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All of the recent history reconfirms my belief that training should return to a much deeper, more academic system that includes placements and produces probation officers who can utilise a host of skills in building strong relationships with offenders. If we are serious about cutting crime and improving the lives both of victims and offenders, we need a well trained, well resourced, localised probation service that is known in the community. It is just that which we have not got. It should be obvious that training will always be at the root of either the success or failure of the service.
3.15 pm
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, once again, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, by securing this debate, has enabled us to examine a pillar of our criminal justice system. I, too, am enormously grateful to him for that. The probation service is a load-bearing pillar of our system, and in recent years its load has been massively increased by successive restructuring, reorganising and reordering measures, to say nothing of an excessive flow of criminal justice legislation. That process has been devastatingly referred to already by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. The important point to note is that these burdens have emanated not at the behest of local authorities, or of the lay magistracy, with which the old probation committees were so valuably associated, but of central government.
In the few minutes available, I will focus on only one aspect of this process-the de facto exclusion of magistrates from the new probation trusts. These trusts
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"It will enable us to commission probation services from a range of providers in the voluntary, charitable, public and private sectors. It will do this by lifting from probation boards the statutory duty for providing probation services. We will create new public sector bodies: probation trusts. Regional offender managers, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, will commission services".-[Official Report, 17/4/07; col. 123.]
There is no hint there that the contribution of lay magistrates to the work of probation boards might be dispensed with when the new trusts replaced them. How, then, has this happened? The root of the answer lies in Section 5(2) of the 2007 Act, which provides that the purposes of a probation trust must consist of or include the making or performance by the trust of contracts with the Secretary of State for the making of those probation provisions which are his statutory responsibility under the Act. In short, every trust has got to be able to make probation contracts with providers.
It is true that the Act itself does not expressly exclude magistrates from the trusts, but this insistence on making contracts with providers of probation services has, as I understand it, attracted the jurisdiction over magistrates that is conferred upon the senior presiding judge. And my understanding-can the Minister confirm this when replying?-is that the senior presiding judge has recently ruled that it would not be appropriate for a magistrate to be a trust member because of the risk of a conflict of interest in allocating contracts. But are not magistrates every month of the year used to meeting potential conflicts of interest and to conducting themselves appropriately when such a conflict is perceived?
Be that as it may, will this exclusion really matter? Let us look at the aims under Section 2 of the Act, to which the Secretary of State must have regard when he is carrying out his functions. They are the protection of the public, the reduction of reoffending, the proper punishment of offenders, ensuring offenders' awareness of the effects of crime on the victims of crime and the public, and the rehabilitation of offenders. I suggest that in each and every one of these the magistracy may confidently be relied on to make a valuable contribution, and they have done for many a long year.
That is not surprising because they handle year on year about 97 per cent of all criminal trials. They are drawn from the local community. They are aware of local circumstances, local pressures and the state of public confidence locally in the administration of criminal justice. They themselves enjoy the confidence of the public they serve and from whom they are drawn: if it were not so, they would not have been around for some 700 years. Therefore to the question of whether their exclusion will really matter, the answer has to be yes, it will.
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Did Ministers know or foresee that local magistrates were to be excluded and, if so, were they content? If they were not content, in any event, let us now have a one-clause Bill permitting, if not requiring, magistrates to be members of probation trusts. This gravely undermines a pillar of the criminal justice system.
3.22 pm
Lord Dear: My Lords, I would like to join in the universal chorus of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for securing this debate and also for taking us on what must be described as a tour d'horizon of the problem and also the quite awesome firepower in his sustained barrage on the problem-because problem I believe there most certainly is.
Exactly a week ago this evening, I found myself on my feet in an august establishment in Wimpole Street presenting a paper to the Medico-Legal Society. It had asked me as a one-time police officer to take a critical look at policing, and I tried to be suitably critical. In my suggestions for improvement of that service, I found myself saying very forcefully what I believed then, and believe today: that one of the best things you can do to improve policing is to improve the quality of the probation service. I said that because the police service has, with everyone else in that field, been hampered for years by the revolving-door syndrome. I will not go into the detail of that-we all understand the problem of constant reoffending, often referred to as the revolving door.
After the presentation of the paper, I found myself in the reception, with a glass in my hand, talking to a small group that comprised a district judge and a couple of magistrates. The district judge did not agree. He said the service he got from the probation service was first class. The two magistrates could not wait to jump down his throat and tell him just how bad the service was from their standpoint in two totally different court areas. What one saw there in microcosm was that the probation service is still, despite all its problems, giving a good service most of the time at the top of the system-at the more serious end of the system-but it is failing dramatically towards the bottom. I will come back to that if I may.
I mentioned the criminal justice system. Most of us who play on that playing field know that there is no system there in reality, but the component parts have to rely on one another willy-nilly to get on. The police have always relied very much on the probation service to help them. As has already been alluded to to some extent by other noble Lords, in the 1950s and 1960s, for sure, probation officers were mature, worldly wise, and, significantly, officers of the court. They were involved in the system, they were trusted, they were respected and they were successful. That changed to some extent in the 1970s when probation and social work training became coterminous and it seemed to some of us that probably probation officers were moving too far towards the work of social workers. Following the Coleman review in 1989, things began to move back-the pendulum seemingly began to swing back towards the median and acceptable point. Perhaps it swung too far. In 1995, the Home Secretary
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One may look at the horror stories-it is a bit unfair, but they encapsulate much of what we are looking at-such as the case of Dano Sonnex, who was convicted of a particularly unpleasant murder in June last year. He was being supervised by a probation officer in Lewisham who had qualified only nine months previously, yet who was carrying a case load of 127 cases. Ten years previously, a similar probation officer would have carried 30 or 35. In that office of 22 probation officers, only one had more than two years' experience, the IT system did not work and there was a high sickness rate. We were told that this was an unusual set of circumstances. I do not believe that. I think that one could find other cases, if one lifted lids up and down the country, that would approach that sort of thing-a tick-box, process-driven culture, preoccupied with bureaucracy.
This situation has arisen despite increasingly frequent signals in research by people such as Ansbro in 2006, Craissati and Sindall in 2009, Robinson and Burnett, who reported that skilled staff felt marginalised, right through to the report from HM Inspector of Probation in November last year. He found that in London very few front-line staff have more than three years' experience and that 15 minutes a week with an offender is not good enough.
Looking at success rates, it is clear that probation can work. Prisoners coming out of prison have a 60 per cent chance of reoffending. Coming out of standard supervision programmes, they have a 50 per cent chance of reoffending. Properly run probation programmes reduce the reoffending rate to around one-third-34 per cent. We must push hard for that as our goal.
Faced with the present situation, the police, and the public that they serve, are disenchanted, dismayed and disbelieving. We are told that crime is reducing, and it is. There was an announcement today that crime had yet again dropped. Nevertheless, there is a fear of crime. It is connected to the category of anti-social behaviour that includes binge drinking, yobbery and minor crime. Most offenders, unless they are properly handled, will go on to reoffend at a higher level. The police are not coping with that set of problems. They cannot do so without reducing the pressure on the streets. To do that, one must focus on the probation service, which is failing to deal with what I call the "crime incubator". Those who come through that go on to reoffend.
The value of the police and probation services working together is best seen in local criminal justice boards, where local partners come together and get a locally constructed programme that works on the ground, as seen by those involved at the time. That has a key role in the whole of the restorative justice programme.
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In conclusion, I will say that the various components that form a community order are better managed in an integrated framework. Within that framework, the probation service is essential, and joint working with the police is desirable. Only if we get those two things in place will we see a better quality of life on the streets for us all.
3.29 pm
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, I, too, will begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for instigating the debate. I can think of no one better to do so.
In all the debates over recent years about the criminal justice system, costings and effectiveness have been vital factors. I will concentrate on them today. Greater efficiency and cost benefits have been key components of proposals for changing services, including the probation service. Have the changes worked? Let us examine the current position on costs.
The latest figures show that it now costs at least £40,000 per year to keep a prisoner in prison. That compares with about £4,000 per year for a supervision order. If a person is placed on probation with a condition attached-say, attending a drug rehabilitation course, or anger management, or for domestic abuse-the cost will rise by another £2,000 to £3,000. It costs around £15,000 to £20,000 per year to keep someone in a probation hostel. Therefore, the real cost of incarceration for a year could exceed £40,000. The figures for adult prisoners are based on devolved budgets for each institution; therefore the costings do not include the NOMS headquarters or the regional structures that support it. Other expenditure, such as on audits, and other relevant Ministry of Justice funds are also held centrally and therefore not taken into account when working out the cost of each prison place. There are real and legitimate concerns about how the costings are worked out, and there needs to be an independent review of the real cost of prisons and probation.
The prison population continues to rise. It reached a peak of 85,700 last year; as usual, the figure has fallen slightly over the Christmas period. Since the introduction of the indeterminate public protection sentence, five years ago, the number of prisoners on IPP has grown; it now stands at 5,800. That figure is increasing by 140 per month, yet since that sentence's introduction fewer than 100 prisoners have been released and one-third of prisoners have already passed their earliest release date. That is having a disproportionate effect on those with mental health issues, learning difficulties or drugs problems. The prison population is likely to grow by 1,500 each year through IPP alone, unless measures are taken to reduce it elsewhere.
The probation service could act as a safety valve, but it is facing a 4 per cent cut during 2010-11 and further cuts in subsequent years. The service is already struggling to fulfil its statutory duties and the courts, especially the magistrates' courts, are bound to take heed of that. The loss of confidence in the ability of the service to supervise offenders is bound to lead to a rise in the short-term prison population. Last year, more than 75,000 people were sentenced to 12 months
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The Government's own offender management strategy evidence shows that drug programmes delivered in the community have a significant positive effect on reoffending rates, as do offender behaviour programmes. The latest statistics show that 50 per cent of people completing a probation order are reconvicted within two years, compared to 66 per cent of those who are imprisoned. However, the figure falls by a further 13 per cent for drug programmes and by 16 per cent for offender behaviour programmes in the community. Surely, it would therefore make sound economic sense to invest in probation rather than decreasing its budget. In the medium to long term, the taxpayer would be saving money. I would be pleased to hear my noble friend's view on that.
Here, I place on record my thanks to the National Association of Probation Officers for its comprehensive briefing. A survey conducted by NAPO last year found that 80 per cent of the 42 probation areas were reporting problems with providing the supervisory service that the courts require because of budgetary constraints. Delays in starting programmes were particularly worrying for domestic violence, alcohol, unpaid work and even community sex offender programmes. The maximum wait for a start on a domestic violence programme varied from 13 to 42 weeks, and 17 areas reported that programmes relating to unpaid work were not available instantly because of severe waiting lists. Five areas reported that it was taking months to get individuals on drink-impaired driving programmes. In some cases the order finished before the programme started, which meant those offenders were never treated. As the former president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, I am particularly worried about this finding.
NAPO believes that the situation is getting incrementally worse the more the cuts bite. This is bound to have a negative effect on reoffending rates. NAPO also believes that the probation service has no real voice in the NOMS structure and its influence has been waning since the merger of the prisons and probation services in April 2008. This raises an obvious question. Will the Minister say how many probation staff are working in NOMS headquarters and will he compare that number with the number of those with a Prison Service or Civil Service background?
There was always a fear among probation service personnel that they would be in the minority under the new NOMS structure and it appears that they are. Under these circumstances, I believe, as does NAPO, that there is an urgent need for the probation service to have its own operational arm with its own director, its own directorate and its own head of department. There could be shared services, of course, for such things as finance, HR and even the maintenance of buildings, but the time for a rethink on NOMS is needed most urgently.
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3.36 pm
Baroness Stern: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for ensuring that this important matter is debated. I very much agree with him that the changes made to the probation service in the past 10 years have been ill thought-through. They are not based on evidence or experience and in the current climate they will be unsustainable, as the recent excellent report from the Justice Select Committee on justice reinvestment makes clear.
Many changes for the worse and failed ambitions have been identified by noble Lords. I would like to look at one aspect-that is, the model that currently underpins government policy. This is a very mechanistic model, unrelated to people or places. To make the task controllable and measurable, the Government have defined it as follows: first, allocate your offenders to an officer; then put their details on to a computer programme; then get the computer programme to sort them out into four levels of dangerousness; then, depending on the level, make a decision on whether they are seen by a professionally qualified person or an unqualified person and for how long they are seen-it seems that the choice is between 15 and 30 minutes a week; and then allocate them to an intervention programme.
The success of this activity is measured in several ways. The last annual report for the National Probation Service was for 2007-08. There is no report for 2008-09 because the National Probation Service ceased to exist. It sets out the 15 national performance indicators: seven relate to doing the things described above on time; six relate to ensuring the completion of a number of interventions; one is about staff sickness, which should be reduced; and one is about how many of the offenders get a job and keep it for four weeks. So, one of the 15 is about a real outcome.
The Minister will no doubt say that the probation service work is not shaped by these indicators, and of course much good work goes on around this framework and-more likely-in spite of it. But that is the Ministry of Justice model that lies behind the management of the probation service and the measuring of its outcomes.
I understand that the Government are now also measuring reconviction rates in each area every three months as a performance measure, presumably as part of the three-monthly reports that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, described. In that context, I commend to your Lordships a paper by the very respected professor at Leicester University, Carol Hedderman, entitled, How Not to Assess Probation Performance: Constructing Local Conviction Rates. It suggests that at least that aspect of measuring performance is not sound at all. Professor Hedderman concludes that the data cannot be used as a measure of anything. The whole process of measuring the performance of criminal justice agencies is complex, and much of the information that we are given is highly questionable. Has thought been given to involving the UK Statistics Authority in assessing the validity of reconviction statistics and their use as a measure of performance?
That mechanistic approach is clearly damaging, and totally remote from the reality in most parts of our society, as the right reverend Prelate said. Many
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"The job is not primarily about meeting targets, or satisfying business cases, or enforcing community punishments, or breaching those who do not comply with orders, or risk assessments. These all may be part of the job, but if building relationships is not at the heart of the exercise, the exercise will be likely to fail".
The Minister may say that that is fine, but sounds a bit woolly. I assure him that the idea that what makes people change is usually connected to a relationship of some sort is well supported by a large body of evidence. We need a shift from computer programs to the use of professional judgment. We need another look at the role of professional staff, who are a scarce resource. Does the Minister know of any other probation service where most of the offenders are supervised by unqualified people? We need an end to national management and control. Probation should be a local service, but with a powerful central voice, a media presence and a research and development capacity. We must have an end to targets that are about process and distort the work of everyone in the service.
A most welcome report from the Centre for Social Justice has set out such a model. It calls for probation boards to reopen offices in those deprived areas where most of the people who will be supervised live. From these offices, the service can begin to rebuild its local knowledge of offenders, their families and communities. The probation service must start undertaking home visits again. The service must rethink its role and identity to become, to cite the report,
The importance of the probation service in promoting a safer society cannot be overestimated. The work to rebuild it needs to start as soon as possible.
3.43 pm
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the probation service, and I am grateful to my noble friend for providing the opportunity to do so, and for opening it with an incisive analysis of all the problems besetting the service today.
I should start by declaring an interest as a magistrate, now retired. In making this admission, I say straight away that there is nothing more quickly out of date than a retired magistrate, and this is especially true in an era that has seen the introduction of criminal justice Bills on an annual basis.
However, I am sure that some things remain constant. Among these are the high standards of the probation service. In more than 25 years, on what was a large Bench, I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the occasions on which I and my colleagues fundamentally disagreed with probation recommendations. Of course, we may have been lucky with our local service, and our very able and charismatic chief probation officer in quick time became the national chief probation officer, but I am sure that our experience
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