Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that women's centres that are not in Community Rehabilitation Company supply chains do not close due to a lack of funding.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) owners were required to put forward plans to make sure female offenders are properly supported as part of their bids. All eight owners of the 21 CRCs included in their bids organisations that deliver services for women. CRCs are currently in the process of finalising who they wish to commission services from on an ongoing basis. The MoJ robustly manages and monitors the performance of CRCs, in line with government standards, to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments to maintain service delivery, reduce reoffending and deliver value for money to the taxpayer. This includes making sure they provide services that meet the particular needs of female offenders.
Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are taking steps to monitor whether women's centres have lost funding since the Transforming Rehabilitation programme came into force in February.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) owners were required to put forward plans to make sure female offenders are properly supported as part of their bids. All eight owners of the 21 CRCs included in their bids organisations that deliver services for women. CRCs are currently in the process of finalising who they wish to commission services from on an ongoing basis. The MoJ robustly manages and monitors the performance of CRCs, in line with government standards, to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments to maintain service delivery, reduce reoffending and deliver value for money to the taxpayer. This includes making sure they provide services that meet the particular needs of female offenders.
Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many organisations now running Community Rehabilitation Companies included plans to contract women's centres in the bids for Transforming Rehabilitation contracts; and what steps will be taken if Community Rehabilitation Companies that included such plans in their bids fail to act upon them within a reasonable time.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) owners were required to put forward plans to make sure female offenders are properly supported as part of their bids. All eight owners of the 21 CRCs included in their bids organisations that deliver services for women. CRCs are currently in the process of finalising who they wish to commission services from on an ongoing basis. The MoJ robustly manages and monitors the performance of CRCs, in line with government standards, to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments to maintain service delivery, reduce reoffending and deliver value for money to the taxpayer. This includes making sure they provide services that meet the particular needs of female offenders.
Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many women were in prisons in England on 30 June in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The decision to sentence a person to a custodial sentence, or to remand a person into custody prior to trial or sentencing, is a matter for the independent judiciary and courts will take into account all the circumstances of the offence and the offender in determining this.
For the last two years, the female prison population has been consistently under 4,000 for the first time in a decade. Data on the number of women in prison is published annually at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/339036/prison-population-2014.xls
The numbers of women in prisons in England on 30th June on each of the years in question were:
2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
4,463 | 4,283 | 4,505 | 4,307 | 4,267 | 4,185 | 4,123 | 3,853 | 3,929 |
We are committed to making sure that sentencers have robust community options at their disposal. The Female Offenders Advisory Board are working in Greater Manchester on a pathfinder aimed at providing sentencers with robust and effective sentencing options in the community which may divert women from custody, where appropriate. Learning from the pathfinder will inform a new operating model for working differently with women in the criminal justice system. We are also testing a new model of liaison and diversion in police custody and the courts. The trial scheme, in 10 areas, will aim to identify, assess and refer people with mental health, learning disability, substance misuse and social vulnerabilities into treatment or support services.
We are also working to make sure that female offenders have the support they need to turn their lives around. In March 2014, we published a first year progress report on delivery of our strategic objectives for female offenders, which sets out clearly our key priorities for addressing the needs of female offenders and reducing the number of women in custody. Our Transforming Rehabilitation reforms also mean that those serving under 12 month sentences will, for the first time in recent history, be subject to statutory supervision including a licence period in the community, aimed at supporting successful community reintegration and rehabilitation. Proportionally, more women than men are serving short sentences so they will benefit particularly from this element of the reforms.
Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the implementation of the Prison Service Instruction 30/2013, which prohibits prisoners from receiving parcels from relatives, whether any prisons have introduced measures to help women who no longer have access to sufficient underwear.
Answered by Lord Faulks
In order to ensure that women have access to sufficient underwear, there is now no restriction on the number of pairs of underwear women in prison can have in their cells (subject to standard overarching volumetric limits on property held in possession).
Asked by: Baroness Corston (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether a full range of sanitary products is provided to female prisoners, or whether they have to be purchased.
Answered by Lord Faulks
All prisons across the female custodial estate provide Interlude tampons and sanitary towels to women free of charge. Other brands of sanitary products are available for women to buy via the National Product list.