Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 384)
TUESDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2008
IAN PORÉE
Q380 Chairman: The point I was going
to put to you is that on the basis of what you have said there
is significant untapped potential which would result from having
a more rational prison system and a more rational sentencing system.
Ian Porée: I do not think
there is evidence to say that actually if we had neat closed geographic
regions we would necessarily deliver a much better performance
because the implication then is that the closeness to home argument
is a fundamental driver of improvements in terms of reoffending.
Q381 Chairman: That was not the basis
of the argument; the basis of the argument was that you would
have a more rational movement of prisoners into appropriate other
facilities when they come out if you are working within a single
region.
Ian Porée: The notion if
it was a neat geographic region, you would then have to make sure
that you matched the provision of need for that group of individuals
for that particular region.
Q382 Mr Heath: Would that not be
a good idea?
Ian Porée: It would certainly
be a good idea but it is also a good idea to do that nationally
and the reality is that we deliver the amount of provision within
the resource envelope and there are more needs within the offender
group than there is provision to meet those needs. So currently,
even as a national system it is a rationing system delivering
the available intervention provision essentially to the person
who can benefit most from that provision. Clearly the priority
starts with public protection and then we get into reform. To
be accurate, we start with legislative requirements, then public
protection and then reform.
Q383 Mrs Riordan: The Framework also
states that Local Area Agreements will be the main delivery contract
between central government and the local government community,
including probation boards and trusts. However, separately negotiated
Service Level Agreements have been drawn up between regional commissioners
and the probation board/trusts. How have these negotiations between
regional commissioners and the probation boards and trusts and
the Government offices and local authorities worked together in
practice? And what happens when there is a conflict in the final
resource agreements?
Ian Porée: The reality
is that even at the moment, as you quite rightly say, those two
systems run more or less in parallel even though the individuals
on the ground clearly all work very closely with good relationships
and better relationships give you a better opportunity to rely
on the resource to achieve those outcomes. Within the Local Area
Agreements an example would be the reducing re-offending measure
only appeared on the prioritised list within Local Area Agreements
with a percentage of the local authorities around the country,
and you would find the same with the substance misuse or reduction
in drug measures, as you would with the alcohol admissions type
measures. Essentially what you find is that those local priorities
do not necessarily pick up all the same measures as you would
find within a standard set of NOMS performance measures. So we
still have two systems which have NOMS paying attention to its
overall priorities and measures, but essentially working in collaboration
with the local authorities and the Criminal Justice Boards. So
there is not a neat join-up where actually the two systems end
up with exactly the same set of performance measures. That boundary
is covered now through good, close partnership working and joint
representation on local boards and panels. But we do not have
a system now which neatly joins up the LAAs and the scorecard
effectively for a local delivery leader, either in probation or
in prison for that matter.
Q384 Alun Michael: You mentioned
that there are some places where they are tackling drug issues
and others where crime reduction is part of the set of objectives
set out by the local authority. Do those appear in those areas
which have those problems to the greatest, or not? Perhaps that
is something you could reflect on and let us have some comments
in writing.
Ian Porée: Yes.
Chairman: At which point you are going
to be joined, Mr Porée, by Mr Gamble of the Learning and
Skills Council and Mr Stewart who is the Director of the Centre
for Economic and Social Inclusion, as we broaden our scope.
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