§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins)On 6 January 2004, the Home Secretary announced the Government's response to Patrick Carter's review of the correctional services and confirmed our intention to establish a national offender management service. This statement outlines the way I intend to introduce the new single service.
The Carter review highlighted the fact that no single organisation has responsibility for managing offenders. The review proposed that the existing organisations should be absorbed within a new service focused on the end-to-end management of offenders throughout their sentence.
Since January, I have conducted two consultation exercises and have received nearly 400 written responses. After careful consideration, I have decided that the option of moving immediately to create new regional boards is unlikely to deliver better management 18WS of offenders and better services—my two main objectives. Instead, I intend at this stage to concentrate on introducing the concept and practice of end-to-end offender management. There has been widespread support for this approach and it is key to achieving our overall aim of reducing re-offending. I will introduce greater competition within correctional services by using the powers of the Secretary of State but at this stage I have concluded that this can best be achieved through the existing 42 probation boards. This will allow us to maintain important local links with other criminal justice agencies and the experience gained will allow us to take forward future structural change in a more informed way.
The regional offender managers will have direct responsibility for budget allocation. They will support the existing local boards in moving to an offender management model, manage board performance, develop contestability, and pilot commissioning in their area. They will play an important part in achieving more effective service delivery through greater competition, using providers of prison and community interventions from across the public, private and voluntary sectors and determining where to split purchaser and provider. This approach will give us the opportunity to expose the core of offender management, and not just interventions, to competition.
The 42 local probation boards will refocus their role around a new statutory responsibility for managing offenders. They are already able to purchase and commission services. The consultation responses show they are eager to respond to the Carter review and to embed the concept of offender management. I want to enlist this interest and enthusiasm although I am also determined that the boards embark on a radical programme of change, not least to extend their commissioning function.
While the regional offender managers will lead performance and innovation at regional level, individual offender management will continue to be organised locally below the existing area level. I recognise the importance of the links and relationships that underpin effective joint working. The work probation areas currently undertaken in child protection, on the local criminal justice boards, in the criminal and disorder reduction partnerships and in the youth offending teams will continue.
In parallel to the ongoing development of NOMS and the core concepts of offender management and contestability I intend to proceed with vigour in implementing the other initiatives recommended in the Carter review that are critical to achieving our goal of reducing re-offending, and which have at their heart the proper punishment and rehabilitation of offenders that will lead to a safer society for all.