Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
533-555)
Graham Bartlett, Lisa Dando, Jason Mahoney and Claire
Brown JP
24 May 2011
Q533 Chairman:
I welcome Chief Superintendent Bartlett, Divisional Commander
of Brighton and Hove Division; Miss Dando, who is the Director
of Brighton Women's Centre; Mr Mahoney, who is the Substance Misuse
Commissioner for the Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust; and
Claire Brown, who is a Magistrate and indeed, Chair of the Sussex
Central Bench. We are very grateful to you. We are going to have
to move a little bit more briskly because our witnesses had so
much to tell us; we're going over rather the same ground, which
I hope to hear from your perspective. Please resume your seat.
Q534 Jeremy Corbyn:
What do you regard as the probation service's greatest strengths
and what do you see as its big shortcomings? Anybody?
Graham Bartlett:
I think locally, one of the key strengths within the probation
service is its willingness to participate very actively within
partnerships. Leighe Rogers, who sat in this chair earlier on,
is a full and active member of the community safety partnership.
She also represents that partnership on the local strategic partnership,
so speaks on behalf of community safety to the wider partnership
of Brighton and Hove. We have a very strong track record of working
with the probation service in terms of prolific and priority offenders
and other more discreet projects and I think that's a real testament
to their understanding of the issues locally, their understanding
of the drivers behind criminality and their willingness to work
with others to try and intervene. So some early examples of that
would have been the domestic abusers' programme that they ran
for men that's been going on for a number of years now, leading
right up to Integrated Offender Management and some of the work
we're doing around coordinating our services, collocating our
services with probation around the multiagency public protection
arrangements.
Q535 Jeremy Corbyn:
On an entirely practical level, if you, as a police service, arrest
somebody for an offence and you presumably fairly quickly discover
they are on probation for something else, how quickly do you and
can you involve the probation service, or do you just proceed
with arrest, charge, prosecution in the normal way?
Graham Bartlett:
We have four officers in three and a half posts working within
the probation service on the Integrated Offender Management programme
and they have full access to all of our systems within the probation
office, so we have that direct and systemised link in there. So
we can either do it directly with the probation officers ourselves,
or more often, we will do it through our own embedded officers.
Q536 Jeremy Corbyn:
And do you, or any of you really, what do you feel about the understanding
of what an offender management programme means, because it's
a word that is very quickly bandied around and I suspect different
agencies have their own interpretation of what it means? How do
you see it—any of you or all of you?
Graham Bartlett:
I'm happy to give my interpretation. I don't think we're in a
position where we have a true, common understanding right the
way across the police service and possibly across the partnerships
either, but I think, at a specialist level, we understand it to
be a programme whereby the different agencies within the partnership
take responsibility for the bits that they can affect and bring
that together into one overall programme. I think that's better
understood and more refined at a specialist level, so with our
public protection officers and our embedded Integrated Offender
Management officers and partnerships working within those collocated
units, but I think wider we have some work to do.
Lisa Dando: Yes;
I can speak on behalf of the Inspire Project. I think that we
have a good understanding and a lot of clarity around offender
management locally. We're very engaged in strategic groups who
sit on a reducing reoffending board. The workers within the Inspire
Project, which is a voluntary sector organisation supporting offenders
delivering community orders, work very closely with offender managers
and I think anything that's in relation to the probation trust
locally is that there's a sort of shared responsibility across
the partnership for the management of offenders. There is a recognition
that we come from a very women-specific way of working. We do
have knowledge and skills around the specific needs of women and
that responsibility does get devolved to us to ensure that we
have the right kind of support and provision and programmes in
place for those women.
Claire Brown: I
think as far as the courts are concerned that our main link is
with probation and the way that we do that is that we have a specific
committee of some of our colleagues who work closely with probation
to know what is available as far as sentencing is concerned and,
therefore, to get more information behind that as far as what
options are available. We have different presentations through
probation to be able to see some of these options that are available
to the courts. So that, I would say, is the way that we link up
in knowing what is out there to hopefully address some of the
problems of the people we see in court.
Jason Mahoney:
For substance misusers in East Sussex where I'm a commissioner.
I'd say the clearest links are through Integrated Offender Management
arrangements, so we have very close working between the substance
misuse services and the probation officers there, which enables
offenders who are misusing substances, who will benefit from treatment
to get access to that treatment very quickly and people who stop
and go out of treatment and go back into offending, are able to
be brought back into the Integrated Offender Management arrangements
and then back into treatment or into contact with the police quicker
than they would otherwise have done. They are also linked out
of prison as well, very effectively with the Integrated Offender
Management particularly for substance misusers who tend to get
short sentences and wouldn't necessarily get a statutory provision
and then Integrated Offender Managements are brought into the
arrangements and they get that kind of level of supervision. So
they get picked up and brought back to treatment quite quickly.
Q537 Jeremy Corbyn:
Lastly from me, do you think that the existing systems of risk
management are sufficiently robust or do they need to be strengthened
in some way? I would be interested, for example, if on the bench
you feel they work effectively and do you feel the need sometimes
to give advice on this, or do you just take it from the probation
service and then make your judgements on that basis?
Claire Brown: Initially,
having looked at—we do it based on a report from probation
and that report is following the bench giving their views of what
they think will be the right options for the person that we are
dealing with based on the background of the individual and also
the offence that's been committed. We then rely on probation to
feed back a report to us, but it is still the bench's final say
as to what they are going to give as a sentence and we, through
the Probation Liaison Committee, have these very good links with
the probation service and, as I say, have regular meetings with
them. They come to bench-wide meetings, so it's not just a small
committee, but also when we have those opportunities, they often
bring along some of the other agencies or partners to be able
to explain in further depth what some of these options will be
because as new ones get introduced, rightly we need to have a
bit more information to know what it is we are sentencing that
person to do.
Q538 Jeremy Corbyn:
Any other views on this question?
Lisa Dando: Other
views on risk management specifically? Again from a women-specific
point of view, I think that risk management does need to be taken
very seriously and I think, as another panel member has already
said, accord is really important—that those presentence
reports do involve consultation with a specialist worker so that
risk can be addressed and particularly for women who have experienced
domestic violence that that is considered in terms of sentencing
and the type of provision that is put into place for that woman.
Sometimes I think that with high risk offenders, it can be quite
difficult if they are given a referral to a particular project
for a community order; the risk can be great. There needs to be,
I think, an opportunity for professionals to discuss how that
risk is going to be shared and who takes ultimate responsibility
for it. Again, I think that's something that probation does do
very well. We feel quite strongly that they hold the risk of offenders
and if there is an issue, we can liaise with them very easily
to ensure that the right sort of framework is put around that
offender. They have very good links with safeguarding panels and
boards; we benefit from that.
Sometimes I think there's an interesting development,
going back to what was being said earlier on about the journey,
in terms of the culture between the public sector and voluntary
sector, there is a different culture around issues but on safeguarding,
thresholds can be quite different around that and I think some
of the challenges, but also some of the benefits of working in
partnership, is that there's that shared expertise, that shared
knowledge that there needs to be an acknowledgement that these
cultures do exist and we have some way to go to ensure that pathway
through that is quite smooth.
Graham Bartlett:
I'd agree with Lisa about the culture. I think we have a fantastic
opportunity with the police and reoffending board and we have
a truly multiagency governance body around Integrated Offender
Management and other areas and I think we are now moving into
a time where we can afford to trust each other more in terms of
information sharing and in terms of commissioning. We have a hugely
vibrant community voluntary sector in Brighton and Hove with a
wealth of experience around delivering services to some quite
vulnerable and challenging people and we need to capitalise on
that and in terms of working together, what underpins that is
information sharing and I think we need to explore as far as we
can go in terms of providing the right information at the right
time to the right people.
The second point also is having a common understanding
of language. You know, what do we mean by risk? Are we all talking
about the same thing when we're saying a particular individual
or a particular group are high risk, because practice has shown,
certainly in my experience, that's not always the case and we're
talking different languages.
Q539 Elizabeth Truss:
Thank you. I am interested in understanding the impacts this partnership
working is having on the ground. So amongst the pool of offenders
and potential offenders, do you notice a change in the way that
they view what they have done, the probation service? Is there
a change in outcome in terms of reoffending rates as far as you
can see?
Graham Bartlett:
We have some real benefits in Brighton and Hove because most of
the agencies work in coterminous ways, so it's really useful to
be able to build up those relationships and certainly in relation
to the prolific and priority offender offending rates that other
people spoke about earlier on, the 48% reduction in offending
is the highest in the trust area and I think that's testament
to the way in which the partnership on the ground works. We've
had police officers working within probation for at least six
years to my knowledge on the PPO scheme, so a real joined up approach
in terms of intervening and supervising within the higher risk
offenders. We've run an operation around the drugs market in Brighton
and Hove, which we do with the voluntary sector, with the council
and with probation that's had a huge impact on the drugs market
in terms of getting people off drugs and into treatment and also
dealing with the offenders. I put that as a real driver towards
why Brighton and Hove doesn't have a violent drugs culture. I
think the partnership within Brighton and Hove has generated such
a reputation within the higher-offending drug-addicted people
who either live or visit here, that drugs markets have never been
able to really cast their roots down. We have a high drugs death
rate; we know that but our total crime rate over the last five
years has gone down by some 26% and about a 23% reduction in acquisitive
crime, which is the crime that's often caused as a result of people
trying to get money for drugs. Now that, for me, is as a result
of the partnership working between all of the agencies including
probation in identifying suitable interventions that work for
people and also, on our side, targeting the people that are dealing
drugs.
Q540 Chairman:
Just to get that clear, are you saying that you have fewer people
dependent on drugs and committing acquisitive crimes, or that
you have just as many people dependent on drugs but you're somehow
persuaded them not to commit acquisitive crimes?
Graham Bartlett:
I don't know how many people we have dependent on drugs but what
I know is that the reduction in acquisitive crimes is about 23%
over five years, which is the period over which we've run our
coordinated strategy towards the drugs market, but also, more
notably, we don't have a drugs culture—sorry, a gang culture
around drugs. We don't have a violent drugs market down here and
I think that's because we have this twin track strategy that gives
the drug-addicted criminals the opportunity to go into bespoke
treatment places, so getting them off drugs and into a life drug-free.
At the same time, we run a rolling programme of targeting drug
dealers, so we don't allow the drugs market to settle. Our drugs
death problem is recognised across the city and indeed nationally
and it's one of our intelligent commissioning pilots looking at
how we can reduce the drugs deaths in Brighton and Hove. In terms
of the drugs market in a city like Brighton and Hove, we've managed
to prevent the roots being laid down.
Q541 Elizabeth Truss:
Can I ask about the reaction of offenders to the way that things
are being done now and how the attitude of offenders or potential
reoffenders has changed? I am also interested to hear about women
offenders in particular. You mentioned in your answer about how
they have different characteristics or are best dealt with in
different ways; I would just like to understand a bit more about
how that is and also how women offenders have reacted to the new
partnership working style.
Graham Bartlett:
Certainly. The offenders that we deal with have a generally good
compliance rate; 96% of our prolific and priority offenders who
are deemed to have a need are in treatment and are engaging with
treatment, so I think that's a very good indication that there
is a driver there. We heard about a 75% completion rate on orders
and I think that's another story, but because of the dedicated
officers and staff from probation and other agencies that we have
working, there's a relationship that's built up between them and
the offenders and it's by no way a cosy relationship. One could
argue it's almost a carrot and stick relationship—there
is an opportunity for people to comply, there's an opportunity
for people to seek the interventions that they need to move them
off a criminal lifestyle, but the consequences of not having that
are that the police often have powers. Now, with an Integrated
Offender Management, these are non-statutory offenders, so there's
not the threat of licence recall or order breach, but if the people
are aware that the police know who they are and know what their
drivers are to commit crime, then it gives them the knowledge
that we're in a position to do something about it should they
not be willing to engage with other agencies. The preferred option
is to win over their willingness and we have a tremendous success
around that, but some people just don't take the message and need
to be dealt with in more conventional ways.
Lisa Dando: In
terms of the specific needs of women offenders, I think we can
acknowledge that traditionally there are seven pathways of offending
and with women, as a result of the Corston Recommendations, that
was expanded to nine pathways to include domestic violence, sexual
violence and also sex work and to take into account the impact
on intergenerational crime, which I think is something that we
take very seriously. There's a reason why specific types of support
need to be put in place for women because of the extrapolation
from women committing crime and how that then translates across
their families. So although the Inspire Project locally has only
been operational for a year and we haven't come up with any sort
of statistics or figures around a reduction in reoffending, we're
working very closely with our probation colleagues to identify
that and put appropriate monitoring and evidence-based frameworks
in place to gather that information. What we do know anecdotally
from talking to the women that come to the project is that they
don't reoffend as a result of the support that they get. They
feel that with the intensive casework support where assessments
are made right at the initial point of contact, and a support
plan is worked up at that moment and then reviewed periodically,
their needs are attended to in terms of their priority and how
important it is to address the initial needs such as accommodation
and finance problems and then going on to the more long-term underlying
needs around mental health and, in a lot of cases, domestic violence
and substance misuse. So by putting that intensive support in
place and really building a trusting relationship between the
worker and the woman offender, she then goes on to feel that she
is supported, she can address the reasons for why she's been led
to that place of offending, so there's a different approach being
taken locally and nationally as a result of the Corston Recommendations,
which seems to be working very well. Some of the national projects
have had evaluations done and their success rate of reducing reoffending
has been stated.
Q542 Elizabeth Truss:
I can understand the logic behind this intensive focus on what
works, but does that impact on justice being seen to be done,
so things that might work may not, in the eyes of the victim or
the wider community, necessarily be the right approach? Do you
think there is a conflict?
Claire Brown: Sorry;
do you mean with the sentences that are given out?
Q543 Elizabeth Truss:
Efficacious versus those that the public would want to see.
Claire Brown: I
think the main result, particularly from the drug perspective,
is that we have a designated court that deals with the drug rehabilitation
side and we review these people each month and I think there are
some very good messages that go out from that. Again, how much
that's publicised depends on the focus of the court but our attitude
is very much that when they come back on a monthly basis, there
is a thorough challenge of the report that's before us to see
how the person is doing and also just looking into, I suppose,
projecting if they're likely to be coming back through the system
again. Predominantly the problems are lack of accommodation; when
they get themselves clear, where do they go to then stay away
from the people that will influence them to go back into it?
Q544 Chairman:
Is there public awareness that this is going on and, therefore,
a degree of approval of the way that the courts are handling it
because of that awareness?
Claire Brown: I
think it's becoming more known that the court is following up
where there are the drug problems. As you say, how much Joe Public
will know about the interventions of the courts post-sentence,
that will be something very much to promote because it is a monthly
review where the people have to come back and explain themselves.
It is getting it out to the wider audience.
Jason Mahoney:
I imagine what people would like to see is fewer offences and
certainly in terms of the partnership working between treatment
services and the provision of drug treatment providers, that partnership
means we can really shape services around what people's needs
are, so there are issues about housing, there are issues about
employment beyond the psychological or treatment interventions
that people might need to manage their drug misuse problems. One
of the things Mr Evans mentioned earlier on was the expense of
seeing people coming back through the system and certainly I think,
I've been involved in this, I've worked for many years now, there
are many people that do come round the system, but increasingly
fewer. The police are seeing increasingly fewer people staying
in treatment, going to prison, coming back out into the community.
We are seeing a large increase of people for whom treatment is
working, who are leaving treatments in a planned way, having resolved
their housing and employment issues and having received the kind
of support they need. That partnership between probation and other
providers is absolutely critical to making that happen and to
help shape the services in the way that is appropriate and help
to bring people into treatment as soon as possible in their own
drug-using career, if you like.
Q545 Ben Gummer:
Can I return to Payments by Results, please? Can I ask, first
of all, Miss Brown, about sentencing? I think it's often where
to look is really your first part of the commissioning journey
and I wonder, if we have managed to get to a stage where Payment
by Results is fully integrated into rehabilitation, if you can
see what role magistrates might play in that first commissioning
instance in deciding what kind of punishment, what kind of rehabilitation
will be meted out to offenders.
Claire Brown: I
think the main role for us is looking into the—the person
comes before us. They either admit or are found guilty of the
offence, which is the one that we are looking at. We then, if
it is a community penalty, decide what we think is the right direction
that we want probation to look at. It doesn't totally eliminate.
It might eliminate that we don't think custody is the right option
and that it is a community base, but then we are interested in
what probation have to say to us but I think one of the factors
that we need to keep in mind is how long we're anticipating the
sentence needs to be to be realistic for the different aspects,
the different activities that we're going to impose because there
is no point in trying to achieve something if the timescale isn't
right. So I think from that, it's very important that we take
into account the recommendations of probation so long as it's
targeting the aspects that we feel the person needs to be addressing.
Q546 Ben Gummer:
Is it not a common problem for probation officers that introducing
a pre-sentence report quickly and with little knowledge of an
offender, and a first offence especially, then after six months,
they realise there is a whole host of other problems that are
influencing their offending behaviour? In a good PbR contract,
they will be able to adapt what they do to be able to make sure
that they achieve the outcome that is required, and that might
be different from the sentence that was passed on the back of
a presentence report. I wonder whether that means that magistrates
are being left with far more open sentencing, and far more discretion
is given to providers. There might be a tension, therefore, between
public protection, or at least the public expectations of public
protection, and the outcomes after the end of the sentence.
Claire Brown: If
it is a fairly minor offence and the person does not have a lot
of previous, then it's quite likely that we have a fast-track
report, which could be oral, and, as you say, it is a quick turnaround;
otherwise if we're asking for a presentence report, there
is a timescale that allows those interviews to take place and
for probation to assess which are the best options to take. So
I feel that, at the moment, those are the right ways of doing
it because the other thing that the magistrates don't necessarily
know is all the options that are available and we're seeking guidance
from people with that knowledge to give us a guide as to which
direction we should be aiming the sentence.
Q547 Ben Gummer:
Thank you very much. May I put the question that was put earlier
to the previous panel about integration of Payment by Results?
For instance, this money, you may well be overseeing in one guise
or another of Payment by Results along with healthcare, drug rehabilitation,
and possibly mental health. I would ask, Miss Dando, whether your
organisation might be involved in a similar model all of which
would come out of the same pot, or maybe different pots. How do
you see that relationship progressing and is it one that you're
looking forward to or slightly sceptical of?
Jason Mahoney:
I'm not sure that I'm looking forward to it. There are, I think,
six pilots nationally; Payment by Results, Drug Recovery pilots
and it'll be interesting to see how those work out and what ways
people find of resolving those kinds of challenges and concerns.
When I think about it, it's very clear that it's going to be very
difficult to ascribe improvements in a person's social environment,
housing, employment; all of which will impact upon their recovery
and to disaggregate those and apportion particular improvements
to one organisation or another and we're often talking about organisations
that are working very clearly in partnership. I don't have a clear
idea in my mind how that will work. I think very clearly we can
talk about Payment by Results or we can talk about an area, which
improves a person's outcomes by having organisations that work
jointly together, but I don't think it's possible to separate
them all out in the way that it's being talked about.
Lisa Dando: Yes,
I understand that the women's community projects nationally have
called for an opportunity to run a pilot as part of the Green
Paper's discussion around Payment by Results. I think it would
be quite an interesting pilot to analyse. I think a lot of the
anxieties have already come out this morning about what that might
look like. I think there will be a diverse understanding of what
results mean in terms of different providers and what outcomes
we want for offenders in terms of reducing reoffending, but in
relation to women, it's about ensuring that their needs are being
attended to and that offending is being reduced by leaving the
way clear that you're supporting a woman back into rehabilitation
into her community. I think those decisions around what we mean
by results are going to be quite a challenge. Also there's something
about how does the Payment by Results work in terms of who receives
that payment? If we're being asked to work in a way that is clearly
much more successful in terms of rehabilitating offenders, which
is about working in a partnership way with our colleagues in the
police service and probation and the council, at what stage, which
intervention is being paid for? Is there going to be a shared
payment across the partnership or is there something very specific
about the type of intervention that is then paid as a result of
working and what does that result mean? So I think, as people
have been saying, it's quite a complicated process and one that
is at the very beginning stages.
Q548 Ben Gummer:
May I ask one final question of Chief Superintendent Bartlett
about results? We heard some interesting evidence yesterday from
Martin Narey, who is the former Director General of NOMS, who
said more or less that reconviction and reoffending rates, as
currently mentioned, were pretty meaningless, and using a collection
of proxies to explain whether someone has been reformed or rehabilitated
was far more suitable. How do you feel in terms of public confidence?
What is the best way of explaining to the public that someone's
reoffending or offending behaviour has come to an end and they
are changed?
Graham Bartlett:
I think there are risks in wedding oneself to the reoffending
rate because there's a very simple way of manipulating that and
that's just not arresting a person and not bringing them before
the court, which is not something that we want to do for people
that are offending. I share the other comments about there often
being a basket of indicators that will help determine whether
or not a person's life has changed around, based around the seven
pathways. For me, the most prominent ones would be around dealing
with their substance misuse issues, being in stable employment,
stable housing; those sorts of things coupled with any known offending
that we, as a police service, are required to be picking up. I
think it's very difficult to use one particular measure and say
that's a success because I think that there are a range of complexities
that mean that one or other of those measures can be skewed in
different ways. I think it's a very complex area and I think we
need to be careful not to simplify it by saying, "Well, actually,
if we sort this bit out, then that's then on a crime-free life".
I think we need to take a better look across all of the seven
pathways plus the two that Lisa's talked about in how they are
doing in relation to those. Now, that might not be easy to measure
but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do the work because that
will give us the whole picture rather than just picking off something
that's convenient to measure at that particular time.
Q549 Chris Evans:
I want to focus on the capacity issue. We heard earlier about
living in the context of CPSs. How could the partnership approaches,
particularly in terms of offences—I am thinking now of women,
I am thinking of young adults—can be improved in the current
climate? Or can they be improved in the current climate, I should
say?
Lisa Dando: I think
again, as we've already heard this morning, the partnership working
has been embedded very well locally and there is an acknowledgement
of the wealth of skills and experience of different providers
in the city and I think a lot of work is done to ensure that people
take responsibility for a particular piece of work that they deliver
on. So, going back to what we were hearing earlier on about sentencing,
Inspire is given responsibility for an order and is accountable
for that offender during the period of time she's with the project
and the delivery of that order. When you're given that amount
of freedom and that amount of responsibility and you're accountable,
it reduces the issues around duplication and repetition of work,
which I think can often be the case, particularly in a culture
where we see a lot of silo mentality, of things being commissioned
very separately. I think part of what's happening locally, and
has been for a while, especially more recently with the development
of intelligent commissioning, is that bodies, agencies are being
brought together, and especially under IOM, to look at how that
shared delivery and shared responsibility will work.
It is, as we've heard again, a journey, but I think
it's something that has been working very well locally for a while.
I think if we can really get joint commissioning, intelligent
commissioning, embedded in, for example, in terms of women, we're
looking at the issues around domestic violence, mental health,
issues with caring for their families. The women that we're working
with have multiple complex needs. The ways in which we work with
them have to be dealt with in a very holistic, integrated way
and that means we work in partnership with other agencies. We
have to work in partnership with housing services, with mental
health providers and substance misuse providers. It's something
that is integral to the way in which we need to be addressing
these issues that are leading to people's offending.
Jason Mahoney:
I think when partnerships are working really well, it's often
about going further, doing more for less and about getting more
out of working jointly than any individual organisation could
by themselves. So things that really support strong partnership,
having a real understanding of what you're striving towards achieving
together and working jointly around that with a common aim, with
a common purpose. So I would say that in the context of CPSs,
that's an environment in which partnerships would expect to flourish
rather than having adverse impact. I think one of the things that
we have locally is very strong partnerships that then help to
kind of protect and work towards achieving shared aims, shared
outcomes—as long as people remain focused on what they can
do jointly together and that seems to work well.
Claire Brown: I
think the only thing I would add to that is that the courts and
magistrates need to be robust that when any of these sentences
are imposed and not completed and breached and brought back to
court, we need to listen very carefully to the reasons why that
has happened and decide, with some of the information that we're
given at that time, whether the services, probation who are particularly
in front of us giving us the report are saying that it is still
something that is worth pursuing or whether we need to rethink
about the sentence, which almost comes back to what we were saying
earlier, that we still have the right to revisit it at some point
if it hasn't worked.
Q550 Chris Evans:
What I'm interested in with the Government's desire to move away
from short sentences is do you think locally the partnerships
have the capacity to deal with the increased numbers of people
they will have to deal with when short sentences enter into the
equation?
Graham Bartlett:
I think we have to have the capacity to do it because short sentences
that don't work just increase the burden, so with the efficiencies
that we're now having to make, we have to find a partnership way
to break this cycle of offending. I was saying to some people
the other day that I now hear about the children of the people
that I used to deal with when I first started policing in the
city 22 years ago, and that's disappointing because it means something
isn't working there. We need to find a completely different approach
and I think through intelligent commissioning and through giving
the third sector the opportunity and the space to be able to work
with offenders, sometimes under the umbrella of a court order,
sometimes not, is our hope really of breaking the cycle because
if we're not able to break that cycle, then the demand on the
public sector and the communities will continue but the capacity
to meet that demand will diminish.
Q551 Chris Evans:
I was a bit concerned when you said "we have to have the
capacity". The question is do you have the capacity, and
if you don't, is there a way of driving up that capacity?
Graham Bartlett:
Sorry; maybe what I said was a bit ambiguous. We do have the capacity.
We have found the capacity to be able to deliver in a partnership
way. I spoke earlier about having the officers embedded within
probation. Previously they were funded externally; we have them.
We relooked at my budget and my resourcing to say, "Actually,
I believe this works so I'm going to dedicate this particular
resource to do that". That's against the backdrop of losing
some police officers and police staff during the year but the
freedoms and flexibilities that we have enable us to find the
capacity to deliver what works and to deliver it in a different
way. So when I said that we have to have the capacity, it wasn't
a negative comment; it was if ever now, then this is the time
to find that capacity.
Q552 Chris Evans:
Because time is short, I will finish with one last question. Are
there any examples you can give me where you have stopped using
voluntary organisations because of the present financial climate
during the last year?
Graham Bartlett:
I can't think of any off the top of my head. Certainly the work
that we do with the Inspire Project is absolutely critical around
giving women offenders a better chance to break that cycle. The
work we do with crime reduction initiatives who provide our drug
treatment services is absolutely critical in this reduction of
drug related crime and certainly with the intelligent commissioning
pilots, there's scope for more commissioning within the third
sector and I look forward to that, but I can't think of anywhere
we've decommissioned on the basis of finances.
Q553 Chairman:
Is there anybody else?
Claire Brown: I
suppose I could just be a bit tongue in cheek and say, as magistrates
are volunteers, is that our numbers are being reduced because
of courts changing and, therefore, one aspect is making sure that
we all do stay aware of all the facilities that are available
to us so as we don't lose the opportunities of making sure that
we're using the right options when we're trying to sentence people.
Q554 Chairman:
Just one final point which is that this area was one in which
there was a pilot mental health scheme. Just briefly, can you
tell us anything about your experience of that?
Claire Brown: Certainly
the bench was involved with the pilot scheme to begin with and
very much involved right from the beginning, which was very useful,
and one of our members was part of that group that were overseeing
it and I would say that the impression from the bench is that
it has been very positive. It means that we have a CPN in court
who is able to see people before they come into court, assess
whether there are problems or not, which certainly has saved a
lot of time because if someone or if the impression is that somebody
might have problems—this is where we were talking about
spending time, getting reports filled in, which might come back
saying, "There isn't an issue." By having that CPN in
the court, which we do at Brighton, it certainly means that we
can get on dealing with the person much more quickly and that
the relationship there is fantastic. So we fully support it.
Jason Mahoney:
If I may add, the pilot was very positively evaluated and as Leighe
Rogers mentioned earlier on, we're going to roll that out across
the whole of Sussex now. To those that need it, we're really looking
forward to having that service available to the courts in East
Sussex to successfully direct people into mental health services
at an earlier stage and to signpost people who are still to be
dealt with by the courts and signpost them to mental health services
in order to bring about their sentencing. It just means we can
get people to the right place with the right kind of support much
earlier because we're absolutely chokka block full of people with
mental health problems and this is an intervention that helps
to assist those people to be treated in the right way.
Q555 Chairman:
So having been piloted, it is now being embedded in the system?
Jason Mahoney:
It is being rolled out across East Sussex.
Chairman: Excellent. Thank you very much
to all our witnesses and I just reiterate again our thanks to
Brighton for letting us use their wonderful Council Chambers today.
It is very much appreciated. Thank you very much indeed.
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