the Secretary of
State”—
were
guilty of disclosing information, whether wittingly or not, to an
unauthorised person, what would happen? We are dealing with sensitive
information, which concerns not only the offenders themselves, but
possibly their
victims.
If
information about the victims of serious sexual offenders were to get
into the wrong hands—I hope that the probation service rather
than a non-state operator will look after serious sexual offenders,
particularly post-custody—it could have the most appalling
consequences for the victim and their family. We need to be reassured
that the Secretary of Statewill have the machinery to deter
and deal with
unauthorised disclosure. I do not think—the National Association
of Probation Officers has made this point—that the private
sector is incapable of respecting people’s confidence, and I do
not think that the private sector is bound to release information
improperly to people outside the list in subsection (2). However, we
need to be reassured that in the event that something goes wrong, or is
likely to go wrong, the Government have thought through what needs to
be done. It is not
strictly germane to the Bill, but over the past few days we have heard
remarks made by the Home Secretary about pulling together various
Government databases in the context of the future of the national
identity register. I will not have an argument now about whether it is
a good or bad thing to have a national identity register—my
views are pretty clear—but there seems to be some doubt about
how the register will be constructed. Will it involve one great
Government computer, or will it be lots of little computers with
bridges between them so that information about subject A can be moved
from computer B, and so on? I need to know whether the information that
we are talking about, which will presumably be accumulated for offender
management purposes, will go on to the national identity register,
where it will be accessible by all sorts of other people, and whether
penalties of one sort or another will be imposed if such information is
misused or improperly disclosed.
On subsection (3)(b), we also
need to know who will decide when and whether the disclosure of
information is “necessary or expedient”. Will it be the
Secretary of State, the non-state operator or a combination of their
various officers and employees, or will a decision emerge in some
haphazard way? Who will decide what “any other purposes”
are in relation to the disclosure of information connected with the
management of
offenders?
I
appreciate that subsection (6) says that the existing restrictions on
the unlawful or improper disclosure of information are not affected by
the Bill. However, as we have seen in the case of amendment No. 34,
which was tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, all sorts of
things happened which were not contemplated by the drafters of the
Private Security Industry Act 2001. Just as that Act did not
contemplate private managers of bail hostels, in constructing this
Bill, we must think forward to see whether there are areas of concern
that could slip through undiscussed or
unconsidered.
I am
somewhat concerned to notice that under subsection (7)
“the Secretary of State may by
order amend or repeal any provision mentioned in subsection (6)(b)
which is contained in an
enactment”.
An enactment
is a piece of secondary legislation. We are allowing an accumulation of
deeply sensitive information about individuals, be they offenders,
victims or, possibly, witnesses. Under the Bill, the information can be
disclosed to authorised recipients only, but we are providing within
that permission vague descriptions of what is necessary or expedient
and vague descriptions of “any other purposes”. We are
giving the Secretary of State the power to amend protective
legislation, albeit secondary legislation, without any of us at this
moment knowing what is envisaged. While I do not suggest that this
discussion
should lead to a vote, I am interested in achieving clarity in
legislation, particularly in a Bill of this
nature.
Mr.
Sutcliffe:
I do not accept the hon. and learned
Gentleman’s charge that the Government have been vague. The
situation is quite the reverse, and I shall try to reassure him,
although that is sometimes difficult. I do not dismiss what he has said
about looking at this in terms of what the future may hold. This is not
an attempt to create wide-ranging, dramatic new powers on sharing
offender information. We hope that the provision will put beyond doubt
how criminal justice organisations should share information with each
other about offenders in order to ensure their effective management and
to inform research into improving policies and outcomes for offender
management.
The aim of
the clause is to provide a clear structure in which effective
information sharing can take place on a flexible but principled basis,
subject to equally clear limitations on who can share the data and for
what purpose. The sort of data that we envisage will be disclosed under
this power can already legally be shared in accordance with the Data
Protection Act 1998 and other safeguards, such as article 8 of
the European convention on human rights. The clause does not disapply
or in any way modify those
safeguards.
It was
precisely because of our desire to be absolutely transparent about what
data can be shared and to ensure that this information is shared as it
should be in practice that we think it desirable to create a power to
share data on the face of the Bill. By doing so, we hope to provide the
most effective service to the offender, to services to facilitate the
rehabilitation of offenders and to the public for their protection. We
hope to do so by sharing the data for both operational and research
purposes.
On an
operational level, clause 10 clarifies that different prison operators
can inform one another of the security information when a prisoner is
transferred from one company’s jail to another. A provider of
probation services can pass on a risk assessment to a local authority
housing provider, where that is appropriate. The clause also enables
data to be matched for the purposes of research, thereby enabling the
Government to evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions with
offenders to see whether they are successful and whether they represent
value for money for the
taxpayer.
For
example, clause 10 makes it clear that the constituent elements of NOMS
can exchange their data with other Departments, subject to the need to
comply with other statutory limitations that might apply to the
specific type of data that is proposed to be
exchanged.
3
pm
In respect of
the operational and research aims, the limitation in the clause on
exchanging data only for offender management purposes will operate in
practice as a limitation on the type of data that can be exchanged. If
data cannot be disclosed for an offender management purpose, they
cannot be disclosed under the clause. The amendment seeks to address
anxiety
about unnecessarily widespread and permissive data sharing, but that is
dealt with by the clause as drafted. Although I understand the concern
that underscores the hon. and learned Gentleman’s amendment,
accepting it would undermine the purpose of clause 10, which is to
provide absolute clarity about the information that may be shared
within the close circle of organisations managing
offenders. For the
reasons I have given, amendment No. 19, which requires the Secretary of
State to define the nature of information to be shared in discrete
regulations, would add little, if anything, to the safeguard
established by clause 10(4), which sets out the purposes for which
information can be shared. The amendment would make the clause far less
useful than it is intended to be, and it would create unnecessary work
for Departments, the House of Commons and the other place, because it
would require potentially frequent additions to a
list.
The definition
of the purpose for which information can be shared, and hence its
nature in subsection (4), is necessarily broad. It covers existing
information-sharing powers and puts beyond peradventure the ability of
criminal justice agencies to share information with each other when
appropriate and only when
appropriate.
To
require the Secretary of State to include in secondary legislation
every piece of information thathe might wish to share would
mean anticipating, identifying and defining all types of information,
which is a near impossible task. It would render the clause
unnecessarily unwieldy and would create unintended new restrictions in
data sharing by failing to state every conceivable purpose and type of
information that organisations already share or that complies with
existing legal permissions. Furthermore, it would risk overlooking
unforeseen or unusual types of information that it might be necessary
to disclose in cases in which public protection might otherwise be
undermined if disclosures were not to take place. In such a case, if
the type of data in question were not included in secondary
legislation, it would not be possible to disclose it. Such
inflexibility is not acceptable and would undermine the purposes that
NOMS was established to achieve and with which the clause is intended
to assist. The hon. and learned Gentleman’s amendment is in
direct contrast to what we want to achieve and the purpose of the
clause and the Bill, which is to enable the more effective management
of offenders and the removal of doubt about what information can be
legally shared and with whom.
I may not have completely
satisfied the hon. and learned Gentleman, as he has asked who will be
responsible for making decisions. That responsibility rests with the
party that may want to exchange information. Obviously, if the
Secretary of State can be helpful in those circumstances, he will want
to assist, although he will not be directly involved. The remedies for
unlawful disclosure will be regulated by the Data Protection Act 1998
and the European convention on human rights, and it is not a criminal
offence.
The
safeguards are in place. We are trying to be transparent in respect of
this clause—the information is there, and the provision is not
vague and sets out clearly what we want to achieve. I think that the
hon.
and learned Gentleman has accepted that his amendment may not
necessarily be the route to take, although he may want to return to the
subject. I hope that he will ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Mr.
Garnier:
So much legislation pours out of the Home Office
that Ministers must have their responses written for them before
debates. It is a pleasure to listen to the Minister, but the points
that I made were not taken on board by the anticipatory speech that was
drafted for him, which is a function of life in the Home Office. The
Minister said that on the one hand my amendment is too vague, and on
the other it is too prescriptive. That was clever of me.
As I said in my opening
remarks, I will not press the amendment to a Division, but we should
not lightly pass over the way in which information is exchanged in such
delicate matters. If, between now and Report, the Minister and his
officials can come up with some ideas after meetings with the
Information Commissioner and others—the Minister has mentioned
the Data Protection Act 1998—the House will benefit from his
further research. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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