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Offender Management Bill

I apologise for not being present throughout the debate, although I was here at the beginning. I have been listening to the debate here in the Chamber and in my office, and it is clear to me that the current system is not working. Despite the extra probation officers and the additional funding provided to the service, we still face high reoffending levels and a failure to progress with the new offender management initiatives. On reading the Bill, I contrasted the creativity and innovation of the voluntary sector in my constituency—as exemplified by community service volunteers, who are working positively, constructively and highly effectively with long-term offenders—with the negative response that such volunteers received from my local probation service and its management, who failed to understand the role of community service volunteers, behaved very negatively towards them and the voluntary agency that they were working with, and failed to support and nurture that sector. The Bill will give a clear steer to the probation service in my constituency that such support is what we are looking for. I do not want to repeat the catalogue of errors and misrepresentations by the management of my local probation service, but it does not give the impression of an organisation keen to work creatively in partnership with the voluntary sector. I am aware that there are many hard-working and dedicated probation officers in my constituency—people with years of experience of working with offenders, and with close contacts in the prison, police and local authority networks. I understand their anxieties and fears about the Bill’s proposals. Having seen at first hand the outcome of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, which opened up the nursing, residential and domiciliary care services to the private and voluntary sectors, I know that without clear standards, regulation, inspection and monitoring, services can become budget and profit-driven, rather than outcome-driven. There is no doubt that it took the introduction—by this Government—of the Care Standards Act 2000 to address the damage resulting from the opening of these markets. We still have some way to go to ensure that providers meet the standards that the public have a right to expect in the nursing, domiciliary and residential care sector. That must be of concern to us all.