§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]
2.45 pm§ Mr. John Cryer (Hornchurch)I thank Madam Speaker for giving me the chance to debate NELPS, the north-east London probation service. I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for answering the debate. I know that it is pulling the short straw for Ministers to have to answer on Friday afternoons when they have a long way to travel afterwards. This is my third Friday Adjournment debate. As ever, the House is not a fevered throng of Back Benchers, with one or two exceptions.
A while ago, the national chief probation officer for England, in discussing the lack of resources for the probation service said:
We cannot deliver unless we are adequately resourced.That is the starting point for my comments.Without doubt, the problems faced by the Government and the probation service are the result of the actions of the Conservative Government, who, year on year, made a series of cuts and created the mounting paperwork foisted on the service across the country. I chose to debate NELPS because I was approached by individuals working in the service, and because, a few weeks ago, I went to a meeting in Stratford town hall of the National Association of Probation Officers. The desperation and unhappiness of years of cuts and mounting case loads and paperwork was palpable. From that meeting and my communication with individuals, I have found that there is genuine concern among probation officers for the service's future.
The odd thing about the meeting was that all the officers who turned up had been threatened—I use the word advisedly—three times by the management of the probation service. They had had three letters which said something like, "It is only fair to warn members what may happen if they bring the service into disrepute." It was spelled out clearly in three separate letters to every union member at the meeting that any comments that were frowned upon would be met with disciplinary action. I deprecate that action by the management.
More recently, when I secured this debate, I helpfully received a letter from the Association of Chief Officers of Probation describing the national situation. It said:
Although the national allocation from the Home Office to all probation services in 1998/99 was only 0.1 per cent. lower in cash terms than 1997/98, this represents an average real terms cut of 4.7 per cent… The total number of offenders (on community sentences and pre and post release from prison) under criminal supervision by the probation service has increased from 136,000 in 1992 to 184,700 in 1997, a rise of 35 per cent.That is the national situation.The local situation in north-east London is that this year NELPS faces a cut of £717,000, or 7 per cent. of its budget. Last year—the last cut made by the previous Government—the cut was £500,000. Meanwhile, case loads have increased dramatically. Some time ago, the previous Government introduced an initiative which my hon. Friend the Minister will know all about. New centres were created for the probation service. The first one in north-east London was in Barking. There are now others in Stratford and in my borough of Havering. The previous Government set up the new centres purely because the 713 probation service was becoming unmanageable as a result of the increased work load and the cuts introduced by them. They would not admit that then, and they probably would not admit it now, but that is the reality.
In those centres, clients—as they are called these days—have the chance to have alcohol or drug counselling, or whatever else. Sadly, what is happening now and has happened for some time is that clients, especially petty offenders, are seen by such counsellors instead of by probation officers. The reason for setting up the centres was to allow clients to see counsellors as well as having the standard meetings with probation officers and counselling from them.
When the centres were set up, it was said that high-risk clients would be seen individually by probation officers in the old style. However, that is not quite working as it should. When the system was started, each probation officer was told that he or she would have 25 cases. The first team to be set up was given 45 cases each—almost a doubling of the work load. That was immediate, and since then the number has increased again. That is high-risk cases, not low-risk cases. High-risk clients are deemed to be destructive or dangerous.
In community service, each officer used to have a case load of 35. That went up some time ago to 55, and I assume that it is now higher, although the figure is not available. So in all areas we have seen a hugely escalating case load for probation officers.
At the start of 1995, NELPS had 154 probation officers. At the start of this year there were only 126—a cut of 28. In the past two years, NELPS has lost 16 probation officers. This year, the 7 per cent. cut will mean the loss of 20 posts. Not all those posts will be probation officer posts; some will be in administrative support. However, administrative support has also been cut in recent years. For example, some time ago two probation officers had one secretary between them. That has increased to a ratio of one secretary for three probation officers. It is now proposed that there will be one for five. That is against a background of increasing case loads and paperwork, so probation officers now find themselves doing more and more administrative work such as writing letters rather than concentrating on the work they are there to do, which is to deal with some of the most chaotic and destructive individuals in our society and protecting the public from them, in which they have a good record.
A number of officers have told me, and I was told at the meeting in Stratford, that they have to spend every day prioritising casework, because they are overloaded. They are so surrounded by paperwork that they have to prioritise. One of them said to me that what worried her was that one day she would make the wrong decision and prioritise the wrong case, which could mean that someone was in danger or perhaps someone died.
I talked to a probation officer the other day who said that a client came in who was anorexic. She obviously had a criminal past, but she was anorexic. She told him that she had not eaten for three days. He had to say, "There is nothing I can do. I am just up to my eyes in it. I have to deal with other things first." He said to me, "What if I've made a mistake? What if she turns up dead in a week or two because she doesn't start to eat again? But I really have no choice—I have to prioritise my cases."
714 The result of all that is that the clients, especially those who have been in prison, are seen far less frequently than they were, say, five years ago, which in turn means that they are more likely to reoffend. In addition, it is petty offenders rather than high-risk offenders who are neglected, yet I would argue that it is really petty offenders of whom people are more wary.
In my constituency, many people, especially older people, come to see me, not with any specific problem relating to criminal activity, but because they are generally worried about it. I know that my hon. Friend knows all about that, and that Home Office Ministers spend a lot of time dealing with the increasing fear of crime; however, the sort of people who come to my surgery are not, generally speaking, afraid of armed robbers or murderers, but of petty criminals—they are afraid or being burgled or of their car being pinched and written off.
Yet those are the very criminals who are been seen less and less often by probation officers. People who are given community service orders frequently do not start their orders straight away, even though history leads me to conclude that, statistically, starting a community service order late means that the individual has far less chance of finishing it. That brings us back to the point that people who do not receive the attention of probation officers are more likely to reoffend.
There are clear implications for the Crime and Disorder Bill. The Bill puts more duties on probation officers, and provides for an increase in the resources going to the probation service, but currently the case load of probation officers is increasing while their number is being cut, so there is a risk that the economic tide within the service might act as a destructive force against the legislation.
The latest example of the increase in paperwork is activity sampling, which is basically a time-and-motion study. A probation officer who takes part in activity sampling will make a note of what he or she is doing every 15 minutes of every day for a fortnight, despite the case load and heavy burden of work that is currently on probation officers' plates. Two probation officers to whom I spoke about activity sampling told me that they had not been able to do it; they were not taking part in such studies, because they had far too much work on at the moment and they had better things to do with their time than take part in time-and-motion studies.
Unsurprisingly, sickness levels in the probation service have risen, mainly as a result of stress. For example, within two months of a team being set up at NELPS, it was destroyed, as all seven members went off sick. The vast majority suffered stress-related illnesses, which are becoming more and more common throughout the service.
The evidence is that the probation service does a highly effective job. All the probation officers I have met are deeply committed to their work, but they all tell me that, over a number of years, not only the past year or two, their job satisfaction, enthusiasm and willingness to tackle some of the most fundamental problems of society have drained away. They are overloaded with work and with paperwork, and are prevented from doing the job that they are there to do, which is to look after the most destructive members of society.
My basic plea is to ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether we can see our way to getting back into the probation service the resources that were taken away by 715 the previous Government. Can we see our way to reducing the amount of paperwork and administrative work that probation officers have to do and so allow them to get back to their real job, which is to look after former prisoners and other chaotic and destructive people?
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Ms Joyce Quin)First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) on his good fortune in being allocated this Adjournment debate. As he pointed out, this slot in the timetable is probably preferable for a London or south-east-based Member such as himself rather than for a Tynesider like me. I congratulate my hon. Friend also on his choice of subject, because the future of the probation service is very important for crime and disorder policies and the Home Office agenda.
The debate gives me an opportunity that I have not had before at the Dispatch Box to pay tribute to my hon. Friend's father, whom I primarily remember as a Member of the European Parliament. We were representatives at the same time, and we would cheerfully have admitted to having somewhat different views on the European Union. None the less, we worked determinedly and enthusiastically together on the Economic Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, particularly on such issues as the future of manufacturing industry, to which we were both passionately committed.
Let me make it clear that I, and the Home Office, feel that the probation service has a key role to play in the criminal justice system. I was glad that my portfolio gave me responsibility for probation as well as for prisons. It seemed to me that that was a way of emphasising the custodial and non-custodial aspects of sentencing, which are both important.
We know that the previous Government's policy was "prison works", which seemed to imply that there was no other worthwhile form of sentencing or punishment. That is not our view. While prison is appropriate for serious offenders, and can and does work in some cases, probation too can and does work. One of my heartening experiences as a Minister has been to see many examples of good practice in probation services around the country, and the work that is being done through the "what works" agenda to make sure that good practice becomes as widespread as possible.
It is common sense to say that prison is right for some offenders, and punishment in the community is right for others. What matters is that the public are protected, and, whether offenders are being supervised by the probation service or serving a custodial sentence, that their experience is, as far as possible, constructive and likely to reduce their chances of reoffending.
My hon. Friend obviously spent a good deal of time considering resources. I shall respond by explaining the national position on resources, as well as addressing some of the specific issues of the north-east London probation service.
The bulk of probation service funding comes, of course, from central Government. That support increased year by year until 1996–97, when it peaked. Since then, it has been reduced to £346.5 million in 1997–98 and to £343 million in the current year. In real terms, that represents an overall reduction of a little over 7 per cent. By far the largest and 716 most important component of central Government support is cash-limited current grant, which this year stands at £328.8 million.
For every £4 of the money provided by the Home Office, a further £1 is provided by local government. In other words, 80 per cent. of every probation service's revenue budget comes from central Government, and 20 per cent. from the relevant local authority. I shall explain in a moment how Home Office current grant is divided between the 54 English and Welsh services.
As my hon. Friend recognised, the problems of resources were, by and large, inherited from the previous Government. We made it clear that we were committed to maintaining public spending in line with their spending plans in our first two years in office. Therefore, probation services have been affected as they would have been by the previous Government's spending plans. However, in the meantime, we have set up a comprehensive spending review to take a fresh look at work load and at the priorities across Government, to help us to determine spending for 1999–2000 and beyond. The comprehensive spending review will allow us to ensure that future spending reflects the priorities of this Government, not the previous one.
My hon. Friend mentioned the contact that he had had with the Association of Chief Officers of Probation about the resource needs of the probation service. In a recent letter to Members of Parliament, ACOP drew attention to the fact that the overall number of probation service staff is decreasing due to financial pressures, while work load continues to rise.
The Government's position on that is clear. We recognise that the probation service as a whole has handled an increased work load with reduced resources, and has streamlined its operations and achieved important efficiency gains. None the less, it is apparent from the data available to the Home Office, particularly the inspection reports prepared by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation, that there are still wide variations in performance between services.
When I looked at the figures for unit costs, I noticed that there was a marked difference between the different aspects of the probation service's work. For example, the costs of writing pre-sentence reports and welfare reports, and of supervising offenders on probation orders, varied considerably across the service. Although we must bear in mind the fact that, in some cases, there are good reasons for that, in others the reasons seem to be less clear cut. My hon. Friend will understand that we have a responsibility to ensure that the variations can be explained by valid reasons, not simply by variations in standard between one service and another.
My hon. Friend asked me about Government funding of the probation service. We recognise that Government funding will need to take account of genuinely new work, such as the provisions in the Crime and Disorder Bill. A number of provisions in that Bill, such as the drug treatment and testing orders, home detention curfew and extended supervision, have considerable work load implications for the probation service. Although some of those measures will be piloted in the first instance, particularly drug treatment and testing orders, we must ensure that the measures that we are introducing are properly resourced, so that they are brought in as the House would want, once the legislation has been approved.
717 As my hon. Friend knows, the finance planning process associated with the comprehensive spending review is now coming to an end, and before long the Government will announce the outcome. Therefore, some of the answers to my hon. Friend's questions will be contained in that announcement. The overall Home Office grant available to the probation service will then be allocated by means of a funding formula that takes account of each service's major items of work load, together with demographic factors, in order to rank the 54 English and Welsh probation service areas according to their comparative resource needs.
Before this debate, I looked at the resource figures for north-east London, and was interested to see that, in recent years, its proportion of total available Home Office current grant has remained pretty much the same. I also compared the position of NELPS with that of the neighbouring services in London and the south-east. I found that, in light of the funding that has been made available to neighbouring areas, which have many similar problems and challenges, it has not in any sense been unfairly discriminated against.
Obviously, because figures are not yet available, it is impossible for me to say today whether NELPS's proportion of next year's Home Office grant will be similar to this year's, but I give my hon. Friend an assurance that, under the formula, we shall carefully study the relative needs of different probation areas, to try to ensure that we are satisfied that the allocations between different areas are as fair as they can possibly be.
My hon. Friend mentioned contacts that he had had with the local branch of the National Association of Probation Officers. I have seen the press release that the branch produced on 1 June 1998, and the response from the deputy chief of NELPS, which my hon. Friend referred to. There was some disagreement between the two about the actual effects of financial pressures, but I am advised that the figures for probation officer posts lost were less dramatic than the press release said.
I believe that the press release mentioned 16, whereas I understand that the reduction in the number of probation officer posts was five, or nine if one includes all probation grade posts, including managers. There have been no compulsory redundancies in that process, although I accept the staff's real concerns about the stress that they are under, and their worries about being unable to carry out their tasks effectively.
Some of the points that my hon. Friend made, especially about secretarial back-up and so on, relate to matters which are also capable of being addressed by a more successful implementation of information technology in the probation service. The Home Office and I are keen that the probation service should benefit from 718 the most modern information technology available, allowing probation service officers to access information directly from the system. That will help with many secretarial tasks, and it will represent an important gain, in that it will allow information to be collected quickly and more efficiently, and transmitted much more efficiently to other parts of the criminal justice system.
There is a real need to enable information technology systems in the criminal justice system to talk to one another much more directly, and to have much more direct communication than they have had until now. That will ensure that prisons, the probation service, the Crown Prosecution Service and the other parts of the system communicate more effectively, and reduce delays in the system, which are expensive—sometimes for the probation service in particular. We want to reduce delays to a minimum.
None the less, I do not want to be too alarmist about some of the probation service's difficulties. I believe, on the basis of information that has been given to me by Her Majesty's inspectorate of probation, that there is no evidence that the public are being jeopardised as a result of recent pressures. I am very glad that, these days, the probation service works closely with the police, local authorities and social services in assessing risk; as a result, performance in that respect is improving.
The press release issued by the branch of NAPO spoke of some of the difficulties caused by the need for officers to deal with more prisoners as a result of the probation work they do in prison. It also said that sometimes those prisoners are held a long way from home, requiring probation officers to make quite long journeys. However, I should tell my hon. Friend that we are keen to address some of those issues in the prisons probation review.
We have already concluded our review, and shall be going out to consultation in the near future. During that consultation process, we will be keen to ensure that probation services and prison establishments feel that they can submit their views for our consideration. As the purpose of the review is to promote greater and more efficient integrated working between the prison and probation services, we believe that it presents a real opportunity for probation services to advance ideas not only about how they can become more efficient but about future Home Office funding priorities and probation service work.
We are conscious of the fact that probation officers invest a great deal of time in dealing effectively with offenders. It also true that there has been some pressure—
§ The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at fifteen minutes past Three o'clock.