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Offender Management Bill

The Minister mentioned that the subcontracting rate of probation boards was now down to 3 per cent and that there is a feeling that boards tend to keep too much to themselves. Earlier today, I drew attention to the extreme financial problems being experienced by trusts and the fact that, for example, in London, they were having to issue redundancy warnings to 60 per cent of their staff. Is it therefore fair to say that they are trying to keep too much to themselves or do they simply not have the resources available now to do more in letting out contracts to the private and voluntary sectors, which they all tell me that they would love to do if they had the resources? Is the Minister being entirely fair in saying that they have tended to keep too much to themselves when they simply do not have the resources to do anything else?