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Offender Management Bill

I do not wish to repeat many of the excellent points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Selby (Mr. Grogan) and for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), but I would like to address a few specific issues that my local probation service has raised with me about the Bill. Under the existing arrangement there is partnership and collaboration with a wide range of services, and many imaginative and innovative schemes are in operation. However, the key to success is the fact that there is a strong core probation service. The partners that it works with are fellow professionals and they are integrally linked to the service. We must remember that probation officers deal with very difficult and damaged individuals, many of whom have multiple problems, such as poor home support, mental health problems, substance abuse problems and low educational achievement. They are not like a group of customers who can shop around to find the goods that they want to buy. Many of the client group have difficulty even co-operating with the people who want to help them. That is why we need the dedication, professionalism and stability of the staff in the national probation service. Let us be clear about this: the task can be absolutely thankless. We are talking about individuals and circumstances for whom and in which there are often no easy solutions. The worries that my local probation service has about contestability include the following. It is worried about the amount of time and energy that is going to be spent on the bidding procedure. Putting together the bids, vetting the providers, judging bids and then monitoring the services provided will take up considerable management time. There is also the difficulty of liaising with providers who may have little experience of the work and of the client group. There are worries about their experience and, in particular, liaison with them.