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Offender Management Bill

Before my noble friend does, I thank the noble Baroness for replying to my concern about fragmentation and partnership between businesses and governors. Perhaps I may encourage her to take away and consider, rather than responding now, the relative professional status of probation and prison officers. I add for her consideration that not only in the culture of probation but throughout the whole culture of social care—the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, will be able to discuss this with her if she wishes—good supervision is fundamental. That is individual one-to-one supervision on a regular basis with a senior practitioner of that person working on the frontline, to look not only at performance and check that the job that is required is being done, but also to look at the impact that working with vulnerable, damaged people has on that person at the front line. It is considered indispensable. When one hears of the experiences of people who end up in custody, of their drug addictions, their learning disabilities and their other disabilities, it seems to me there could be three positives here: first, prison officers have a terribly challenging job to do and one might find them enjoying it more if they had better support; secondly, they would probably do a better job, in terms of engaging young offenders while in custody, if they had that support; and, thirdly, the cultures would be more similar if both prison and probation officers had a similar form of supervision. I am sure we will discuss these points later on, but I would appreciate it if she would take that away and think about it.