Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Tuesday 10th November 2026
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10:36
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Five, four. Morning, everybody. Welcome to this meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which is doing a follow up on our earlier work on electronic monitoring. We're absolutely delighted to have our two guests before us. Before we go any further, I'd be grateful if you could just both introduce yourselves.
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10:36
Lord Moraes
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Lord Moraes
10:37
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thanks. I'll start and Ben will want to have some input as well. Nothing in this report and indeed nothing in previous reports is seen, such as the Nao report into electronic monitoring and previous reports done by the Inspector of Probation has given us any surprises. It depressingly paints a consistent picture of poor service delivery and mixed impact in terms of how it operates and and the effect on staff and indeed clients.
10:37
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I think we would support significant aspects of the report. We would agree that we are weak on governance in terms of where Hmpps is and on accountability, as well as how the systems are coordinating across agencies. I think more importantly for me as a practitioner, it speaks to the issue of what is electronic monitoring actually for and what are we using it for? And I think that that confusion goes right the way through the system. And we see that with practitioners as well, because we're really not clear on what we're using this for. Is it rehabilitation?
Is it some sort of public protection? Is it a control mechanism or is it a mix of all of those things? Thanks.
Is it some sort of public protection? Is it a control mechanism or is it a mix of all of those things? Thanks.
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10:38
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Thank you. Good morning. We understand that about just under 12% of the people being supervised by the probation service at the moment are those who've been fitted with a tag. But I was wondering how you describe what proportion of your workload, as opposed to the percentage of individuals, is taken up by supervising people on tags. And arising from that, what would you say are the major challenges in supervising these offenders?
10:39
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I would say that the issue we have at the minute is that things are extremely uncertain. Post October 2026, with the introduction of those provisions of the Sentencing Act, that those old understanding may be shifting quite rapidly as electronic monitor has expanded massively through the system. So all of those workload assumptions really kind of fall by the wayside now when we're trying to get to grips with exactly what it is, we're trying to deal with, those sort of large scale changes for us are really important because the way the system is set up at the minute is lots of work defaults to probation practitioners.
So notifications about risk updates, variations of licences, all of those things come back to individual probation officers. And if you massively expand the provision of electronic monitoring, then that workload, by definition, also massively expands.
So notifications about risk updates, variations of licences, all of those things come back to individual probation officers. And if you massively expand the provision of electronic monitoring, then that workload, by definition, also massively expands.
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10:40
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Yeah. What I would say is that that that's the policy now. And we expect that to continue. The issue is if a probation practitioner is putting together a plan to manage risk in the community, and a key part of that risk management plan is about electronic monitoring or any form of electronic monitoring. Then when that's not available, it's down to the individual probation practitioner. Because of the way HMP have set this up, to come up with alternatives as best they can, so that I might be increased reporting that might be reaching out to police colleagues to ask them if they can do checks, which is increasingly difficult given that organisation staff in there.
I think that's what this comes down to, is it falls to us to come up with the alternatives. And all too often, unfortunately, that falls to individual practitioners and the managers.
I think that's what this comes down to, is it falls to us to come up with the alternatives. And all too often, unfortunately, that falls to individual practitioners and the managers.
10:41
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
So accepting that the situation is going to change in ways that you're not yet fully clear about because of the uncertainty, would you say that the workload involved with supervising people on tags now is disproportionate to that other offenders? And do you expect that disproportionality to get worse?
10:41
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I would expect some sort of disproportionality at worst. It's difficult because every individual with supervised comes with a range of needs. There might be somebody who hasn't got electronic monitoring as a feature of probation, but they've got another range of needs that makes them more complex. I think there's a general view. If you were adding anything in terms of electronic monitoring by that falls back to probation to have to deal with if the provision is not there as it's meant to be, and even if it's there as it's meant to be, that's still additional workload for us.
10:42
10:42
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I would have hoped that as a responsible agency, Hmpps would have had that in place before October, when this changed. Every day that goes past where practitioners are left with uncertainty, that's just a day too long. This should have been arranged well, well before now, in terms of what happens in making sure that the provisions there in almost every case that that's not there is false fundamentally on Hmpps has had for me.
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10:42
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Could I just pick up that some of the details will come on later to talk about Serco and its delivery and relationships with the police and so on. We'll come to all of that later. But can I just be clear, one of the concerns that we've this committee has had in the past is that where the probation service is responsible for looking to somebody who's been released from prison on licence, where they breach that licence, very often the response of the probation officer has basically been to send them back to prison quickly, because that saves them having to go into all the details and sorting out.
So it's been the sort of the easy way of getting a problem out of the way, which is putting people back in prison. You might dispute that, but that's the evidence we've received. My question then is in relation to the responsibility of the probation service for monitoring those on tagging. Is there a similar issue that we should be aware of?
So it's been the sort of the easy way of getting a problem out of the way, which is putting people back in prison. You might dispute that, but that's the evidence we've received. My question then is in relation to the responsibility of the probation service for monitoring those on tagging. Is there a similar issue that we should be aware of?
10:43
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
The biggest issue that we have is because we're dealing with an external agency and one that that policy is that should be enforced. I think we struggle with similar issues with communication. We're trying to communicate a lot of information out there and duplicating work that's already available on probation systems, whereas in an In-sourced model, then that would be available already to the electronic monitoring provider, because there would be part of the probation service under our policy.
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10:44
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
We'll find out what the reason is. We were really told about this literally back in the last week then. Yeah. That this announcement was due. And in mid December there'd be a further roll out. So we've had very little opportunity to analyse that and certainly no data yet to, for us to, to look at in detail.
10:45
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I think in terms of the installer source model, it potentially solves one issue in terms of fitting the physical tag onto the person, where that also requires a unit to be fitted at an address. That doesn't necessarily solve that, because the visit still has to be made to that address. So it would be interesting from the pilot to see what proportion of those monitoring units aren't being fitted and why. Because without it, it renders the whole purpose pointless because you've got to tag the copy monitor. So I think that's one thing that we're looking for.
When pilots reporting to evaluation studies.
When pilots reporting to evaluation studies.
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10:45
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
It's primarily something that we'll see happening rather that we're involved in, because it will take place at the prison and it will be prison staff facilitating that for the electronic monitoring service. So it's necessarily something that we'll see as happening, but we won't necessarily have any any role in doing.
10:46
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thank you. The thing I want to add as well, that we are a trade union. It's also cognizant of the cost to the taxpayer. And it's not just about our members. It's what is the impact on the taxpayer. And if if this scheme reduces costs and creates some effectiveness, great. As Ben has said, it's not it's not so straightforward as just fitting the tag and that's it.
10:46
10:46
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
MoJ my lord. The MoJ relationship is really conducted via senior PBS leadership. We do come into contact with senior officials from time to time. I think it's fair to say that as far as Napo is concerned, the relationship is not on a very good footing at the moment. Back in the summer, our national Executive Committee passed a motion of no confidence in HMP senior leadership over pay and workloads. And sadly, we're at a place where we are now balloting our members for the prospect of industrial action on both those issues, with the result expected at the back end of this week.
We still maintain contact. We still seek to engage constructively where we can. It doesn't mean we're taking the ball home, but the fact we got to this stage is an indication that things are not quite good.
We still maintain contact. We still seek to engage constructively where we can. It doesn't mean we're taking the ball home, but the fact we got to this stage is an indication that things are not quite good.
10:47
10:47
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Thank you. This is a general question, but it's it's perplexing me because the number of criticisms you've implied of HMP and MoJ and so on. But where is your chief probation officer and her senior managers? Where do they sit in the kind of realm of governance alongside HMP and MoJ, and what contact do you have , and discussions with her and her colleagues about these issues?
10:47
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
We have regular meetings with the chief probation officer. We've also got systems through the trade union recognition and consultation methods to have regular meetings with them as well, so we'll raise issues as we go. And I know the one that's been raised previously, I think when there were some high profile media stories about tagging as well. I think it was last year, then we were involved in some discussions with them then about trying to try to push for our members interests in terms of not taking on additional work because of the failures of tagging companies.
I think I would say that in terms of where that lies, as far as I'm aware, this should probably come from HMP, but I don't think that the chief probation officer holds direct responsibility for the electronic monitoring contracts. I think that lies elsewhere in HMP. Yes.
I think I would say that in terms of where that lies, as far as I'm aware, this should probably come from HMP, but I don't think that the chief probation officer holds direct responsibility for the electronic monitoring contracts. I think that lies elsewhere in HMP. Yes.
10:48
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10:49
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I think, my Lord, it's worth adding, if I may, that that often initiatives that are what we call prison focused are ones that we get to hear about, rather than ones that we're intrinsically involved in. And there could be legitimate reasons for that, but we need to be on the same page on, on these sorts of big issues. So we are aware of what's coming down the track, and ultimately, our members should be aware as well. So, you know, as we said, nothing to add to Ben's analysis of the of the issue, but we would like to have seen a much greater collective approach, I suppose, on this issue.
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10:50
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10:50
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Of it. I mean, I think the more general view is that the policy of not all now is to have electronic monitoring enforced within the probation service. And we see the the link. If you're going to increase expansion to the way it is now, that looks massively different from it did 25 or 30 years ago, then we think that it has to form a central part of the probation service.
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10:50
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Oh my Lord, thank you. And Ben has alluded really to the fact that we think the whole programme should be insourced. But on a wider point to your question, where is the money for this? Why is it not the question our members posed to us regularly? Why is that money not reaching the front face in a way that makes a difference to workloads, in a way that encourages people a to make a career in probation, and B to stay in probation because the attrition rates in the probation service because of existing workloads, let alone let alone the pressures that we're talking about here, are in a crisis state.
You know, it's not unusual for probation delivery units to have a 30% deficit in their staffing. People are reporting serious mental health issues when they're ill. The highest proportion of mental health through sickness absence anywhere in a civil service. So everything is not rosy. And unless there is an investment of serious cash, both in terms of pay and workloads, then we're going to see that attrition worsen and we're going to see members put under more and more pressure. So there has to be a more transparent use of the money in a way that we feel confident it's going to make a difference.
You know, it's not unusual for probation delivery units to have a 30% deficit in their staffing. People are reporting serious mental health issues when they're ill. The highest proportion of mental health through sickness absence anywhere in a civil service. So everything is not rosy. And unless there is an investment of serious cash, both in terms of pay and workloads, then we're going to see that attrition worsen and we're going to see members put under more and more pressure. So there has to be a more transparent use of the money in a way that we feel confident it's going to make a difference.
10:52
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
As far as you can judge from the government's press release, they seem to have in mind that this money would be used to fund a presumption that all prisoners will be tagged on release pilot to tag domestic abusers, a pilot to tag convicted murderers and thieves. I think what you're saying to us is we can't run before we can walk. And you think this money needs to be urgently directed towards improving the pay and conditions of your members? There's very little purpose to tagging somebody if there's nobody at a probation officer to do anything with that information.
And if you have vacancy rates as high as we have with probation officer rates across the country as 1 in 5 probation officers miss, and we have lots of experienced staff. So in some probation officers, the most experienced member of staff there has been qualified for a year or less. That is a massive issue. I think the wider issue around this expansion of tagging , though, is around what are we using tagging for? Is it sort of part of , I think the key part there is a press release. And what are we using this for? Is this again about rehabilitation?
Is it about control? Is it about some sort of replication of a prison system within the community, which my own personal view would be that that is a crazy idea , because those two things are very different. I think the issue keeps coming back to though, is there is this investment in technology, and there's almost this this fetishization of technology in the Ministry of Justice and all the things that it can bring, which we're not necessarily against, which is things sometimes it's overstated. And sometimes you're missing the point that probation practice essentially is about building human relationships with people, and you need people there to be able to do that.
All the technology in the world is not going to do that for you. You.
And if you have vacancy rates as high as we have with probation officer rates across the country as 1 in 5 probation officers miss, and we have lots of experienced staff. So in some probation officers, the most experienced member of staff there has been qualified for a year or less. That is a massive issue. I think the wider issue around this expansion of tagging , though, is around what are we using tagging for? Is it sort of part of , I think the key part there is a press release. And what are we using this for? Is this again about rehabilitation?
Is it about control? Is it about some sort of replication of a prison system within the community, which my own personal view would be that that is a crazy idea , because those two things are very different. I think the issue keeps coming back to though, is there is this investment in technology, and there's almost this this fetishization of technology in the Ministry of Justice and all the things that it can bring, which we're not necessarily against, which is things sometimes it's overstated. And sometimes you're missing the point that probation practice essentially is about building human relationships with people, and you need people there to be able to do that.
All the technology in the world is not going to do that for you. You.
10:53
10:53
Lord Bach
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Lord Bach
As I understand that it's the £100 million to support tagging . Expansion is coming out of the £700 million that the government have offered, as it were, for probation during the period up to 2029. Are you surprised that it comes out of the 700 million? Are you happy that it comes out? I think I know the answer to this one. Are you happy that it comes out of the 700 million? What could the possible justification be for it to come out of what some people would say is a pretty small amount anyway.
10:54
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
In an amount that certainly doesn't replicate the amount of money that's been taken out, the probation service in the years preceding and out there as well. But I think the issue, again, is about we can't get significant clarity on what that £700 million is going to be spent on, because obviously, our focus would be on staff and on recruiting and retaining staff, especially retaining staff if it's going to come out, if this has been announced in the middle of the spending review, then period, sorry, then I would imagine it's going to be paid from different budgets.
And I think it's for me to be clear on if you're not spending this 100 million on something, because you're putting it towards tagging and expanding tagging, what is not going to be funded as a result of this? Because that's the answer we can't get answers to. And we've asked MPs previously in part of pay negotiations about what are you planning to spend the £700 million increase on, and we have not received answers from Hmpps about exactly what that is.
And I think it's for me to be clear on if you're not spending this 100 million on something, because you're putting it towards tagging and expanding tagging, what is not going to be funded as a result of this? Because that's the answer we can't get answers to. And we've asked MPs previously in part of pay negotiations about what are you planning to spend the £700 million increase on, and we have not received answers from Hmpps about exactly what that is.
10:55
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
On a wider point, my Lord. You'll know that the probation service was part privatised some 1013 years ago. Disastrous social experiment of the highest order, and that was reversed even by the administration at conducted it. That was welcome. But at the time, and I think consistently since we have said where is the investment to support that, that welcome move? And it hasn't come. And at a time when suddenly there is money available, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to argue strongly on behalf of our members that that must be put into their pay and ways of reducing their workloads so that we can sustain and build the service.
Again, this is not just the trade union coming here asking for more money. We have a deep, a deep felt conviction that we need to rebuild the probation service and the last administration. To an extent, this one has not reacted in a way we want. Thank you.
Again, this is not just the trade union coming here asking for more money. We have a deep, a deep felt conviction that we need to rebuild the probation service and the last administration. To an extent, this one has not reacted in a way we want. Thank you.
10:56
10:56
Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
We've recently been told that in relation to electronic monitoring, Serco has consistently met its contractual contractual requirements since March of 26. So this year, our probation staff working effectively with Serco, and given the reports about the inconsistencies around tagging, therefore, are the contractual requirements up to scratch?
10:56
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I think the issue remains that as long as Serco are a separate agency, then there's going to be issues around communication. And we see that repeatedly around the duplication of information about information being communicated. For instance, Serco won't necessarily communicate breaches of tagging to a particular officer. It'll go to a mailbox, it then send it to in person, and you can see straight away how those lines of communication might break down. I mean, in terms of whether we're meeting the contractual requirements, I think we're sort of reflect on the AP report and also on the previous National Audit Office report and what they say about whether that's happening.
I think certainly from members point of view, there's an ongoing frustration around tags not being fitted, visits not being done. And as that goes, and that's consistently come back from members right the way through several years over different contracts. So I think probably that would be where members are at in terms of whether circle are meeting their contractual requirements.
I think certainly from members point of view, there's an ongoing frustration around tags not being fitted, visits not being done. And as that goes, and that's consistently come back from members right the way through several years over different contracts. So I think probably that would be where members are at in terms of whether circle are meeting their contractual requirements.
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10:57
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I think I think I allude to what Ben has just said that the I'd like to see Mr. Jones has joined us as well, and you'll be hearing from him later. But his reports point out, and I touched on this earlier, the sheer waste of money to the taxpayer as a result of Serco's non-performance, and the idea that that equipment could be sent to a venue and never be fitted because that person isn't there, along with the problems we've had in terms of picking up accurate monitoring and data. And then the other aspect that doesn't get a lot of attention is what happens to equipment once the the period of use is spent.
Reports suggest it's just languishing in the ether somewhere. So there's an awful lot of questions to be raised about public procurement, use of taxpayers money. And we we care very strongly about that.
Reports suggest it's just languishing in the ether somewhere. So there's an awful lot of questions to be raised about public procurement, use of taxpayers money. And we we care very strongly about that.
10:58
Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
Final question on it is, Ben, you mentioned earlier, I thought a really important point, which is that a lack of strategy about what this thing is intended for, the thing that's already there and therefore amplified by a huge rollout without a strategy that is quite worrying. And but they must have written something down that said, this is what's intended to do. You're feeling that it's not working.
10:58
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
So, I mean, just to think back when I which is some time ago when I trained, it was sort of 2000, 1 or 2003. So it's a lifetime ago. We had really clear understandings of you're using electronic monitoring and curfews at that point in time for particular reasons. You are breaking up associations. You're restricting the ability to commit criminal activities. You're doing it towards rehabilitative work, all those sort of things. We are not seeing that currently. We're seeing this idea of it's almost being used to justify the early release scheme to put extra sentences, extra licence conditions in place, as opposed to a more positive impact that you could see that were not always there.
We know that research tells us if electronic monitoring is used properly and selectively, that it can bring results in terms of reducing reoffending. But the thing that was surprising to me is I don't remember seeing the government actually promoting that research when it's done this. It hasn't said research shows that there are fewer victims, that there are improvements in terms of people's behaviour on probation because we're using electronic monitoring judiciously. Instead, it's just been a throw everything at the wall and hope it sticks approach. And and that seems to be quite concerning in terms of a probation practitioner who wants to be led by the evidence that's there.
We know that research tells us if electronic monitoring is used properly and selectively, that it can bring results in terms of reducing reoffending. But the thing that was surprising to me is I don't remember seeing the government actually promoting that research when it's done this. It hasn't said research shows that there are fewer victims, that there are improvements in terms of people's behaviour on probation because we're using electronic monitoring judiciously. Instead, it's just been a throw everything at the wall and hope it sticks approach. And and that seems to be quite concerning in terms of a probation practitioner who wants to be led by the evidence that's there.
11:00
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Yeah, yeah. As opposed to somebody who sits in the same office as you and you have that discussion with them about what the risks are before they go out and visit the property, which would be a preference, as opposed to sending an email off detailing the risk and hoping that the person who was doing the visit at 11:00 at night to somewhere they've never been before, reads that email properly and is happy with the contents.
11:00
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
In our earlier report, this committee suggested that the government should consider either the introduction of more competition into the provision of the tagging service, or it should seriously consider bringing it in House. Now, my understanding is that your union is very much in favour of the latter, and I just wonder if you could very quickly answer the simple question as to why do you believe bringing it in House would remove some of the problems that we already have with the Serco contract? For example, the KPI that says it's about attempting to fit a tag rather than succeeding to fit a tag, and so on.
Those are the same problems that the probation service would have if it was brought in house, wouldn't they?
Those are the same problems that the probation service would have if it was brought in house, wouldn't they?
11:01
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So thanks, my lord. Ben will cover the technicalities, but on a principled position, we have long argued that in-sourcing of contracts of this nature is the right approach, and this ties in with our overall campaign to see a more joined up justice criminal justice system in any event. And I think if this was introduced, there'd be improved management, improved accountability. And I think for the reasons Ben will talk about, you know, better performance between practitioners and their contractors.
Sorry, not contractors, the operatives. Sorry.
Sorry, not contractors, the operatives. Sorry.
11:01
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I mean, not to speak to particular KPIs, but I think the important thing is there about the improved communication, and I think the improved communication is the real benefit here. And it's also about accountability as well. If there was a level of accountability, especially if there was a greater level of local democratic control of the probation service, is that what we want to see to move away from HMP S to a system more potentially line of youth justice? Sorry.
11:02
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
I'm sorry to interrupt. We looked at this in some detail, and I just want to ask a very specific question, because you can probably guess what our view generally has been as a committee. So we fairly supportive of what you're proposing, but we need to look into some of the the things that are stated as the benefit . If I as if the probation service takes it all over, there will be improved communication, you say, but there will still surely be the problem that a central control system , now run by the Probation Service, identifies that somebody with a tag on is where they shouldn't be, for example, and that is notified to the relevant probation officer who's off sick, who's not on duty, who's on holiday or whatever.
That's causing a problem with communication at the moment from Serco to the probation service. Would that not still apply? How do you get round it in a way that Serco couldn't get round it by doing a deal with you?
That's causing a problem with communication at the moment from Serco to the probation service. Would that not still apply? How do you get round it in a way that Serco couldn't get round it by doing a deal with you?
11:03
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Well, you get round it by having those electronic monitoring operatives located in the exact same office as the probation staff who are supervising the people involved, and you do it that way. So you're not relying on email exchanges. You would do it in exactly the same way as we run unpaid work, for instance, where unpaid work supervisors come in, you can talk to people on unpaid work about what the issues are with the people who are coming onto their groups. If there's somebody coming on with a particular history, you can discuss all that. That's the key thing.
The assumption there is that we're going to retain the same model of flawed email exchanges and third, third party ways of doing things. If we move to a truly local model, that's the key.
The assumption there is that we're going to retain the same model of flawed email exchanges and third, third party ways of doing things. If we move to a truly local model, that's the key.
11:03
11:03
Baroness Buscombe
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Baroness Buscombe
Thank you very much. Thank you, Ian and Ben. So I come to a critical link between the police and the probation service. Can you whichever of you would like to begin, how effectively do you feel our police and probation are working together in managing electric monitoring, and what improvements could there be? We've actually said in our in our report that we noted that national guidance was limited on how you should work together and also different systems and processes and different field work for the forces. It varied considerably. So making it very difficult for yourselves and the police.
11:04
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Thanks for that. I think I would say that we're working as effectively as we can, given some of the barriers that are in place. I think there are barriers in terms of what we're not necessarily covering the same areas geographically. We also don't have the same systems in place either. And there are significant issues in terms of exchanging that information. I have to be honest. I struggle to see a way around that in terms of the different roles that the police and probation have got, and also different sort of levels of access to information that the police have compared to probation service.
So I think it is an ongoing issue. I think, again, the the improvements that we'll be looking at would be trying to increase communication and try to move to some sort of a common platform in terms of how they exchange communication. I'm just I'm not sure if we're ever going to get there in terms of the very different security requirements that the police would have, as opposed to the probation service.
So I think it is an ongoing issue. I think, again, the the improvements that we'll be looking at would be trying to increase communication and try to move to some sort of a common platform in terms of how they exchange communication. I'm just I'm not sure if we're ever going to get there in terms of the very different security requirements that the police would have, as opposed to the probation service.
11:05
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thank you very much for your question. We're not here, obviously, to to look at the police side of the operation, but read the report, and I can't help noticing that it's far from effective in terms of the monitoring and management and and joined up communication systems within the police force. And that's not necessarily their fault. You know, they too are under severe pressure by way of the early release scheme and the requirements that follow. So, you know, a more holistic approach is definitely required.
11:06
Baroness Buscombe
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Baroness Buscombe
So could one suggest, therefore, that having fewer separate forces could make a difference? I mean, I find it staggering that the most basic communication is, is so mixed and different depending on which police force you're talking to. Do you see hope in terms of if we are reducing the number of forces that should help improve things in terms of communication and working together.
11:06
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I'm not necessarily about the reduction in forces, but I definitely think if that wasn't to take place, there would need to be improvements made about the standards of information and an agreement between the police and probation services, about what standard of information was exchanged and in what time could people expect to receive responses. I think if there wasn't that sort of reduction, it would need to be at least that level of agreement on what each side could expect from each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
11:06
11:06
Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
Declare an interest, which is that I've just done a review for the Home Secretary about number of forces. So. But one of the things that crosses over, you know, for probation is that you described a system in which the probation service struggled to get the information they need, like through an email, the police get it one step removed. There are geofencing on tags, and that might indicate a rapist is near to where rape has just just happened. Not two days ago, not two weeks ago, domestic violence victims who have got geofencing around where they they live.
It just seems to me that everybody's treating tagging . And I'm going to be careful about this. But there's a danger that new electronic things are as a burden, not a gift. And therefore there's not a new vision that says we need to change the way we do things together. And I just wonder whether there is that joint approach with police, Home Office Minister justice, to get the most out of this thing, rather than see it as a real pain that we can't for good reason, it's just not working.
It just seems to me that everybody's treating tagging . And I'm going to be careful about this. But there's a danger that new electronic things are as a burden, not a gift. And therefore there's not a new vision that says we need to change the way we do things together. And I just wonder whether there is that joint approach with police, Home Office Minister justice, to get the most out of this thing, rather than see it as a real pain that we can't for good reason, it's just not working.
11:08
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thanks, Lord. I think that goes back to the issue of people having conversations. Very valuable. That and clearly government departments, civil service departments are not having those discussions at the at the appropriate level. And it is difficult. Everybody's vying for resources. Everybody's got their own priorities, but the bigger picture has to be taken into account. And we're talking about one single issue here, electronic monitoring and the ways that could be improved for the benefits it will bring to society. But there's a huge wider problem of inter-departmental communication, let's put it that way. That's got to be rectified.
11:08
11:08
11:09
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
I think the issue of restriction zones in particular are novel. And as a probation practitioner, I would have some concerns over restriction zones. We seem to be moving away from trying to keep people away from a particular area to confining people with particular area, and I can think of repeated examples from people I've worked with in the past, where it's not necessarily a good thing for people to go back to the place that they've always been, and they've been raised and offended and, and all those kind of issues. I think restriction zones have got some challenges in terms of how we implement them.
That the biggest issue as well, though, from lots of the publicity that came out before these changes were made, was this idea that we might be mis selling what exclusion zones and restriction zones can do, because if somebody breaches them, a probation worker isn't going to find out until potentially a day after or a day after that. So we're reacting to information as opposed to watching things happen in real time. And I think that's that's part of my concern about how these are being sold, especially to victims, if I can put it that way, about how effective they are.
And I worry that victims are getting a very, very false sense of security about what technology can bring people, because with the best will in the world, probation staff don't work 24 over seven. We tend to work those involved in what they call sentence management, Monday to Friday, about 9:00, till about 5:00, and occasionally a couple of hours later in the night. So if if if electronic monitoring breaches after that, we don't find out there. And then we find out a day or two later.
That the biggest issue as well, though, from lots of the publicity that came out before these changes were made, was this idea that we might be mis selling what exclusion zones and restriction zones can do, because if somebody breaches them, a probation worker isn't going to find out until potentially a day after or a day after that. So we're reacting to information as opposed to watching things happen in real time. And I think that's that's part of my concern about how these are being sold, especially to victims, if I can put it that way, about how effective they are.
And I worry that victims are getting a very, very false sense of security about what technology can bring people, because with the best will in the world, probation staff don't work 24 over seven. We tend to work those involved in what they call sentence management, Monday to Friday, about 9:00, till about 5:00, and occasionally a couple of hours later in the night. So if if if electronic monitoring breaches after that, we don't find out there. And then we find out a day or two later.
11:10
11:10
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Well, we'll have a system in a few premises where we use out-of-hours recall systems, so it would be down to HMP to have a discussion with people like the trade unions to talk about varying terms and conditions of service, to make sure that probation staff on duty at different times of day to match that. But that's a that's a discussion for for after insourcing has taken place. But that's definitely a possibility in places like the Pru premises. And for out-of-hours, just to be.
11:11
11:11
Baroness Berridge
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Baroness Berridge
Thank you, chair, and thank you for giving us such a real insight into what is going on. And I just want to draw on the comment you made, Ben, about the false I think you said assurance that we're giving. And as a punter really here the false assurance of this system. So I have one question about capacity and one about the resilience you've mentioned. I think 1 in 5 vacancy, the mental health issues of your staff. What is actually capacity you may need to write to us. I'm meaning you've got people off on sick leave, compassionate leave.
There's holidays obviously. So overall in the system, what is capacity running at in and because I think that's really important and relates to resilience. Now your your members are very front line, but we have heard about hacking. We have heard about the power grid being vulnerable. Are your members. It may be for Mr. Jones rather than you. But in terms of what is the confidence for the public if this goes down as a system, are we thinking about resilience in this system? Are your members concerned about that at all?
There's holidays obviously. So overall in the system, what is capacity running at in and because I think that's really important and relates to resilience. Now your your members are very front line, but we have heard about hacking. We have heard about the power grid being vulnerable. Are your members. It may be for Mr. Jones rather than you. But in terms of what is the confidence for the public if this goes down as a system, are we thinking about resilience in this system? Are your members concerned about that at all?
11:12
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
What I would say is that we have no way of accurately discussing what the capacity of the probation service is, because in late September, the employer withdrew a workload measurement tool a matter of days before these changes took place on the Sentencing Act. So even our own employer can't tell us what they think an acceptable level of workload is, and that is one of the main drivers towards the industrial action that we're balloting for currently.
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11:13
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Devastating. It's devastating impact. We've seen a run up that's been I think it's been diplomatically call it chaotic and poorly planned. We've seen a massive change in a once in a 15 year, once in a generation change to sentencing rolled out for a service that's in crisis. Learning and training has been incredibly poorly rolled out to the point where staff are trying to deal with excessive workloads and come to terms with hundreds of pages of guidance documents that we've all seen that in some cases, are being rewritten as political decisions are being taken over the summer.
And even now there are things being rolled out. Now, all that on top of a workload that for staff is simply being unsustainable for a matter of years. It is. I mean, I'm not going to call it a perfect storm, but it is just an awful situation that is deteriorating and deteriorating and deteriorating.
And even now there are things being rolled out. Now, all that on top of a workload that for staff is simply being unsustainable for a matter of years. It is. I mean, I'm not going to call it a perfect storm, but it is just an awful situation that is deteriorating and deteriorating and deteriorating.
11:14
11:14
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thanks my lord. So you you will hear other politicians talking about the 1300 probation staff they're going to recruit this year. We obviously welcome that support that, but I don't talk about the equal number or sometimes a higher number of staff who leave the service. And you can't just pick up a probation officer off the supermarket shelf, if I may. They take up to two years to be up and running in a fully effective way because of the complexities of their work and public protection protection issues. But but it does go back to the issues we've talked about before, this early release scheme you've alluded to.
It's not the first. The previous administration ran two more with equally chaotic results in places, but we come at this also. There are too many people in our prisons. There are too many women in the prison estate. It's probably the highest in Europe, and that's appalling. And no government has really got to grips with this. I can understand why they've enacted the early release schemes. You know, Prince, in principle, anything that does relieve the prison population is good, but it's no good if we can't do the things that Ben and I have been talking about.
And our members can't can't react in the way the public.
It's not the first. The previous administration ran two more with equally chaotic results in places, but we come at this also. There are too many people in our prisons. There are too many women in the prison estate. It's probably the highest in Europe, and that's appalling. And no government has really got to grips with this. I can understand why they've enacted the early release schemes. You know, Prince, in principle, anything that does relieve the prison population is good, but it's no good if we can't do the things that Ben and I have been talking about.
And our members can't can't react in the way the public.
11:15
11:16
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11:16
Lord Bach
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Lord Bach
I just going continue from Lord MP's question, if I may. And I'm going to put to you a quote from you that we have in our papers. I want to know if you still agree with it. I suspect you will. And it's this. And I think it's important. It should be on the record. If the government is serious about supporting victims better, then it must take the probation crisis seriously. You cannot solve the prison crisis unless probation is fully functioning and provides a real alternative to custody. Instead, more work is dumped on probation. Do you want to expand on that?
Very briefly.
Very briefly.
11:16
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And by every word of that comment, sir, and moreover, we are prepared to work with all agencies, all parties, all politicians to try and reach a holistic view about this, because what has been lacking in the past is engagement with the leading trade union, if I may say that in terms of our knowledge of the system and the work that our members do, and we have a wealth of valuable information that we want to share with people, such as your good selves and others in, in and outside of the system. So you can't build your way out of a prison crisis.
You'll hear a lot of people talking about building more prisons, building more spaces. Well, at what cost? And would you want a prison in your back yard? Here's the question you put to most people, and I know what the answer would be. But aside from that, you've got to maintain those prisons. You've got to fund them all at the expense of high quality face to face supervision. So yes, I definitely stand by what I said.
Thank you.
You'll hear a lot of people talking about building more prisons, building more spaces. Well, at what cost? And would you want a prison in your back yard? Here's the question you put to most people, and I know what the answer would be. But aside from that, you've got to maintain those prisons. You've got to fund them all at the expense of high quality face to face supervision. So yes, I definitely stand by what I said.
Thank you.
11:17
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
We'll be interested to pick up with the Chief Inspector of Prisons and Probation, whether he agrees with your statement as well. Look, we must bring it to a close just before we finish. I've been trying to work out what answer you would give to me about the question I'd ask you as to what would you hope our report, which builds on our earlier report, might say, I concluded, from what you've said, that you wanted greater clarity of purpose about tagging, and that conclusions about that should be drawn up by dialogue with other parts of the criminal justice system, not least including the police.
The second thing you'd obviously want to argue for and are doing at the moment , improve pay conditions and training for your staff. And then the third would be the bringing of tagging in house. AM I correct in those three? Are there any you want to add? No.
The second thing you'd obviously want to argue for and are doing at the moment , improve pay conditions and training for your staff. And then the third would be the bringing of tagging in house. AM I correct in those three? Are there any you want to add? No.
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11:19
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Can I say thank you very much. On behalf of the entire committee, if there are things that you wish you'd said that you hadn't report or whatever we do with it, letter to the ministers and so on will be done very quickly. So anything you wish you'd said if you can get to us. But for the time being, thank you very much indeed. Order, order! The sitting is suspended. Following up our investigation into electronic monitoring or tagging, as it's sometimes called, we're absolutely delighted. We've got Martin Jones, who I'd be grateful if you could introduce himself and his position.
11:22
11:22
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Thank you very much, chair. Good morning, Mr. Jones, and thank you for your time today. I've got a question about probation service leadership in relation to tagging. But before I just get to it, could you map out for us what that governance structure looks like with the various elements of HMP MoJ, the chief probation officer? What does that governance structure look like in relation to tagging in probation?
11:23
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
So thank you very much indeed for inviting me to give evidence. Delighted to be here. So I think the thing that I would say is the governance landscape is quite complicated. Electronic monitoring is a service that is provided to multiple customers. So you've got the tagging provider providing the day to day running of the equipment, capturing information. And then you have people that that service is provided on behalf of. And there's a number of interested parties. You've got the courts, obviously, who are from time to time imposing requirements, whether that's on bail or as part of a court order.
And then you then have the interest of the prison and probation service in relation to the delivery of both sentence and also post-release licence conditions. The police as well. Obviously, a key partners in terms of managing people on bowel and also immigration as well. You know, electronic monitoring is a key part of managing people, foreign nationals in the community as well. Now, what I would say is that we did a report on this about 5 or 6 years ago now, and we criticised the governance arrangements. There have been some improvements in that. And in particular, there is better regional governance of electronic monitoring, meaning there is a greater operational grip on the ground in relation to what is happening.
But I guess my overall view is more needs to be done to tie it all together. At the centre within government, to ensure that all the customers within the system are aware of what's going on, what the issues are and able to grip properly performance concerns. So there is a team within the Ministry of Justice within HMP that manage the day to day running of the contract. What is the line of sight into sort of senior level within Hmpps and others? Now, we made some recommendations on this in our report and the government, as I understand it, has accepted the thrust of that recommendation and looking at new governance arrangements chaired by the second Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, to try to ensure there's a cross-system view of the performance of the contracts.
And we think that's a key weakness at the moment.
And then you then have the interest of the prison and probation service in relation to the delivery of both sentence and also post-release licence conditions. The police as well. Obviously, a key partners in terms of managing people on bowel and also immigration as well. You know, electronic monitoring is a key part of managing people, foreign nationals in the community as well. Now, what I would say is that we did a report on this about 5 or 6 years ago now, and we criticised the governance arrangements. There have been some improvements in that. And in particular, there is better regional governance of electronic monitoring, meaning there is a greater operational grip on the ground in relation to what is happening.
But I guess my overall view is more needs to be done to tie it all together. At the centre within government, to ensure that all the customers within the system are aware of what's going on, what the issues are and able to grip properly performance concerns. So there is a team within the Ministry of Justice within HMP that manage the day to day running of the contract. What is the line of sight into sort of senior level within Hmpps and others? Now, we made some recommendations on this in our report and the government, as I understand it, has accepted the thrust of that recommendation and looking at new governance arrangements chaired by the second Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, to try to ensure there's a cross-system view of the performance of the contracts.
And we think that's a key weakness at the moment.
11:25
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11:25
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Well, I think there is. Now, one of the things that I've welcomed in recent months, there has been the appointment of a director general of probation, bringing back a very clear operational leadership line for probation, and I've absolutely welcome that. About 15 months ago now, the inspectorate undertook a national inspection of the leadership of HMP, and we made a criticism of the lack of clarity and accountability around that line, which we thought was confused. They've now acted upon that. So those are very clear operational lead and I think Jim Barton was appointed this summer as the interim director general of probation.
I think that provides a much clearer focus. So ultimately that will be up through Jim Barton. And then to James as the chief executive of HMP.
I think that provides a much clearer focus. So ultimately that will be up through Jim Barton. And then to James as the chief executive of HMP.
11:26
11:26
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
So the chief probation officer sits underneath the director general and then providing sort of the operational sort of professional leadership for the probation service overall. And but in relation to electronic monitoring, probably a less hands on view. It's much more about leadership of the profession, whereas the electronic monitoring is currently considered probably as a contracted service that is being managed.
11:26
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
I'm really sorry to interrupt. I'm very anxious to bring in Baroness Berridge to pick up some bits of this as well. And so apologies to both colleagues. I am very unclear from what you've said. I understand about the greater clarity about leadership within the probation service generally, but tagging as such involves a wide range of other bodies. I am still unclear, in your view, who, if ultimately tagging isn't doing what it's meant to do, and we have a problem about what is it meant to do. But leave that aside for a minute. Who would we go to?
Who's got the ultimate accountability? Now, of course you can say it's the relevant minister in Who's got the ultimate accountability. Now, of course, you can say the relevant minister in this case. We're meeting him tomorrow and we could ask him. But but other than .
Who's got the ultimate accountability? Now, of course you can say it's the relevant minister in Who's got the ultimate accountability. Now, of course, you can say the relevant minister in this case. We're meeting him tomorrow and we could ask him. But but other than .
11:27
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
That, where where is real. responsibility for this? So I think that's exactly the criticism we made of the report, is the lack of clarity and certainty in relation to it. I think in strict accounting terms, it would be the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice. This is a Ministry of Justice contract. So value for money within that contract must sit under the permanent Secretary. But the actions that have been taken around strengthening the governance, I think, are in response to our. recommendations of the lack of clarity on that. It is. complicated because, as I said, there are these different limbs of police and immigration also being involved.
So it has to then involve the Home Office within its wider agreement. But ultimately Parliament wants .
So it has to then involve the Home Office within its wider agreement. But ultimately Parliament wants .
11:28
11:28
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Into the. regions in relation to what you've described? Yes. So, I mean, I guess the comment that I would make, I mean, obviously we spend a lot of time out in the field inspecting probation services. The one very clear message that since my appointment two and a half years ago now is the level of pressure on probation resources on the ground. I mean, we've got a massive staffing deficit. Last year, the Public Accounts Committee, there was a. 25% staffing gap within probation resourcing. And that impacts on the quality of work. And of course, that impacts on the day to day practice of probation officer, but also in relation to the management of electronic monitoring.
Now, when I meet with regional probation directors, they're putting a lot of effort in covering, you know, many, many different parts of the pressure. So what are you doing with a p d, which is desperately understaffed, high sickness levels? How are you then joining up those strategies? And, you know, ultimately, if you look at good probation.
Now, when I meet with regional probation directors, they're putting a lot of effort in covering, you know, many, many different parts of the pressure. So what are you doing with a p d, which is desperately understaffed, high sickness levels? How are you then joining up those strategies? And, you know, ultimately, if you look at good probation.
11:29
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It's really about ensuring that you're investing in your staff, giving them the training and support that you need, but also things like joining up with the local area. So joining up with your local police force in relation to information sharing and joint projects. Joining up with local services in relation to drug treatment, homelessness for example. There's a lot of work going on as part of that. Generally speaking, in my.
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11:29
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Got the Home Office involved in this as well? How would that how does that work? So again, I would say that there is a lack of clarity in relation to how does that work in relation to the contract. Now there is a project group that gets together within the Ministry of Justice, chaired by the Ministry of Justice, that pulls together those interested parties. I think that needs to be improved to ensure that everybody's got a line of sight in relation to how is the contract working, how reliable it is, how that data is working. But of course, my main scrutiny is the performance of the .
11:30
11:30
11:30
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
There has been a pilot around domestic abuse addressing abuse pilot to ensure that those people are monitored and tracked. There has been an acquisitive crime pilot in conjunction with the police, around people that are perhaps at risk of committing acquisitive crime, quite often driven by drugs and alcohol. Both of those are.
11:30
11:30
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
But of course, that then comes alongside the fact that obviously there's been a very. significant increase in the number of people being tagged under the Sentencing Act. One of my comments, I guess, as Chief Inspector would be you've had a huge amount of change across this market in the last five years. It's now compounded by the fact that you've got the Sentencing Act changes and the. service and the related arrangements are then. adjusting to that very significant uplift. You know, we're now tagging more than twice the number of people that we were tagging five years ago.
Now the service needs to settle somewhat, and I think there needs to be a focus on getting the arrangements .
Now the service needs to settle somewhat, and I think there needs to be a focus on getting the arrangements .
11:31
Baroness Berridge
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Baroness Berridge
To work properly, rather than now any further expansion of electronic monitoring. And my final question you heard me ask previously about the resilience in the system, because public confidence, if we're talking about victims of crime in this, have you, in your reports, looked at anything to do with the resilience overall .
11:31
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Of. introducing a technology based system with the risks that that brings? So I certainly think there are risks in the system. I mean, I know you mentioned sort of cyber hacking risk. Is that true? As part of that, I think the criminal justice system is absolutely test itself in relation to the risks of some of those critical systems going down at any point in time. The reality is, particularly given the scale of the people that are being monitored, the importance in terms of monitoring exclusion zones and other things. If that system was not to work effectively, I think that creates a huge risk for the public, for victims in relation to things that could go wrong in that period.
So certainly that's one of the challenges. I think if there's .
So certainly that's one of the challenges. I think if there's .
11:32
Baroness Berridge
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Baroness Berridge
New governance arrangements within the Ministry of Justice, they need to look at that resilience as well. Do you think it's clear if something goes down at that level of the system, the. That's when you need clear governance, isn't it something a crisis happened? Do you think the system of leadership and governance is clear enough?
11:32
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
If you have that moment, whose. responsibility would it be? So ultimately, if you looked at when there have been problems in the past around the electronic monitoring arrangements, then it has been the senior person within the Ministry of Justice talking to the contractors and others. But I again, that's not something we specifically looked at when we undertook this inspection. So I can comment on my suspicion is there is a need to look at it very hard to .
11:32
11:32
Lord Moraes
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Lord Moraes
Couldn't really make a comment given the fact we didn't expect those arrangements. Lord Moraes, thank you, chairman. So we've just heard from Napo leadership, obviously, about what probation staff feel about electronic monitoring. So I wanted to ask you what you feel probation staff feel about electronic monitoring. And how does that compare to the views of the courts .
11:33
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11:33
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
We spoke to probation staff. We spoke to members of the judiciary. We also spoke to people that had been tagged as well to get their experience. And it was interesting to sort of compare and contrast that. I think if I start with the judiciary, the people that are imposing many of those orders, I guess there is a general sympathy to the fact that this is a useful tool, probably a lack of awareness of how it is actually used in practice. We saw there was a real need to strengthen information flow to the courts in relation to how is it being used, how, for example, it is being enforced upon, and to provide confidence that those arrangements are working at scale.
So again, one of the comments that we've made in notion to really regional governance arrangements is how is that day to day liaison going in with the judiciary? I spent 7 or 8 years working in the courts and tribunal service. So confidence of the courts is absolutely critical to making the system work. As far as probation. practitioners are.
So again, one of the comments that we've made in notion to really regional governance arrangements is how is that day to day liaison going in with the judiciary? I spent 7 or 8 years working in the courts and tribunal service. So confidence of the courts is absolutely critical to making the system work. As far as probation. practitioners are.
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11:34
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It won't be a tag on their ankle. It will be the work with a probation officer. Understanding what the risk they pose to the community is what help they may need to turn away from that, whether that's alcohol support, drug treatment, help with homelessness. Now, the tag doesn't really do very much to solve that. And I guess that was fed through in some of the responses that we got from probation staff. Now, if you look at it in the.
11:34
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
If electronic monitoring was working at the scale that we require it, it has the potential to be a guardrail in relation to keeping people on the path that we would want them to keep. So, you know, keeping out of exclusion zones, for example. That's an important point. One of the other areas, which I think we gained some really good positive evidence of, is alcohol tagging. Now, at the moment, there's probably about 17% of the total caseload are subject to alcohol tagging. That's something like a 97% compliance rate for people that have alcohol listed as a risk factor.
Now, we know I was formerly chief executive of the parole Board, that some people who leave prison, and maybe they've got a history of alcohol related violence, the first thing they'll do as they leave prison may be to pop to a public house, and then immediately they're at risk of behaviour, which may lead to them breaching their licence conditions and being returned to custody thereafter. The use of alcohol tag, which is a relatively binary thing, heavy drunk alcohol or not, provides a really effective way to deter people from that behaviour. Now, when we spoke to probation staff, what they seemed to be doing was sometimes separating out .
What use could this information be in managing that offender? And what they were more focused on was, you know, what is happening is the tag on, but actually informing their picture of the risk that that individual poses is a real opportunity, I think, to sort of try to build that sort of cultural point around it. Now, for.
Now, we know I was formerly chief executive of the parole Board, that some people who leave prison, and maybe they've got a history of alcohol related violence, the first thing they'll do as they leave prison may be to pop to a public house, and then immediately they're at risk of behaviour, which may lead to them breaching their licence conditions and being returned to custody thereafter. The use of alcohol tag, which is a relatively binary thing, heavy drunk alcohol or not, provides a really effective way to deter people from that behaviour. Now, when we spoke to probation staff, what they seemed to be doing was sometimes separating out .
What use could this information be in managing that offender? And what they were more focused on was, you know, what is happening is the tag on, but actually informing their picture of the risk that that individual poses is a real opportunity, I think, to sort of try to build that sort of cultural point around it. Now, for.
11:35
11:35
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I think there's some fundamental questions here in relation to their trust and confidence in the equipment. So quite often they spoke to us about, you know, alerts going off at times and communication with the providers, I think was really quite important for them as well. So I think we need to look at not moving away from this question of simply compliance with the .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And. resources to to deal with the increase in usage? I certainly think there is a need to look at the focused. training and support for probation officers in terms of understanding the information. Quite often the information a probation practitioner will get quite technical in relation to what is happening with a particular individual. Quite often they'll need help interpreting that, so making it much easier for them would be helpful. I guess what I would say is that the courts probably have a veneer of an understanding of how the system is moving, but I think it needs a little bit more granularity in relation to how is it going to be used in any particular case, particularly, for example, around bail.
conditions where perhaps you might have a vulnerable victim, maybe a victim of domestic violence? Electronic monitoring could be a really useful condition attached to that. And .
conditions where perhaps you might have a vulnerable victim, maybe a victim of domestic violence? Electronic monitoring could be a really useful condition attached to that. And .
11:37
Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
Thank you, Lord. Hogan-howe morning. Thank you. And I suppose my question is all about what we've all talked about already this morning, which is about sharing data between the different parts of the system probation, of course, police courts, they've got a joint ambition, which is to reduce. recidivism and therefore reduce crime. But I don't hear being described a strategy where everybody in the system works together on that data. I take your point, which is that working with people by probation officers is going to achieve better long term goals. But in the short term, actually preventing a crime or detecting a crime might not be a bad .
11:38
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Idea either. Where is that strategy? So I think there is scope for much greater clarity around that. Now, for me, electronic monitoring as a minimum should provide deterrence actually for an offender who may decide that if you break the terms of your conditions, it's going to be detected, number one, interpreted and acted upon. And if that's not happening, there is no deterrent at all. You know, if somebody who may. repeatedly breach an exclusion zone, there's a risk that if they're not, that's not addressed quite quickly, that can escalate very quickly into quite a dangerous situation.
Now.
Now.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The pilots I talked about domestic violence, violence pilots, I think, are quite interesting in relation to how do you pull that information together much more successfully to get a rounded view of that picture? So I think there is scope, maybe using integrated offender management and other things to pull it together much more successfully. I think there's a lack of strategy at the moment in relation to how do you manage risk in the community. One of the things ultimately, if you're releasing at the moment, the probation service is working with a caseload of nearly a quarter of a million people.
Understanding that risk sharing with the police is absolutely critical to ensuring that you keep the public safe. And at times, I think that sort of commonality of purpose isn't understood enough. The other thing that I would comment on, I was speaking at an event last week, I think some of our systems are far too 20th century from where we are now. The system is incredibly reliant on police officers and probation officers emailing each other for information. And that seems to be crazy in a world in which each of those parties has relevant information to help understand the risk, which may move very dynamically and quickly in the community.
How can we have possibly have a system that's reliant on one party emailing another? I certainly would describe the current electronic monitoring arrangements as incredibly clunky. So the provider has information. They pass it to a probation officer who comes to a view in relation to risk of licence compliance. If that moves to recall, they then go to the police to ask them then to embark on a licence. Recall I a few weeks ago now, I went to Turkey and looked at how they used electronic monitoring and other jurisdictions. And in some countries they have a top cohort of people for whom there is an absolute criminal justice system focused on the riskiest individuals and a very, very swift criminal justice system response.
Now, you can't. possibly justify that for. 28,000 people, which is the current cohort, but could you justify it for the top 5%? I think that would be something to look at in relation to the highest risk individuals to ensure the system is properly joined up, talking to each other and able to .
Understanding that risk sharing with the police is absolutely critical to ensuring that you keep the public safe. And at times, I think that sort of commonality of purpose isn't understood enough. The other thing that I would comment on, I was speaking at an event last week, I think some of our systems are far too 20th century from where we are now. The system is incredibly reliant on police officers and probation officers emailing each other for information. And that seems to be crazy in a world in which each of those parties has relevant information to help understand the risk, which may move very dynamically and quickly in the community.
How can we have possibly have a system that's reliant on one party emailing another? I certainly would describe the current electronic monitoring arrangements as incredibly clunky. So the provider has information. They pass it to a probation officer who comes to a view in relation to risk of licence compliance. If that moves to recall, they then go to the police to ask them then to embark on a licence. Recall I a few weeks ago now, I went to Turkey and looked at how they used electronic monitoring and other jurisdictions. And in some countries they have a top cohort of people for whom there is an absolute criminal justice system focused on the riskiest individuals and a very, very swift criminal justice system response.
Now, you can't. possibly justify that for. 28,000 people, which is the current cohort, but could you justify it for the top 5%? I think that would be something to look at in relation to the highest risk individuals to ensure the system is properly joined up, talking to each other and able to .
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Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
Respond quickly where there's genuine concerns about the risk of that individual poses to the community. I imagine a room in each region where probation and police work get all the data immediately, and then they've got teams that they might deploy immediately to do something about what they've just seen,
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Not necessarily to arrest, but to intervene in some way. I mean, I think that's the potential. And if you look across Europe, there are 2 or 3 examples, at least , of similar things happening with that top cohort of people. I think that would be a really impressive opportunity and would provide considerable reassurance to the public and victims that things are acted on. But of course, that needs to be resourced with probation resources, as we've heard this morning, significantly under where they should be and police resources being pared back. That's a concern, but I can see the investment will pay dividends in relation to .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Effective is tagging and how do you know? So when you look at our report in its totality, I think what it demonstrates really is that at all stages, there are breaks in the process. One of the most shocking findings in our report was that in only. 55% of classic tagging cases, was the tag fitted promptly to the individual. So that's a huge missed opportunity in relation to the 45% where the tag has not been fitted promptly, a risk of what that individual would be up to in that intervening period. So there needs to be a much greater focus on getting that tag fitted much more.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So we can do what the public and victims are expecting as part of that. The second question, once that tag is fitted, is how information is flowing through to the system so that the police officer, the probation officer, can act where information comes through. Again, I would say that that system is far too clunky. It takes too long for that to reach the. individual who's managing that case. And then finally, the analysis of that information. We saw a really powerful case when we undertook this. inspection of a probation officer that was looking at. information gleaned from a live monitoring device to identify the fact that an offender on.
probation was visiting a new address, which they were not known to them. They looked at that and they found that person had started a new relationship. They hadn't disclosed that probation officer risk of domestic abuse. They acted upon that. We need to see more examples of that. And my challenge to the service at the moment that is relying on, in essence, an individual probation officer being like Miss Marple, to sort of follow the trail. What more could we do to identify patterns of behaviour, particularly around artificial intelligence, to identify the fact that there is particular movements that might give rise to cause for concern?
That would be perhaps a helpful way forward. And then finally, once you've got that.
probation was visiting a new address, which they were not known to them. They looked at that and they found that person had started a new relationship. They hadn't disclosed that probation officer risk of domestic abuse. They acted upon that. We need to see more examples of that. And my challenge to the service at the moment that is relying on, in essence, an individual probation officer being like Miss Marple, to sort of follow the trail. What more could we do to identify patterns of behaviour, particularly around artificial intelligence, to identify the fact that there is particular movements that might give rise to cause for concern?
That would be perhaps a helpful way forward. And then finally, once you've got that.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And that will be addressed by their probation officer to ensure that we know what is going on in their lives. And very quickly, they know if I decide to go drinking, I'm going to be caught and there's going to be a consequence attached to that. And unless that is happening at scale, there's a risk that people may think that compliance with that tagging is voluntary. And I guess the final bottom line is, aside from tagging, I go back to what I said earlier. Ultimately, almost everybody that's stuck in the current criminal justice system is there because of problems with alcohol, drugs, homelessness.
And where does tagging fit within that? Now, it may encourage some behaviour, but at the moment, around about 1 in 7 of the people released from prison every year are released homeless. So how can you practically tag that. individual as part of that? So .
And where does tagging fit within that? Now, it may encourage some behaviour, but at the moment, around about 1 in 7 of the people released from prison every year are released homeless. So how can you practically tag that. individual as part of that? So .
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11:43
Baroness Buscombe
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Baroness Buscombe
Sorry, no, just Baroness Buscombe first then. Lord, thank you very much. There's one group of individuals that you haven't mentioned in your list just there in response to written questions to the government. We know that some foreign. nationals who are due to be deported at the end of their term are being released into the . community when the Home Office have failed to prepare their.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I can be certain that some of the people that are currently being monitored under the contract are on immigration bail as part of that. Now, the focus of my. inspection was primarily on the work of the probation service and the police service. So we didn't look very hard at the question of immigration. I'm more than happy to write to the committee if that would be helpful in relation to any information we gleaned around .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
, obviously protection of victims. I mean what is it? So I think it is very confused. Certainly the most recent. expansion of electronic monitoring seems to be about really trying to provide public confidence in relation to the early release scheme. I think there needs to go right back to basics. Why are we doing this? And now for some individuals and alcohol monitoring is the easiest to understand. What we know is there are certain percentage of people for whom. alcohol is a problem that relates back to their offending behaviour. That's relatively binary if it's being used for exclusion zones, for example, to monitor somebody who's leaving prison, perhaps on the direction of the parole board.
The protection of exclusion zone is really important. As part of that, I think the danger is if you just have an incredibly wide group of people that are being tagged at any moment in time, all you're collecting is intelligence on what they're up to on a day to day basis. They're not breaching anything. They are simply, you know, you can understand where they are. I think it's much more useful if you're looking at it on the basis of what is the risk. So is there a risk, for example, of acquisitive crime? You can monitor their patterns of behaviour.
If it's alcohol, that's another thing or if it's around victim protection. And at the moment, what I fear that will sometimes happen with so many people being .
The protection of exclusion zone is really important. As part of that, I think the danger is if you just have an incredibly wide group of people that are being tagged at any moment in time, all you're collecting is intelligence on what they're up to on a day to day basis. They're not breaching anything. They are simply, you know, you can understand where they are. I think it's much more useful if you're looking at it on the basis of what is the risk. So is there a risk, for example, of acquisitive crime? You can monitor their patterns of behaviour.
If it's alcohol, that's another thing or if it's around victim protection. And at the moment, what I fear that will sometimes happen with so many people being .
11:46
Lord Empey
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Lord Empey
Are you able to get the full picture of the riskiest behaviours and individuals within that mix? It just strikes me, chair, that the thousands of people who are. I think we heard that the number of tags have doubled in the last number of years. If we don't know precisely what we're doing. I mean, who is actually sitting watching all of this, monitoring, all this? I mean, it's a massive undertaking. And if you're .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Of the tags aren't even put on properly. I mean, it's a real risk in terms of the value for money for the overall system. I mean, it's costing the taxpayer more than. £100 million a year for the current monitoring system. There's a balance to be struck. I mean, certainly as Chief Inspector of probation, I want to ensure there's more probation officers doing that very important job that we need them to do to ensure that you can turn people's lives around.
Now, tagging .
Now, tagging .
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Lord Tope
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Lord Tope
May provide some benefits, but there's a value for money argument in relation to where you invest the money. Thank you. Chair, can I come back on this? You did say that 45% of tags weren't fitted properly. Now, in my ignorance, that seems an enormously high proportion. Nearly half of not fitted properly. A pretty basic problem.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Were not. When you looked a bit further out, what you found was that 20% had not been fitted within a fortnight of that person's requirement being imposed. So gradually you catch up. But that's still a significant risk. Now, one of the reasons for that, I think, is the set up of the arrangements. So at the moment the. arrangements are essentially haven't changed for probably about 30 years. So essentially what it relies upon is once the decision has been made that somebody should be tagged. somebody goes to the place where that person is residing, they fit the equipment at their home address, and quite often with some equipment, you need to install sort of a radio frequency device, a home monitoring unit to ensure that you're there.
And of course, the second you're doing that, you're creating lots of vans driving all over the place, trying to find people. And are they there where they should be at that particular moment in time? One of the things that I think is an opportunity, when I spoke internationally at this a month ago, many of the jurisdictions do not recognise that problem that I describe. And one of the reasons for that is they they tag at the point of source. So if a court imposes the order, you know, that person has the tag imposed even before they leave the courtroom or at their first probation appointment.
That's the system we need to move towards. Now, the Ministry of Justice, in fairness, has introduced a pilot in six prisons where people are tagged at that point of source. So before they leave the prison, that tag is imposed. And my understanding from speaking to officials is they're looking to roll that out much more widely. That's clearly a wise thing to be doing because for many of these tags, the tag, for example, that I talk about, you don't need a base station. You simply need to ensure the tag is fitted so you can measure whether that individual is drinking alcohol or not.
And similarly for the GPS tracking device, you know, ultimately that's talking to the, you know, the satellite technology in relation to where where they are. That has an immediate use for you in relation to understanding where there is. Now, when the inspectorate is asked to look at release arrangements, we look at, for example, the operation of approved premises. So where the highest risk individuals live immediately after they leave custody, and there are a percentage of people that leave the prison and they never get to the doors of their approved premises. If you had a device on their ankle as they leave prison, you'd have much greater.
certainty where they are. Quite often what you find is that they have got waylaid on the trip. Sometimes they go into a public house. That would be helpful. I mean, they might immediately be in breach of their licence conditions, but at least you know where they are rather than perhaps as what happens far too frequently at the moment is you're calling the police and recalling that individual to custody within.
And of course, the second you're doing that, you're creating lots of vans driving all over the place, trying to find people. And are they there where they should be at that particular moment in time? One of the things that I think is an opportunity, when I spoke internationally at this a month ago, many of the jurisdictions do not recognise that problem that I describe. And one of the reasons for that is they they tag at the point of source. So if a court imposes the order, you know, that person has the tag imposed even before they leave the courtroom or at their first probation appointment.
That's the system we need to move towards. Now, the Ministry of Justice, in fairness, has introduced a pilot in six prisons where people are tagged at that point of source. So before they leave the prison, that tag is imposed. And my understanding from speaking to officials is they're looking to roll that out much more widely. That's clearly a wise thing to be doing because for many of these tags, the tag, for example, that I talk about, you don't need a base station. You simply need to ensure the tag is fitted so you can measure whether that individual is drinking alcohol or not.
And similarly for the GPS tracking device, you know, ultimately that's talking to the, you know, the satellite technology in relation to where where they are. That has an immediate use for you in relation to understanding where there is. Now, when the inspectorate is asked to look at release arrangements, we look at, for example, the operation of approved premises. So where the highest risk individuals live immediately after they leave custody, and there are a percentage of people that leave the prison and they never get to the doors of their approved premises. If you had a device on their ankle as they leave prison, you'd have much greater.
certainty where they are. Quite often what you find is that they have got waylaid on the trip. Sometimes they go into a public house. That would be helpful. I mean, they might immediately be in breach of their licence conditions, but at least you know where they are rather than perhaps as what happens far too frequently at the moment is you're calling the police and recalling that individual to custody within.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Tight enough? Because I don't I can't marry the two together at the moment. I can probably help with that. So certainly it would be true to say that compared to this time last year, there's been an improvement in the overall operation of the contract. But the. KPIs in the. contract require the contractor to make two attempts to tag an individual within 48 hours of the. imposition of the order. But of course, what it doesn't measure is whether that device was successfully installed. And that's the reason why they they may have complied with the KPI because they made two.
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11:52
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Tagging close to impossible. In many of those cases. It's the reason why I absolutely clear when a when in the trials that are taking place , are the. probation relevant. probation staff. present at the time the tag is fitted in the prison before release, so that. We've also got a detailed release .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
What I would say is I don't think the probation officer needs to be physically. present at the gates of the prison when that individual is released. But in every case, there needs to have been pre-release planning and the probation officer working with the person who's about to be released , explaining their licence conditions that have been set, and discussions with the Prisoner Offender Management Unit in relation to how is that practically going to be working on that day? That's that's critically important. And I think in the system at the moment, far too little attention is focused on making successful releases.
And that's one of the reasons why, for the last two quarters of published data, more people .
And that's one of the reasons why, for the last two quarters of published data, more people .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Support that can be provided in terms of housing. ET cetera. ET cetera. Absolutely supportive. 100% of that sort of initiative to ensure that that. release works as effectively as possible. I think far too little attention at the moment is focused on making those releases succeed. What the system should want is that every individual that leaves custody has a very clear plan to maximize the chances that they will safely reintegrate back into the community and not present a significant risk to the public. And at the moment, some of those arrangements are not working as they should.
So again, there's a lot of work. I've spoken to many, many charities that do really important work in terms of, you know, helping reintegrate people, providing mentoring services to those people, but it's .
So again, there's a lot of work. I've spoken to many, many charities that do really important work in terms of, you know, helping reintegrate people, providing mentoring services to those people, but it's .
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11:55
Lord Hogan-Howe
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Lord Hogan-Howe
That would enable us to do that. Certainly, as far as what I describe as probation workload, I. Would you mind if it's possible just to confirm that would be helpful? Of course. But the reason for asking that question, you you indicated your answer about the contract that there may be observing the the wording of it, but they're not observing the spirit of it. And are they rewarded financially for failing to fit a tag because the the then .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
If they if they had to do it four times, they've not paid any more. Well. So my understanding is you're providing for the overall service. So what you've got is, and again, one of the reasons why perhaps tagging at the prison would make a lot more sense at the moment with the prices of petrol, you've got vans driving all over London, all over the country, knocking on doors, attempting to tag people. It'd be much smarter if you could go to a single location, maybe a prison, maybe a probation office, and tag 5 to 10 people at that location rather than driving all around London.
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Baroness Bertin
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Baroness Bertin
Baroness Burton. Well, can I thank you for your very thorough and honest answers. I mean, I am completely shocked, really, by the state of the situation with this. And I just want to bring it back to victims. And the question is, how do probation staff work with. victims in regard to electronic monitoring? But a previous witness was talking about the sort of false sense of confidence, false sense of safety that many victims may have in the whole.
electronic monitoring process. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that, whether they are being .
electronic monitoring process. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that, whether they are being .
11:57
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Completely mis sold to victims and indeed the public. So certainly that was the conclusion of our report, was the danger that there is a false assurance being provided to victims and the public that the system is working much better than it currently is. I mean, in a system in which only. 55% of tags are fitted promptly, there's a huge risk, I think, of victims not fully understanding the implications of that. The other thing that I'm very clear about, if you look at data within the criminal justice system, deterrence is really important here in relation. Now, of course, you know, if somebody makes a decision, they're going to commit a crime that sits on those individuals.
But actually knowing there is a chance of being detected is incredibly important. And I if you look back over serious further offences that have taken place within the criminal justice system, sometimes there's a risk that a break in the process increases the risk that somebody makes a poor choice in that intervening period, and that maybe somebody could breach an exclusion zone, you know, be knocking on the door of an ex-partner because they, you know, in essence, you haven't got the deterrent effect there in relation to the probation services work with victims. Now, that's the responsibility of victim contact liaison officers at the moment that do that day to day liaison with victims to.
understand what their concerns are, what conditions should be set around release. And clearly, things like exclusion zones are going to be relevant in a high number of those cases. Now, we currently have an inspection underway, which I'm expecting to publish before Christmas, in relation to how those arrangements have worked, particularly around the early release scheme, because I've seen the public concern about that, and I want to assure. myself and the public and victims that it's working as. effectively as possible. My one observation at this point ahead of those inspection findings coming out, is it would be true to say that those victim liaison officers have very, very high caseloads.
They're, you know.
But actually knowing there is a chance of being detected is incredibly important. And I if you look back over serious further offences that have taken place within the criminal justice system, sometimes there's a risk that a break in the process increases the risk that somebody makes a poor choice in that intervening period, and that maybe somebody could breach an exclusion zone, you know, be knocking on the door of an ex-partner because they, you know, in essence, you haven't got the deterrent effect there in relation to the probation services work with victims. Now, that's the responsibility of victim contact liaison officers at the moment that do that day to day liaison with victims to.
understand what their concerns are, what conditions should be set around release. And clearly, things like exclusion zones are going to be relevant in a high number of those cases. Now, we currently have an inspection underway, which I'm expecting to publish before Christmas, in relation to how those arrangements have worked, particularly around the early release scheme, because I've seen the public concern about that, and I want to assure. myself and the public and victims that it's working as. effectively as possible. My one observation at this point ahead of those inspection findings coming out, is it would be true to say that those victim liaison officers have very, very high caseloads.
They're, you know.
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11:59
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Working with hundreds, potentially victims and providing that ongoing discussion. Generally speaking, our inspection work shows that they're doing the very best to provide clear information to victims. But clearly, where you've got a scheme that's being developed at pace, there is a risk that, you know, things fall through the gaps, and victims do not get the clearest possible information at the earliest point in time. And certainly I'm urging the government, and I've spoken to the victims commissioner about this, needs to do more to support .
11:59
Baroness Bertin
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Baroness Bertin
Victims on release, particularly for those who have been convicted of the most serious offences. Well, I would agree with all of that. And I think I mean, according to I think your report, that only. 34% of victims of cases did have some kind of liaison with the probation. I don't know if that's a if I've misread that, but but could I just could I just also ask on particularly on domestic abuse victims, because clearly they are, you know, a, the probably the highest risk. So to be clear, if somebody as it stands at the moment, if a.
perpetrator decides that they're going to go and break that exclusion zone, let's say. 10:10 p.m. at night, which is most likely that will only really be, you know, that that that information will only be got out when the probation officer or whoever it is, gets to their desk at 9 p.m., 9 a.m. the next morning, there's not a sort of alert bell going off .
perpetrator decides that they're going to go and break that exclusion zone, let's say. 10:10 p.m. at night, which is most likely that will only really be, you know, that that that information will only be got out when the probation officer or whoever it is, gets to their desk at 9 p.m., 9 a.m. the next morning, there's not a sort of alert bell going off .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Rather than proactive. So the reality is if somebody breaches the terms of their order, they breach the exclusion zone. The most likely outcome is a a 999 call to the police from that victim, rather than the probation officer being able to react in real time. And that's one of the reasons why I contrasted it with with some of the work that's done in other. jurisdictions where for the highest risk cases. Now, clearly you couldn't justify it for all cases. When I talk about 28,000 being tagged. But if you've got a number of highly risky individuals, particularly in those early weeks after their release from custody, I think it should be possible to do something much more reactive and potentially have probation officers sitting with police officers to make real time decisions on what is happening in those cases, but it can .
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Baroness Bertin
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Baroness Bertin
Only be justified for a small percentage. I would certainly encourage a pilot along those lines. Well, that that and just on my last point, so the pilot you did mention about the monitoring, tracking of domestic abuse. I think you did you did say there was a pilot already going. Is that is that pilot therefore not actually going to be, as we've just described, whereby it was a much, much quicker if there is a breach? I mean, what's the point of a pilot in .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
That we if it doesn't actually sort of uptick to the to the point that you made? Well, so so certainly my understanding the pilot and I'm more than happy to send. There has been a process evaluation by the Ministry of Justice of that pilot. But certainly that is not doesn't involve sort of real time live monitoring by the police and probation to give a reaction. It's much more around, you know, monitoring sort of behaviour over a longer period of time.
So I think there's certainly scope .
So I think there's certainly scope .
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Baroness Bertin
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Baroness Bertin
To look at high risk domestic abuse cases. Could you develop these things much more nimbly. And could I just my final final point is that would you agree that that in terms of, you know, actually getting the tags on in court, as you said, would be a good idea that that domestic abuse perpetrators should, you .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
What does the pilot do? What's its intention and why is it special? So the pilot is something that was domestic domestic domestic abuse one. So again, I'm happy to circulate to the committee a copy of the of the report. It was a Home Office pilot, as I understand it, that was enabled as part of that. And it's about ensuring that there's much closer monitoring and assessing of conditions around the monitoring .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The whole process in-house. What's your view? So I've got to be careful in terms of my role as Chief Inspector. You know, it's my job to inspect the system. What I would say is it's not working as effectively as it could at present, and that needs to be the focus of the system to get it working much more. effectively at the moment and ensuring you're making the best use of that public money. So what I would say when you look at the performance within the system is I think all parties have room for improvement here.
So one of the things that certainly comes through as part of our. inspection is the. difficulty for the contractor. If you don't have an accurate address for that individual had been living, which again links back to the release .
So one of the things that certainly comes through as part of our. inspection is the. difficulty for the contractor. If you don't have an accurate address for that individual had been living, which again links back to the release .
12:04
Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Planning arrangements as part of that. So certainly there's scope for improvement. I appreciate that you are in a difficult position, but nevertheless, I will press you because of all the people who are likely to have a view that would be helpful to this committee and ultimately to government decision making. It's you in terms of the best way of packaging this together. So again, I would ask, do you have a view on whether there would be .
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Might be. Thank you very much, Lord Anderson. Thank you. When the government announced. £100 million in March of this year, they said it was for the biggest expansion of tagging in British history. And they seem to have had in mind things like a presumption that all prison leavers would be tagged on release. The national rollout of the domestic abuse pilot that you've discussed with Baroness Bertin, the national rollout of the pilot to tag convicted. burglars and thieves so their movements can be tracked against unsolved crimes. I think you said both those pilots were going quite well, but at the same time, you've told us that there needs to be a focus on things working properly, and very obviously they are not working properly at all.
So could you say something about this 100 million? First of all, is it is it real money? Is it new money? And secondly, is it. realistic to pursue these.
So could you say something about this 100 million? First of all, is it is it real money? Is it new money? And secondly, is it. realistic to pursue these.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
A time when the basic job simply isn't being done? So is it real money? I know for certain because of the way the contract works, that if you tag more people, the contractor will, as a result, receive more payment under the contract. So the government is certainly spending more money under the electronic monitoring arrangements as a result of the changes they have made. What I would say and I said earlier in this evidence last year, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that there was a.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Within the probation service. That's the thing that absolutely. What is the long term strategy to ensure that we have enough probation officers and probation staff in. totality to do that really important job as well as possible? When I was in Turkey recently at an international conference, an. international speaker spoke to me and said, you know, 15 to 20 years ago, we had one of the best probation services in the world in England and Wales. It feels like we're way, way away from that at present, with a service that has far too few staff, but also a huge dearth of experience as well.
So whilst I can understand the reasons why the government has expanded tagging, the bottom line is they need to focus on having more probation officers doing that very important job of helping turn people's lives around and give them a chance of succeeding. Because unless that happens, all that will happen is that electronic monitoring will create a set of tripwires, which inevitably people will trip up and lots of expense for the system, but very few of the benefits. So I think focusing on what is that .
So whilst I can understand the reasons why the government has expanded tagging, the bottom line is they need to focus on having more probation officers doing that very important job of helping turn people's lives around and give them a chance of succeeding. Because unless that happens, all that will happen is that electronic monitoring will create a set of tripwires, which inevitably people will trip up and lots of expense for the system, but very few of the benefits. So I think focusing on what is that .
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
For money, ultimately, I'd much rather have more probation officers. Well, on that question of officer numbers, you heard the evidence that we just had from Napo, and they were asked about the intention to recruit 1300 extra probation officers by March of next year. And of course, they welcomed that. But they said something which surprised me. I may be very naive, but they said that's not a net figure. That 1300 is going to be outweighed by the .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Probation officers leaving the service. Is that correct in your understanding? Yes. So about 18 months ago now, the inspectorate published a really important report on recruitment, retention and training. And I would describe it as the moment, as being like a bucket and running the tap really hard to sort of fill the number of probation officers. But there's a there's a leak in the bottom of that bucket, and we're losing a significant number of probation officers leaving the service overall, latest published numbers. My understanding is there has been an increase of the overall number of probation staff by about 1000 over the last year, according to the most recent numbers.
But however fast you're recruiting, people are leaving the service. And some of that is about the pressure of the job. You know, if you are in a probation office and you're carrying maybe 30% more cases than you should be handling alongside the pressures of doing that job, unfortunately,
But however fast you're recruiting, people are leaving the service. And some of that is about the pressure of the job. You know, if you are in a probation office and you're carrying maybe 30% more cases than you should be handling alongside the pressures of doing that job, unfortunately,
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Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Many people will be leaving the service as a result, so you need to correct that balance just before I. Lord Andersen, to continue, can we just. confirm one fairly obvious point? But just so it's on the record, as we lose staff and bring new staff in and we can debate whether, you know, one is bigger than the other and so on. Is it not also true that that the. situation means that the probation service is.
increasingly filled with .
increasingly filled with .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, what I've been saying for some time now is we have a service with too few staff with too little. experience managing too many cases. And the probation officer that leaves having been a probation officer for 5 or 10 years, is then being replaced by a newly. qualified individual who's been through the training. But what you lack is the experience of working with colleagues, working with people on probation over a series of years, knowing, you know, to follow your nose in relation to actually behaviour that may worry you as part of that.
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
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Lord Anderson of Ipswich
Tell me if I'm correct in the way I've understood what you what you say. This is not a pot of 100 million that could be used in a lot of different ways. It could be used to improve pay and conditions. It could be used, perhaps to. expand the pilot, enabling people to be tagged at the place of custody. What you're really saying is it's, it's, it's there as a pot that can be drawn on when more people are tagged and that more fees are therefore paid to the person doing the tagging. That's why it's about the expansion of tagging.
And if that expansion of tagging doesn't take place. 100 million won't be there at all.
And if that expansion of tagging doesn't take place. 100 million won't be there at all.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The Ministry of Justice has a pretty clear line of sight. So I think so far around about 2000 people have now been released from custody. Under that early release scheme, the majority of those. individuals would have been tagged at an earlier point of time. They were given the fact that there is now a presumption. So my view is it is almost inevitable that the number of people tagged will increase over the next two years or so as the early release scheme comes in. So we'll be spending more money under that contract. One of the other things that I would certainly applaud within this, efforts are being made within the ministry to ensure that the probation service has better tools to help make that impossible job of probation officer easier.
One of the things that a lot of people have spoken about, there is a neutral justice. transcribe that enables the probation officer who is currently, you know, two years ago, sitting in their office, meeting with a person on probation, writing notes down, and then thereafter probably spending another couple of hours writing that up and putting it on the computer. The Justice Transcribe tool enables them to hold that meeting, focus on having that conversation with that person, and then produces a crisp summary of that meeting to enable that on the computer. That's saving. According to the analysis, hundreds of thousands of hours of probation officer time, which enables them to do that job better.
That's great. We just need more of that sort of thing.
One of the things that a lot of people have spoken about, there is a neutral justice. transcribe that enables the probation officer who is currently, you know, two years ago, sitting in their office, meeting with a person on probation, writing notes down, and then thereafter probably spending another couple of hours writing that up and putting it on the computer. The Justice Transcribe tool enables them to hold that meeting, focus on having that conversation with that person, and then produces a crisp summary of that meeting to enable that on the computer. That's saving. According to the analysis, hundreds of thousands of hours of probation officer time, which enables them to do that job better.
That's great. We just need more of that sort of thing.
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
Have you or has. anybody done any. profiling as to how far that. 100 million will. enable further probation. resources to be deployed? If the first call on that money is the additional payments to the. contractor for the. additional people coming onto a tag, then I'm not clear if we know how much of that will be left to feed the other parts of the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The probation resources. We haven't done that analysis. I'm more than happy to take away and write to the committee with some analysis, if that would be helpful. My instinct, based on what we found in this inspection, is far too little. attention has been on the staffing, resources and processes needed to ensure electronic monitoring works properly, and that includes the staff on the ground, giving them sufficient time so that they can look at and analyse that information. The impact on the police of monitoring, electronic monitoring on Bo, you know, ultimately, if you're just simply collecting lots of information about lots of different people, but you don't then have the staff and the people to act upon that.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Of a second permanent secretary and staff there? I don't know for certain that, but I would be surprised if that was included within the ambit. I would I would certainly hope, based on the way that I would expect the estimates to be done, that it should be focused on the cost of electronic monitoring rather than paying for senior posts in the Ministry of Justice. My suspicion is the case that was made for additional Senior Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice was related to the demands of the department and the department, which is obviously under huge pressure given the prison .
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Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Population pressure, amongst other things. So that would surprise me if that was part of the estimate. But is it not also the case that the. 100 million is not actually new money anyway? It is part of the. 700 million that was announced quite some time ago, which is meant to cover a whole range of things.
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Lord Bach
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Lord Bach
Perhaps some people might have thought it was Lord Bach. This be a surprise question because I think it was not intended to ask you this, but I'd like to just know if you. What issues you think might you. anticipate might arise from the Courts and. Tribunals bill that's going through the House of Lords at the present time, wondering if you've had a chance to give any thought .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
That might have for the probation service. So I guess the key question for me, as somebody who's worked in the system for some time, the probation service plays an absolutely critical role in advising the court on sentence. So what is the right. sentence to ensure that we meet this person's, particularly on community sentences, for example, as part of that? So we have a thematic inspection underway at the moment looking at the. quality of that work. And one of the balances, I think, that needs to be struck and perhaps has been lost over time. If you go back 15 years ago, the majority of reports prepared for the courts were really detailed, written reports, spending a lot of time with that offender to understand their lives.
What now there is a focus on is very quick, standardised reports produced on the day. And my worry about that, if you don't get the balance right, is you miss lots of information. And then one final concern that I have around the system.
What now there is a focus on is very quick, standardised reports produced on the day. And my worry about that, if you don't get the balance right, is you miss lots of information. And then one final concern that I have around the system.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
A few years ago now published a report on the Damian Bendell case, a really terrible, tragic. serious set of serious further offences. And one of the reasons that case went so horribly wrong was the lack of checks in relation to the suitability of addresses as that person was leaving court. So just to focus on if a court is sentencing somebody, having the full picture of the risk that that individual poses, the needs that they have is critically important. The probation service needs to ensure that the. resources are in the right place as a result of the Courts and Tribunal Bill, to ensure it can meet the demands of the courts and providing them with accurate, timely information at the earliest possible point in time.
We did see some really good practice when we inspected the Kent Probation Service that were doing much better at trying to get ahead of this, and many of the customers in the magistrates court in particular, are repeat customers of the system. They've been there before and actually try to collect that information to ensure that the officer doesn't start afresh when that person appears, getting that information from the police to ensure that you know about this person's previous convictions and their needs. So you can use previous reports, that's a sort of a good, sensible way forward.
But they're also trying to do is link that up with other systems. So DWP and other systems to ensure you get a complete picture of that individual, that would be much wiser to try to ensure that you've .
We did see some really good practice when we inspected the Kent Probation Service that were doing much better at trying to get ahead of this, and many of the customers in the magistrates court in particular, are repeat customers of the system. They've been there before and actually try to collect that information to ensure that the officer doesn't start afresh when that person appears, getting that information from the police to ensure that you know about this person's previous convictions and their needs. So you can use previous reports, that's a sort of a good, sensible way forward.
But they're also trying to do is link that up with other systems. So DWP and other systems to ensure you get a complete picture of that individual, that would be much wiser to try to ensure that you've .
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Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Maximum possible insight into that. individual before they appear at court. Again, just to pick that up, I mean, you you advise that the pre-sentence report should be much more detailed. And of course we would agree. Is it not actually the case that there's a very large number of cases now where there is no.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Would help the problem of overcrowding in prisons. I'm certain that's right. The more insight the probation service can provide in relation to the problems that an individual face will give the courts community options, which they may have confidence in, in terms of what is what give it the best, best chance of reducing reoffending. So I think an investment in those court resources are really important. And again, I think the government .
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Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
Which is a significant. I'm sorry. My committee will now laugh at me, but it is true. It is one of the. significant causes of crime in the first place. And yet there are no orders in relation to to gambling. The licence conditions that currently are available as there are from other things. There's no opportunity for tagging in relation to gambling and so on. And I would just draw your attention to my concern about that. lacuna in thinking. But I don't ask for a response. I merely share it. But if I could just ask you about your.
report now, you've agreed that your.
report now, you've agreed that your.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Do you have in. HMP S? Oh, I'll be holding a meeting within the next ten days with senior officials in HMP s so I can talk through their action plan that they're intending to act upon, and I'll be following that up within a year, and certainly I would plan to include that in my annual reports in relation to the action or. inaction that takes place thereafter. I think it's. critical that if.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Ensure that what you've recommended is actually delivered. So what I would say, in fairness, is that a number of the reports that I've published in the last two and a half years since my appointment, there has been progress on those. What I would say is sometimes that progress has been slower than I would have liked. And, you know, again, we've made lots of recommendations here. There's a lot going on with the probation service. One of the challenges, I think, is within a year, will they have made the progress that they are undertaking? They should make.
Generally speaking, there is a huge amount of change going on within HMP and the probation service and I think as a result, resources are very stretched. They need to focus on getting those critical things right, and certainly I think the increased focus from having .
Generally speaking, there is a huge amount of change going on within HMP and the probation service and I think as a result, resources are very stretched. They need to focus on getting those critical things right, and certainly I think the increased focus from having .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
What would you like us to put in that report? So the critical thing for me, I think, is, you know, we have more than doubled the number of people that are currently being tagged. What is the granular action that's taking place on the ground to improve the operation of this, to ensure that pH post release whilst their own community was why they're on police bail. And at the moment, as demonstrated by this report, there is a.
considerable gap in relation to how is it currently working.
considerable gap in relation to how is it currently working.
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Lord Foster of Bath
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Lord Foster of Bath
A couple of things you're going to send to us very quickly, pleased so we can get on with it. And of course, if there's anything else you think we should have asked you, please let us know the answers to the questions we should have asked. And that would also be very helpful on behalf of the entire committee. Thank you very much indeed.
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