Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department will publish on (a) finance, benefits and debt and (b) dependency and recovery service commissioning across probation regions for (i) 2021/2 and (ii) future years.

We assessed the regional needs and existing provision in the areas of accommodation; education, training and employment (ETE); finance benefit and debt (FBD); dependency and recovery (D&R); personal wellbeing; and holistic women’s services to identify the minimum viable services required for 26 June 2021, to support the unified Probation Service. FBD and D&R could be better met than other services through a combination of access to universal services, probation officer support and individual support through the personal wellbeing service so these were not included within the initial commissioning for June 2021.

All Probation regions are looking to commission services related to finance, benefits and debt and we expect these services to be in place by July 2022. All regions are also looking to commission services for dependency and recovery. Some of these will be co-commissioned with local partners so there will be a range of start dates, but the majority are also expected by July 2022.

We continue to monitor the timescales and plans to commission and mobilise specialist FBD and D&R services. Budgets have been allocated for these services and contract values will be monitored once the contracts have been procured. The level of voluntary sector and small local organisation participation and the outcomes related to FBD or D&R will be monitored once the procurement has taken place.

In the meantime, we continue to engage with charities and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations to encourage them to apply to the Dynamic Framework and to prepare for these and other competitions. Around two-thirds of the £195 million funding already awarded, for the 110 contracts for accommodation, ETE, personal wellbeing and women’s services that began providing services on 26 June 2021, is to registered charities or VCSEs.

We plan to have commissioned finance, benefits and debt and dependency and recovery services by summer 2022. We will then publish the contract award details including values for future years.