HL Deb 13 April 2000 vol 612 cc364-72

8.8 p.m.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd April be approved [15th Report from the Joint Committee].

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Government are engaged in a major programme of reform of the youth justice system, introducing new powers for the police and the courts and new structures at local and national level. The draft order continues that reform programme by overhauling arrangements for the provision of juvenile secure accommodation. It establishes the Youth Justice Board as the commissioning and purchasing body for it and, as such, is responsible for overseeing placement within it.

The board was established in September 1998 under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to drive up standards and promote good practice within the youth justice system as a whole. The draft order now extends the board's role in the key area of youth custody to bring greater coherence to what has been a fragmented and—I believe that most noble Lords would agree—unco-ordinated part of the youth justice system.

I should like briefly to explain the context to the changes, set out the improvements which we believe they will bring and then refer to the provisions of the draft order. The Government have made reform of the youth justice system a key priority. New multi-agency youth offending teams are now in place across England and Wales. New powers under the Crime and Disorder Act for the police and the courts to intervene earlier and more effectively in a young person's offending career will be rolled out nationally on 1st June. The Youth Justice Board is administering a development fund of more than £80 million over three years to strengthen the programmes available locally to reduce youth offending.

It is essential that the courts have the powers they need to protect the public in dealing with the most serious and persistent young offenders. That includes the option of remanding and sentencing young people to custody, which in turn requires a consistent and coherent range of secure accommodation for juveniles, with regimes which tackle offending behaviour and which meet the educational and other needs of those young people. That is why the Crime and Disorder Act also gave the courts new powers to remand and sentence young people to custody. New secure remand powers have been in operation since 1st June 1999. The Detention and Training Order—the DTO—which is the new main custodial sentence for juveniles, came into effect on 1st April this year. It is a more constructive and flexible sentence, with a much clearer focus on preventing further offending. Generally speaking, half the DTO will be served in custody and the other half under supervision in the community. The custodial part can he served in whichever form of available secure accommodation is appropriate to the age, maturity and needs of the individual young offender.

To complement those changes in the powers available to the courts, the Government undertook a thoroughgoing review of all forms of juvenile secure accommodation—Prison Service providers, local authority and private sector—and published the outcome in July 1998. The review found little positive to say about the present arrangements. It found that regime standards were inconsistent and often poor; that costs varied considerably; and that there was no effective oversight or long-term planning for juvenile secure accommodation as a whole. In practice, there was no definable juvenile secure estate. The review concluded that fundamental change was needed and felt that there was a strong case for a central coordinating body to commission, purchase and have oversight of all forms of secure accommodation for remanded and sentenced children and young people. The Government therefore decided after consultation that the Youth Justice Board should take on that function from April 2000.

There are four key objectives behind the draft order: first, to enable a strategic overview 10 be taken of the juvenile secure estate in the context of the youth justice system as a whole and to ensure there is a clear focus on preventing further offending by children and young people sentenced to custody; secondly, to ensure juvenile custodial facilities deliver high standards of accommodation and regimes and better value for money. More than 80 per cent of all under-18s in custody are currently held in Prison Service accommodation and £51 million is already being invested to create a distinct estate and improved regimes for 15 to 17 year-old boys held by the Prison Service. Beyond that, the Youth Justice Board will he working to improve standards still further to bring all closer to the standards of the best.

The board's staff will monitor closely the performance of all custodial facilities against the requirements negotiated with providers. Within its overall commissioning and purchasing budget of more than £190 million the board will be looking to raise standards and drive down costs. It that vein, it has already negotiated savings on 1999–2000 costs. Those will partly be used to fund better management of the available places through a secure accommodation clearing house run by the board which will oversee placement across the secure estate. The board will he able to plough further savings hack into improving facilities and regimes.

The third objective is to ensure that those remanded or sentenced to custody are placed in appropriate accommodation. In a Written Answer of 29th March the Government set out their approach to the placement of young people in custody in the light of the introduction of the DTO and the proposed new role for the Youth Justice Board. A copy of the placement strategy drawn up by the board is in the Library. Consistent with that, the Government and the board believe steps should be taken to provide more appropriately for the most vulnerable under-18s in custody by accommodating them outside the Prison Service. Through its secure accommodation clearing house the board will push that process as far as it can during 2000–01, particularly in respect of the around 100 girls under 18 currently serving custodial sentences. Their small number and wide geographical origins mean they cannot be accommodated satisfactorily within the current prison system. The board will therefore look to place them as far as possible in either local authority secure units or secure training centres.

The fourth objective is that the board's commissioning and purchasing function is expected to ensure the appropriate type, volume and geographical spread of juvenile secure places. Initially, there will be 3,200 places, of which 2,800 will be provided by the Prison Service in the 13 establishments making up its new distinct juvenile estate; 120 will be in the three secure training centres now operating; and the hoard expects to purchase between 200 and 300 places from local authority secure units. A copy of the commissioning strategy drawn up by the board has been placed in the Library. We have previously announced plans for two more secure training centres to be developed under the public-private partnership providing around 80 places. It is proposed that the board will take over development work on those under its new role. We will be considering in the spending review what further provision should be made for new establishments to be commissioned by the board.

I turn now to the provisions of the draft order. They are in two main parts. Article 3 confers several new functions on the Youth Justice Board. I hose will enable it to enter into agreements for the provision of secure places. The board will deal initially with the Prison Service, local authority secure units and the secure training centres. Help will be given to local authorities to make secure remand placements by facilitating arrangements with authorities operating secure units. It will be able to draw up an annual rolling three-year commissioning plan for secure accommodation for approval by the Secretary of State.

Article 4 enables the Youth Justice Board to exercise a number of Secretary of State functions related to its commissioning and purchasing role. Providing for the Board to exercise those functions concurrently with the Secretary of State will enable it to play the leading role in overseeing the provision and operation of secure accommodation while maintaining the Secretary of State's ultimate responsibility for contracts, standards and welfare.

The Youth Justice Board will also take over responsibility from the Home Office for the day-to-day management, monitoring and enforcement of the contracts for secure training centres and related escort contracts. The board will take the lead on future procurement under the public-private partnership of any new centres. The Secretary of State will, of course, remain responsible for matters concerned with safeguarding the treatment of trainees.

Through its placement clearing house, the board will authorise the placement of those sentenced to a DTO and deal with the placement of those subject to prison remands and, transitionally, secure training orders and detention in a young offender institution for juveniles imposed before 1st April. The Prison Service will continue to place on behalf of the Secretary of State those detained for grave crimes under Section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The Prison Service will use the board's clearing house to help it make appropriate placements.

Finally, the Government announced in a Written Answer of 27th January this year that the Youth Justice Board would take over from the Home Office responsibility for overseeing the provision and operation of junior attendance centres under Section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982. These usually operate in local schools on Saturday afternoons, with the young offenders required to attend and undertake constructive activities. In our view, the board will be better placed to ensure that the work of the junior attendance centres is properly integrated with the wider youth justice reforms, particularly the new local youth offending teams.

The changes contained in the draft order reflect the Government's intention that time spent in custody should, as with community sentences, be directed towards preventing further offending in the long term. That is the principal aim of the youth justice system. The new role for the Youth Justice Board will help ensure that, in respect of the secure accommodation within that system, that principal aim is achieved. I commend the draft order to the House.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd April be approved [15th Report from the Joint Committed].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Lord Dholakia

My Lords, perhaps I may say straightaway that we support the creation of the Youth Justice Board in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I am delighted with the number of new initiatives announced by the Minister in this order.

We welcome the number of initiatives taken by the chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who I am delighted to see in his place. We particularly welcome the board's new responsibility for purchasing all secure places for young people held on remand or sentence in secure facilities. The Youth Justice Board is an innovative project undertaken by the Government. Its early intervention will certainly prevent offending by young people; let us hope that is so.

It would be beneficial to have answers to questions regarding some of the initiatives taken by the board. For example, what are the commissioning plans of the board? I understood the Minister to say that there is now a copy in the Library. I shall try to access that but it would be helpful to have it circulated at some stage. What will be the priorities of the board? Will it end the remanding of 15 and 16 year-old young people in prisons? What plans does the board have for the controversial secure training centres which have often been criticised?

This week I tabled a number of Questions to the Minister about the need for adequate indicators and ethnic and gender monitoring of the functions of the Youth Justice Board. My purpose is to ensure that all those involved in the work of the board have confidence in the way it performs its task. Nowhere is that more important than with the position of young black people who feature in the offending pattern and where new ways of working together need to be established.

I shall watch carefully to see how the board meets its obligation to assess future demand for secure accommodation for sentenced children and young persons. The priority and success of the board will depend not upon assessment of future needs. If it is successful in diverting young people away from offending, it will have served a useful purpose. To that end, we wish the noble Lord, Lord Warner, much success. If, however, we fail to stem the rise in young people offending, much of our effort will have been wasted.

Lord Cope of Berkeley

My Lords, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the Youth Justice Board has made an energetic start. We shall see in due course how successful it is but we certainly wish him well in what he has done so far and in increasing considerably his activities as a result of this order.

Not only does the board increase its responsibilities; it moves into a much more executive role in dispensing contracts and effectively running detention centres, secure training units and so forth. We particularly wish the board well in that function. It is important that young offenders' institutions and all the other institutions concerned should be well run and effective in attempting to turn young people away from crime, which is the object of all the efforts of the noble Lord.

I should like to raise one or two points on the order. First I am not sure when things will take place. The press release from the Youth Justice Board dated 30th March stated that the board took over responsibility for purchasing all secure places from 1st April. That was a little premature. It cannot do so until after the order comes into force, the day after it is passed by Parliament. In this instance, the order is being discussed in another place after your Lordships' House rather than before.

I see, slightly to my surprise, that the order provides that if the board thinks it expedient for the operation of the youth justice system, it will take over responsibility for accommodation for people over the age of 18. I am not sure if it is expected that that will be done to any great extent. However, it would be helpful to know—if necessary by letter; not immediately—how much it is anticipated that that power will be used in the near future.

Article 4 of the order provides for a whole series of functions to be run concurrently between the Secretary of State and the Youth Justice Board. I appreciate the necessity for that, particularly in the transition period when the board will be taking over the different functions. Am I correct in thinking that most of the functions listed in Article 4 are expected, in due course, to be taken over completely by the Youth Justice Board? It may lead to confusion if some matters are at the same time the responsibility of both the board and the Secretary of State. I appreciate that about two-thirds of the secure places to be provided will be in the Prison Service. Presumably they, at least, will be subject to reports from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, as they are still part of the Prison Service. Will the other secure places being provided by local authorities or private providers also be subject to inspection by the Chief Inspector of Prisons? From the reaction of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, to my remarks, that seems likely. I am grateful for that informal confirmation.

No financial memorandum is provided with the order. However, I understood from the Minister's speech that the expenditure on secure places is expected to be about £190 million. Am I correct to suppose that it is not expected that there will be a considerable saving or additional expenditure as a result of the transfer of responsibility? I do not argue that there should be; I am concerned with the facts. We hope that the money will be spent more effectively and that there will be more co-ordination. The object of the Chancellor and, to a certain extent, the setting up of the Youth Justice Board is to bring about greater coordination across the whole field. I believe I am right in saying that compared to the present arrangements, the financial effects are not large. However, as with the Home Office at present, to a certain degree the amount that the Youth Justice Board needs to spend will depend on the courts and on how many people they sentence and for how long. Alternatives to custody are being vigorously developed. If effective, a saving may flow in due course. However, I do not look for that at present. These things take time to develop.

The transfer of responsibilities to the Youth Justice Board is a great challenge. However, I have no doubt that the board will rise to the occasion and do its best to deliver them in the public interest.

Lord Warner

My Lords, it may be helpful if I say a few words—and I am grateful to the noble Lord for his kind remarks—on a couple of points that have arisen.

There will be arrangements for inspecting all the facilities, whether they are secure training centres, juvenile facilities in the Prison Service or local authority secure units, by a mixture of Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons and the Social Services Inspectorate. They will be working together in the inspection programme and there will be monitors appointed by the Youth Justice Board who will maintain more frequent contact with the facilities in order to ensure that contracts are applied and the arrangements for safeguarding young people are appropriate.

It may be useful if I apologise if we were a little too energetic in the press notice that we issued. We were trying to ensure that there was a degree of certainty for providers in anticipation of this order so that they knew where they stood. We were entering into letters of intent with all those providers so they could begin the process of ensuring that they could provide the right services for young people as the new detention and training order came into effect.

Lastly, perhaps I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that we do have a strategy for ethnic monitoring. It is being led by a member of the board who is from the ethnic community.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Warner, not least for his energetic efforts for the Youth Justice Board, which are greatly appreciated by all corners of the House, and for more than adequately answering questions. I was busy scribbling notes to try to answer them and he has saved me a great deal of trouble.

I thank both the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Dholakia, for their constructive approach to this order. Everybody recognises that what the Government are doing in this field is not just groundbreaking, but will leave us with a system that genuinely begins to address the needs of young offenders and begins to remove them from the prison system.

The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, asked a question in relation to 15 and 16 year-olds on remand. It is our intention to remove them from the prison system as soon as we possibly can. Currently, my understanding is that 15 and 16 year-old girls on remand are genera fly held in local authority secure units. We have made it clear that our intention is that girls under 18, sentenced to a DTO, should serve in non-Prison Service accommodation. We feel that is very important.

Similarly, 15 and 16 year-old boys on remand are usually placed in local authority secure units where places are available and we wish to extend that process.

The noble Lord also asked about STCs. He said that they were controversial. We take issue with that. We feel that in certain circumstances they can provide highly effective regimes and do so. There have been suggestions in the past that the Government may wish to close STCs. We have no intention of doing that. My noble friend Lord Warner has made that patently clear in the past. We want to see effective regimes that provide good training, good quality education and reduce the likelihood of those who go through the STCs coming out the other end and committing further offences. The whole thrust of government policy in this field, as is now widely understood, is to make a contribution through these institutions to reducing offending rates. Places like Thorn Cross adequately show what can be done with that sort of regime when it focuses on matching the needs of young people; ensuring that they are literate, that they are numerate and that they have the requisite skills to make a contribution in the labour market.

The noble Lord, Lord Cope, has had his answer on the implementation date. I am sure he will happily accept that. He asked a question about over-18s. It may be that there is a role in that regard for the Youth Justice Board. It is one of those issues on which it will be exercising its energies. He made a point about there not being a financial memorandum. That is the case. But the noble Lord also asked what the savings and the costs would be. Generally speaking, we see this as being cost neutral. We have put further additional funding in place to ensure that we can secure the objectives of the Youth Justice Board. But I have been impressed by the fact that it has been able to negotiate considerable savings in seeking placements and accommodation, particularly in discussions with the local authorities who currently provide secure units. The commitment is that the savings that are made will enable reinvestment back into the estate to provide those better quality regimes that we all desire.

I trust that I answered the points not covered by my noble friend. If there are unanswered issues, I am more than happy to return to those in correspondence. In saying that, this order is ground-breaking; it is thorough; it will provide for good quality regimes and make a marked difference to the outcomes we can expect from this part of the prison estate—former prison estate, as it will be—and the way in which it seeks to guide those young offenders who have stepped out of line and had to be incarcerated for however long. I therefore commend the order to your Lordships.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House adjourned at twenty-four minutes before eight o'clock.