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Offender Management Bill

I thank my hon. Friend for that. It is indeed good news. I am glad to give some more good news: in the last quarterly performance statistics released by the Home Office, Wiltshire probation service was ranked the best in the country for public protection, the national service’s highest priority, which is excellent news. Taking all measures of performance together, Wiltshire tops the south-west regional league table, as well as being ranked third out of 42 probation areas in England and Wales. I want to thank my local probation service and praise its members for their hard work. I was pleased that the Minister also thanked the probation service earlier this evening. The debate is an opportunity for Members in all parts of the House to recognise the important and hard work that probation officers do. I seek reassurance that the Bill will allow my probation officers in Wiltshire the freedom and support to carry on their work, and that the change from probation board to probation trust will be phased so as not to unsettle the good results. I was heartened to hear my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary say that he would proceed in a cautious fashion. That is good news. From the Wiltshire board, I have received the message that uncertainty about the possibility of competition and contracting out of services is undermining morale in the system. I hope that proceeding in a cautious fashion will build up that morale again. The continuing drive for competition is creating concern that the agenda is the privatisation of service delivery. I see the Minister shaking his head. I do not believe that privatisation is the intention, but the fear exists and we must address it. The evidence is that competition in the connected field of prisons contributed to efficiency savings of up to 8.5 per cent., so equivalent efficiency savings in the probation service might amount to only about £8 million per year over 25 years. We must weigh those savings against the risks to the probation service, decide whether they are worth while and, if so, whether we can take the service with us. Under the proposed arrangements, the public sector provider will undergo testing to assess its performance. Will the Minister reassure me that, as I believe to be the case, where public sector providers excel and improve as in Wiltshire, there will be no need for competition and contracting out of services? Will he also provide me with the facts that contradict the argument that the private and voluntary sector will refuse the more difficult areas, leaving the existing services carrying the can for the most serious cases? We need reassurance about that. As well as managing the most dangerous criminals, the probation service deals with people who have committed low-level crime. Hon. Members across the House may be aware of a national scheme which sees offenders paying back their crimes with community work. Community Payback is a programme of community service works undertaken across Wiltshire which amount to around 75,000 hours every year. The projects involve work that would not otherwise be carried out. I have seen the programme in operation when visiting community facilities and I was pleased to see young offenders participating in gardening schemes, which as a keen gardener I know can only be to their good and to their credit. I hope that they carry on with their gardening after they have completed their punishment. In fact, I do not understand why gardening is intended to be a punishment. The scheme is hard work, but in the end the result benefits the local community and I support it wholeheartedly. Community payback schemes enable members of the public to nominate projects that offenders can undertake as part of their sentence. It is about encouraging people to feel involved in and informed about what goes on in their neighbourhoods. As a result, local voluntary organisations benefit. It would be great if we had a two-way process, with voluntary organisations working proactively with and contributing to the probation service. Graffiti is a perfect example of where community payback should be concentrated. The task of graffiti removal can be performed with relatively little training, as the Prime Minister demonstrated in my constituency earlier this year, and there is evidence that crime levels drop in areas where it is removed. Graffiti makes criminals feel at home—that is why we do not want it in Swindon. It is a complex problem with complex solutions. We must focus on delivering the services needed to prevent graffiti offenders from repeating their crimes by encouraging organisations to work more closely together. Wiltshire probation service already works in partnership with the police, courts, prisons, local authorities, health services and voluntary organisations on problems such as graffiti. There is always scope for improvement. The probation board could work better with the voluntary sector, and other probation boards could learn from Wiltshire’s good results to date. Lastly, there is the problem of perceived erosion of accountability. Today I received a letter from a magistrate and long-term member of the Wiltshire probation board who is worried that improved local accountability—an area that the Government have prioritised in the past 10 years—will suffer, and who argues that much cherished localness will be lost in the forest of new legislation that is proposed. Having spoken to probation board members, I understand that the big problems have been a lack of clarity from the Home Office, uncertainty about change, and the complexity of structures that are changing without clear objectives. We must clear the mists and make these issues understandable; otherwise, perceptions could damage what would otherwise be a very good Bill. We should value the probation service as a profession and protect the pay and conditions of staff accordingly. This is a time of uncertainty in which staff and board members feel as though they are in the dock. I am sure that the Minister will join me in reasserting our support for them and for the work that they continue to do to make us safer.