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NHS: Health Reform

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My right honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Health has made the following Written Ministerial Statement today.

I have published this week Health reform in England: update and next steps. Copies have been placed in the Library. The document describes the framework for reform of the National Health Service in England, re-states the rationale for reform and explains how the reforms will be mutually reinforcing. It summarises the initiatives already announced and lays out a programme of further policy development for 2006.

It is the first in a series of publications building on the commitment in Creating a Patient-led NHS to explain how the whole reform programme fits together. It shows how the reforms offer a real opportunity to provide a better service to patients and the public, enabling the people working in the NHS to make the most of their skills and commitment.

Public Diplomacy

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): Last year, my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
 
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(Mr. Jack Straw) and the then Chief Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng) asked Lord Carter of Coles to assess the impact of publicly funded public diplomacy activities and to make recommendations. He delivered his report to us earlier in the week. I have placed copies of the report in the Libraries of both Houses.

The key recommendation is that main public diplomacy partners—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Council and BBC World Service—work more closely together in support of a new, operational Public Diplomacy Board. This board will be responsible for the development of a focused, three-to-five year strategy in support of the Government's medium to long term priorities for our public diplomacy effort overseas. The report includes recommendations for better evaluation of our public diplomacy activities, increased support for foreign press based in London, and for a further assessment of the role that television and new technologies can play in public diplomacy delivery. It also outlines the important role that the Department for International Development, Ministry of Defence, UK Trade and Investment, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the devolved Administrations and VisitBritain have to play in broadening the scope of our public diplomacy while acknowledging that the scope of their involvement is, at present, different in degree from that of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the BBC World Service and the British Council.

I welcome Lord Carter of Coles' findings and propose to begin discussions immediately with our public diplomacy partners, particularly the British Council and the BBC World Service, on how best to implement his recommendations.

Reoffending

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Adonis): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Ruth Kelly) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I am today, with my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, presenting to the House a document setting out our strategy to help reduce reoffending through improved skills and employment opportunities for offenders.

The Government will publish in the New Year a five-year strategy for reducing reoffending and protecting the public. This will emphasise the importance of punishment and deterrence in preventing offending. But it will also recognise the need to deal with the range of factors which lead some offenders into a cycle of repeat offending. This cycle carries a considerable cost to the Exchequer: a reoffending former prisoner costs the criminal justice system an average of £65,000 up to the point of re-imprisonment and £37,500 each year in prison. On top of this, there are often unquantifiable costs to the victims of crime and their communities.
 
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An important part of the government strategy is a concerted drive to transform the skills and employment prospects of offenders. The challenge is stark. A majority of offenders have poor skills, with more than half having no qualifications at all. Nearly half have experienced exclusion from school. Two-thirds were unemployed before prison.

Evidence suggests that employment and a reduction in reoffending are linked, and that stability and quality of employment are key factors. Accordingly, there is a strong case, as part of our wider strategy, for seeking to get more offenders into jobs, and to raise their skill levels in order to improve their chances of becoming more productive and successful in employment, to the benefit of individuals, their families, and the wider society that would be damaged by continued offending.

A great deal of progress has been made in recent years. Increased investment has raised the capacity of the prison education service, and improved basic skills training for offenders in the community. Achievement of qualifications in literacy, language and numeracy has more than doubled since 2001. Prisons are subject to the same demanding standards of external inspection as other education providers, and this is driving up quality. Jobcentre Plus offers employment and training advice to offenders in prisons and, with the help of additional Prison Service investment, in 2004-05 there were more than 41,000 cases in which an offender leaving prison went directly into employment, training or education.

But there is more to do. Inspection evidence tells us that the quality of learning and skills in prisons is still too often inadequate, and unresponsive to individual needs. We need more coherence in assessment, planning and continuity between different settings; for example, when prisoners are moved at short notice, or released into the community. We also need to do better in engaging and motivating particular groups of offenders to improve their skills. Opportunities for education and training must lead to skills and qualifications that are meaningful for employers and to real job opportunities.

We intend to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the sentencing reforms of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which make rehabilitation one of the statutory purposes of sentence, together with the creation of the National Offender Management Service, to build a new approach. The strategy is set out in the document, Reducing Re-offending Through Skills and Employment.

The document sets out the case for action and outlines a radical vision to make a step change in four main areas: to focus strongly on jobs for offenders, with employers driving the design and delivery of programmes, and new approaches to get offenders into work; to ensure that training providers and colleges are better able to provide the skills offenders need to get a job; to promote a new emphasis on skills and jobs for offenders across prisons and probation
 
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services; and to motivate and engage offenders, through a new 'employability contract', with a strong emphasis on rights and responsibilities.

Some action can begin at once. In other areas we propose to test new approaches in order to make the best use of the resources and capacity within the system. We look forward to the widest possible debate—with employers, with the learning and skills sector, and with colleagues working in prisons, probation and in jobcentres.

This may in the past have been an area of education and training that has had a low profile. Along with my right honourable friends, I am determined that we should set a new ambition: to provide more offenders with the tools and motivation to turn away from crime and become employable and productive members of society.

Road Safety Cameras

Lord Davies of Oldham: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Alistair Darling) has made the following Ministerial Statement.

I am today publishing an independent research report which confirms the effectiveness of the national safety camera programme over the four years from April 2000 to March 2004. I am also announcing changes which will end the current ring-fencing of funding for safety cameras, and will give much more local flexibility and accountability, both on funding and in other respects, to local authorities, the police and the other agencies that are involved in improving road safety at the local level.

The four year research report, prepared by PA Consulting and University College London, examines more than 4,000 camera sites in 38 safety camera partnership areas, covering virtually the whole of Great Britain. The report finds that safety cameras continue to be highly effective in reducing speeding, accidents and casualties at camera sites; the number of vehicles exceeding the speed limit fell by 70 per cent at fixed camera sites; after allowing for the general trend of improving road safety, there was a 22 per cent reduction in personal injury collisions (PICs)—around 4,230 fewer per annum; and again after allowing for the general trend, there was a 42 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSIs)—around 1,745 fewer per annum, including over 100 fewer deaths.

The report also considers the "regression-to-mean" effect. This effect arises because the number of PICs and KSIs in the period before installation of a camera may be higher than the long-term average for that location. The report finds that, at the very small number of sites where it was possible to examine this effect, a proportion of the observed reduction in PICs and KSIs could be attributable to regression-to-mean. The report concludes that, even after allowing for this finding, safety cameras are achieving substantial and valuable reductions in collisions and casualties.
 
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I have placed a copy of the PA-UCL report in the Library. It will also be available on my department's website.

I am also announcing today important changes to the national safety camera programme in England and Wales. Taking account of the findings of the four year report, we have concluded that: safety cameras are delivering substantial and valuable reductions in accidents and casualties; the current netting-off funding arrangements have enabled a rapid programme of investment in safety cameras; the safety camera programme is now more mature, with some camera partnerships seeking few or no additional camera sites, as many of the worst casualty sites where a camera is the right solution have now been dealt with.

It is therefore now timely that camera activity and partnerships are integrated into the wider road safety delivery process. For the future we are going to give greater flexibility to local authorities, the police and the other agencies who work with them to improve road safety, so that they can pursue whichever locally agreed mix of road safety measures will make the greatest contribution to reducing road casualties in their area. As part of this process the responsibility for safety cameras in Wales will transfer to the National Assembly for Wales.

Therefore, 2006–07 will be the last year of the netting-off funding arrangements for safety cameras in England and Wales. I understand that the Scottish Ministers are also considering the future of the hypothecated safety camera programme in Scotland, and will announce their decision in due course.

For 2007–08 and beyond, my department will enhance the overall level of funding for road safety provided to local highway authorities in England through the Local Transport Plan (LTP) process. For the first time a proportion of this funding will be revenue based.

The enhanced funding will be allocated to authorities in accordance with their road safety needs (using the existing LTP road safety formula) and with the quality of their second round UP submissions and delivery record. We will also provide enhanced funding to Transport for London. My department is writing to all highway authorities in England to provide details of this change, and inviting them to reflect this new flexibility in their LTP submissions due in March 2006.

We propose to allocate some £110 million a year for this enhanced funding over the period 2007–08 to 2010–11. As well as the greater flexibility, this will provide financial stability and facilitate long term planning. It is also a substantial increase in funding for road safety, by comparison with the latest projection of 2005–06 expenditure by safety camera partnerships in England which is some £93 million.

In considering the quality of LTP submissions, we will have regard to, among other factors, the degree of co-operation and wider collaboration between the local authority, the police force and the other relevant agencies in the area, in respect of their road safety
 
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strategy, linkages with other areas of work and their approach to tackling individual problematic locations. We want local strategies and decisions to be well founded, taking account of the combined knowledge and expertise of all the agencies concerned, and to avoid duplication of effort. My department will work closely with local road safety partnerships to help them produce high quality bids, and to deliver substantial casualty reductions. We will also encourage road safety partnerships to include a wider range of other organisations in local decision-making, and not restrict themselves only to police and local authorities.

For the final year of safety camera netting-off funding in 2006–07 we are amending the handbook of rules and guidance to reflect the findings of the four year report. The criteria on the location of safety cameras are being changed to ensure that cameras can be used where there is a strong road safety need. The deployment criteria will take account of all injury accidents as well as the level of KSIs, look back five years rather than three; and allow camera enforcement on routes where there is a serious problem of speeding and casualties, without the problem necessarily being concentrated at one particular location. A copy of the updated handbook will be placed in the Library and on my department's website in due course.

The handbook will also make improvements to the signing of cameras, to further assist drivers to recognise and comply with the speed limit: speed limit and camera signs will be co-located where possible; signs will be placed to allow the sign and camera to be visible to the driver in the same view.

We also intend to publish shortly revised guidance to traffic authorities on setting local speed limits, which will request authorities to review the speed limits on their A and B roads by 2011, and to give priority to reviewing the limit on any road (not just A and B roads) on which there are poor casualty histories or there is a widespread disregard for the current speed limit, especially where safety cameras are being considered. By undertaking this review, which may lead to inappropriately low speed limits being raised as well as inappropriately high speed limits being lowered, we wish to encourage motorists to have greater respect for speed limits generally.

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