Third supplementary memorandum submitted
by the Ministry of Justice
AVAILABILITY OF
DIFFERENT REQUIREMENTS
FOR COMMUNITY
ORDERS
We do not have an absolutely clear picture at
present, but the recent National Audit Office report on Community
Orders found that some community order requirements such as Alcohol
and Mental Health treatments were "not available or rarely
used in some of the 42 Probation Areas".
The actual use of requirements as detailed in their
report can be found in the attached Appendix.
There are two main reasons for these restrictions:
1. The Health Service is responsible for
delivering some of the requirements, such as Alcohol and Mental
Health Treatment, but services have not been established in many
areas at present. NOMS is in negotiation with Health to improve
the level of service. NOMS has also provided additional resources
to probation areas, to support the delivery of alcohol treatment
in particular and will make available an accredited programme
on alcohol treatment later this year.
2. Probation workloads have increased over
the past 12 months and some areas have taken decisions to restrict
delivery of some requirements for a temporary period in order
to manage resources effectively. The details of those restrictions
are outlined in Appendix B (not printed). To address this problem
NOMS has made available an additional £40 million of funding
for 2008-09.
The £40 million investment has been targeted
at facilitating the use of community orders rather than short
prison sentences, where deemed appropriate by the sentencing court.
It is supported by a national action plan which addresses a range
of issues, including seeking increases in the availability of
requirements for offenders subject to community orders, which
in turn is designed to improve the confidence that sentencers
can have in the Probation Service provision and delivery and in
community sentences.
Under the auspices of the national action plan,
there will also be a major mapping exercise to establish the involvement
of the Probation Service in partnerships with other organisations.
The project will examine the effectiveness of this involvement
and the potential for development with a particular emphasis on
accommodation and alcohol provision.
Probation Areas are involved in a wide range
of partnerships, some statutory, some closely linked to direct
service delivery through commissioning arrangements and some that
have evolved to facilitate co-ordinated working between agencies.
Effective partnership working is essential to ensure that offenders
are able to access, in a timely manner, appropriate services in
respect of housing, housing related support, drug and alcohol
treatment, employment, health, debt, etc.
The additional funding and the mapping exercise
will enable us to have a much more accurate picture of the availability
of requirements at the end of the 2008-09 and we also expect the
availability of provision to have increased.
INTEGRATED PROSECUTION
TEAM FUNDING
The London CJS Reform Programme is a significant
programme of change designed to deliver an efficient and effective
criminal justice service (CJS) that everyone has confidence in.
Key to this is ensuring greater joint working between CJS agencies
in London, and evidence that this is happening is visible at many
levels, from strategy development to resource-sharing. The Integrated
Prosecution Team (IPT) project is a key example of how agencies
are collaborating to deliver a new, highly integrated prosecution
process.
The aim of the Integrated Prosecution Team (IPT)
project is to reduce duplication and stream line the administrative
prosecution process. The police (MPS and City) will focus on pre-trial
and case build work with the CPS taking over the administrative
function post charge, the use of a single file is key to the new
process. Borough prosecution teams (CPS and police) will be co-located
at police stations with some CPS staff being based at court centres.
The MPS and CPS are taking a holistic approach
to the funding for this project, driven by the need to support
the transition to the new process and the realignment of responsibilities
between the two agencies. The approach takes account of where
the benefits fall, particularly in terms of staffing and lease
agreements. For example, the MPS is funding two CPS administrative
posts for each IPT for the first six months after they each Go
Live as the CPS will have to deal with outstanding MPS and CPS
actions on existing case files.
A joint economic case is being developed which
will confirm the projected costs and savings for IPT as a whole.
This will be an integrated assessment of CPS and MPS savings,
net of delivery costs.
EVIDENCE ON
EFFICIENCY SAVINGS
ASSOCIATED WITH
LARGER (TITAN)
PRISONS
The Carter Team reviewed the unit costs of various
size prisons: 1,000 places, 1,500 places, 2,000 places and up
to 2,500 places (the titan model). As you might expect there is
a fixed cost of "opening the shop" in any prison and
economies of scale determine that unit costs diminish as size
increases. The Carter team commissioned detailed staff profiling
at different size prisons to determine the level of resources
required and also consulted a number of private prison providers.
The Carter Team also held a workshop on the operational challenges
of Titan prisons with Prison Service Area Managers and selected
Prison Governors. This helped shape the staff requirements and
ultimately the anticipated operating costs. This detailed evidence
gathering demonstrated that "Titan" sized prisons were
between 20 to 25% less expensive to operate than the existing
core prison estate.
The Carter Team also undertook analysis of the construction
costs of new prisons and gained detailed costings from a number
of major prison building firms. This was also supported by the
internal NOMS analysis of construction costs. Again, considerable
savings were identified by building Titan sized prisons, relative
to building medium size prisons.
Using the above evidence the Titan Business
Case was developed by an exceptional management accountant with
experience of developing and appraising the business case for
billion pound construction programmes. This evidence and analysis
produced by the independent Lord Carter Review was then peer reviewed
by HM Treasury officials, Prime Minister's Delivery Unit and Ministry
of Justice officials.
As you will be aware, since Lord Carter published
his report the Ministry of Justice has been closely looking at
the prospect of taking forward the Titan proposal, has undertaken
site searches to identify suitable locations and launched the
public consultation exercise. This information will be fed into
further developing and appraising the Titan business case and
will provide a firmer fix on the costs, benefits and opportunities
of alternative measures. As this work is in progress, detailed
information is not currently available.
MORE DETAIL
ON ANNOUNCED
£1.2 BILLION FUNDING
The £1.2 billion additional funding announced
following the Carter report is for the CSR07 period. It does not
include funds related to Titans. HMT have exceptionally agreed
a provisional capital allocation for 2011-12 (in the next SR period)
of £230 million which includes funding for land acquisition
for Titan prisons.
The £1.2 billion Carter funding is additional
funding, not a loan, so it does not have to be repaid to the Treasury.
HMT is unlikely to allow spending on other purposes.
Any change in utilisation of the funding would
have to be agreed with the Treasury.
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
July 2008
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