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Humberside Probation Service

NOMS is an Executive agency. We look at these issues in policy terms, but the director general has a number of Executive decisions to take. Issuing indicative budgets is one of them, but we have reviewed the situation with him and reached the conclusions that I have given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe in today's debate. The probation budgets have been set for this year, and are indeed set for next year. Probation areas have to manage within their means in that respect. In that context, I shall discuss the situation in Humberside. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate Humberside probation trust. Indeed, this morning, I spoke to the chief executive of the trust, meeting him and the director of offender management, Steve Wagstaffe, today to consider those issues. I say again that Humberside still has to look at the efficiency savings that need to be made at the moment. If I may, I shall put on record the overall saving requirement for Humberside for this year. The area has been required to make an overall saving of £1 million, which is 5.4 per cent.—a budget reduction from £18.2 million to £17.2 million. When we look at the figures in detail, we see that much of the decrease relates to specific allocations such as performance bonuses, which will not be paid this year, of £223,000, or to the trainee probation officer budget, which is being reduced pending a national policy review, saving £310,000. I will touch on the point about trainee probation officers in a moment. Therefore, the actual baseline budget reduction for Humberside probation trust is about £407,000 or 2.5 per cent., from £16.3 million to £15.9 million. However, the important point for my right hon. Friend is that provisional figures show that Humberside probation trust under-spent its budget last year by £335,000. This year, the demonstrable saving is therefore about £72,000, which is achievable and not an unreasonable savings target. We are considering specifications, benchmarking and costing programmes to identify areas where that can be achieved. My right hon. Friend touched on linking the budget formula to the number of convictions in an area, so that resources can be allocated fairly in proportion to work loads. I will consider the issues that he raised, and return to him on the matter. To ensure that funding allocations are as fair as possible, several other factors, including current financial performance and the need to avoid radical budget changes in any one area, have been taken into account. The Humberside probation trust is looking to take steps to ensure efficient delivery of services and prioritisation of resources on the most important areas. The trust is maximising the time that offender managers spend on face-to-face work with offenders by minimising administration and administrative tasks. Strong partnerships are available in Humberside to enable offenders to access services such as housing and employment. That work will be of importance in the future. However, we need to consider the issues mentioned by my right hon. Friend. In his first 10 days in post, the new director of offender management for Yorkshire and Humberside, Steve Wagstaffe, met individually chief officers and chairs from every area and trust in his region to discuss budget planning. He is carefully monitoring the work being undertaken locally to reduce the number of managerial and back-office posts in order to concentrate resources on the front line. Trade union engagement nationally and locally is also important to ensure that staff are treated fairly. The Government are doing all that we can, and I have encouraged engagement nationally, with NAPO and Unison, to ensure that positive work is undertaken through the national joint negotiating council. On redundancies in Humberside, 58.25 full-time equivalent staffing cuts are planned for 2009-10. Within that, 16 voluntary redundancies are already confirmed. A further 20 post holders have applied for voluntary redundancy or flexible retirement, and those are still to be confirmed with the Humberside probation trust. Therefore, 36 of the 58 staff required have already applied for voluntary redundancy. With a staff turnover of between 1 and 2 per cent. in any given year, and secondments, that will account for the bulk of the remaining posts. Following the pressure applied by my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes and for Brigg and Goole and the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness, I am confident that there are no firm plans for compulsory redundancies. I am also confident in the assessment of the director of offender management and the chief of Humberside probation trust that the savings required can be made without a dip in performance. Obviously, we will need to continue to monitor the situation.