Women offenders: after the Corston Report - United Kingdom ...

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Ev 22 Justice Committee: Evidence15 January 2013 Peter Kilgarriff, Jackie Russell, Sharon Spurling and Joy Doalthe option to refer to a provision like this, so the gapis huge. You might see some clustering a little aroundthe cities, but you get projects like SWAN, whichhave been addressed through a partnership approachso they cover a big geographical area. The gaps areeverywhere.In terms of access to different protectedcharacteristics—the black and minority ethniccommunity is probably the most significant—someof our member organisations offer specific services,but, because there are so few anyway, we have to relyheavily on the services that we have got understandingthose support needs themselves. We are way back interms of where local authorities and understandingwas before the race relations work, but we are wayadvanced in terms of how we support women.In this context, it is the fact that the individual is awoman that is very significant; the ethnic backgroundis not so significant. Of course it is important, but whena woman is an offender and needs support aroundoffending, her affiliation, if you like, is to a group ofwomen as opposed to black people. The things thatcome out that need addressing are more about hergender than her ethnicity, but that does not ignorethe fact that there are things about her ethnicity thatare very important. So the projects have that sort ofunderstanding, and different projects will engagedifferent people from the communities in which theyexist. That is important because you are supportingwomen in that community context.One of the important things about desistance—Sharontalked about this; Joy did not, but I know it happensat Anawim—is that you need to connect a woman toa different social community setting from the one shewas in before.Q117 Jeremy Corbyn: I am sorry to interrupt you,but is there a significant difference between theoutcomes for minority ethnic women as opposed towhite English or British women?Joy Doal: No.Jackie Russell: In the projects, no.Q118 Jeremy Corbyn: Not that you observed; thereis nothing there.Jackie Russell: No, nothing observed.Joy Doal: No. Obviously, you have to monitor theethnicity.Jackie Russell: Again, you will also have somespecialist projects. For instance, we have Hibiscus,which is working for foreign nationals and providesextremely important support for them. One of therecommendations Baroness Corston made was astrategy around foreign nationals. There is a reallyimportant difference there in terms of experience andoutcomes, where those women are going and whattheir future is like. So that is different. But having 31 inthe country does not allow a lot of room for specialism.The 31 are specialisms themselves because they arespecialisms for women.Joy Doal: If they were funded properly, you wouldbe able to give an even better service. There arechallenges.Jeremy Corbyn: We have got that message.Joy Doal: For example, if somebody needs aninterpreter, we cannot afford to pay for them; it is notgoing to happen. The most that probation provides is amobile phone and the language line. There are barrierslike that, but that is the same for probation. If thefunding was there, we could give a better service.Q119 Jeremy Corbyn: Most foreign nationalprisoners are actually in London, aren’t they?Joy Doal: Prisoner-wise, yes. I am thinking more ofcommunity sentences. Particularly for Romanianwomen with absolutely no English, that can be quite achallenge. It is very difficult for them to engage in anymeaningful activity. The same issue arises across allof probation. In unpaid work, we find it very difficultto engage Romanian women in work parties, evenat the level of what paint brush and tools to use andexplaining the very basics. It is very difficult.Q120 Steve Brine: We are now going to talk aboutpayments by results, which I sense you are allchomping at the bit to do. Before we do that, I amfinding listening to you, Joy, this morning a deeplydepressing exercise. It is nothing against you.Joy Doal: I am sorry.Steve Brine: No, no, it is absolutely nothing againstyou; it is just deeply frustrating. We are not in politicsjust to seem to be going round the same circle. In youropinion, Joy, does anybody in government get it?Could they possibly?Joy Doal: I don’t know.Steve Brine: Be blunt with me.Joy Doal: Probably not. We have a couple of hotelson the Hagley Road in the middle of the red lightdistrict that are used to house people. We often jokethat we would like to put somebody like Mr Cameronin one of those for a week to see how he copes, but theexperience of normal life, which is normality for a lotof the women that we deal with, is so far removed fromhere. It is very hard.Q121 Chair: At least one present Minister, IainDuncan Smith, did try to find that out.Joy Doal: Yes, but without a film crew and everybodyelse, and the fact that you know you have a bankbalance behind you.Chair: I do not think he did it mainly with a film crew,if I remember rightly.Q122 Steve Brine: That is just the process ofgovernment. Clearly, you cannot have a Governmentdo that; they wouldn’t be able to do anything else.Joy Doal: No, no, of course you can’t; I understandthat.Q123 Steve Brine: But you have relativelynew Ministers at the MOJ and a relatively newAdministration. The previous one lasted for 13 years.Did anybody in the previous Administration get it?Peter Kilgarriff: Yes.Sharon Spurling: I think that people want to get it, butwithout having a strategy around women it is probablydifficult for everybody.
Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 2315 January 2013 Peter Kilgarriff, Jackie Russell, Sharon Spurling and Joy DoalQ124 Steve Brine: But it is merely your opinion onthe strategy, which you have backed up with variousevidence. Mr Kilgarriff, does anybody in governmentcare? Clearly, that is your opinion on this.Peter Kilgarriff: It is my opinion. I think this is too lowdown their priorities at the moment to care.Q125 Steve Brine: Why do you think that is?Peter Kilgarriff: It is my opinion. Part of it is about anideological fix on diversifying the service provision.One of the things that really annoys me, if I might use thatword, is the Government’s insistence on never makinga distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit in theprivate sector. When the “Transforming Rehabilitation”paper came out and talked about the private sector, itmeant Serco and SWAN. SWAN’s inability to engagein this agenda is widespread; it absolutely characterisesthe voluntary sector, particularly perhaps in the fieldof criminal justice, because, numerically, most of thevoluntary sector agencies are tiny and very dependenton grants. There are one or two large beasts, but eventhose cannot put in the capital to wait for payment byresults. Serco and G4S, for example, might be able to.That refusal to distinguish between the for-profit andnot-for-profit private sector is extremely annoying, andit is a refusal. We have asked Government to make thisdistinction, because it is a very important one, but inpublic pronouncements it is never usually made.Q126 Steve Brine: On the new PBR regime, whatrole would or should CIFC have?Peter Kilgarriff: I did not envisage CIFC having a rolein PBR in any formal way. Trusts were one of the maininvestors in the Peterborough social impact bond. Ihesitate to say it, but you used the word “depressing”.We would try to put a brake on some of the PBRproposals, because there is something about the speedwith which Government are saying this is working.It is not known whether it is working. For example,Peterborough is over a seven-year period. It is nearlyinto its third year, but there is no strong evidence yet.The evidence on the community-based work as wellneeds to be given time, and time needs resources. Weare asked to prove a reduction in reoffending withina year. You can talk about individual cases and canpresent that.Mr Corbyn’s question was about evaluation. I am notsure whether you were asking whether the centresthemselves were satisfied with their resource, butusually it is the funders who say, “These are theevaluation criteria you have to use.” If the evaluationcriteria on this work are a binary measure, which is thatyou are either in prison or out, or you did or did not goto prison, and it does not take into account the complexjourneys and stages of development and improvementin people’s lives, then I do not think it will work.Q127 Steve Brine: Jackie Russell, much of thewritten evidence we have received as a Committee andthe terms of this inquiry were designed under the tag oflocal commissioning, which now seems to be movingtowards a more national commissioning functioning.How will that affect your work?Jackie Russell: We wanted services for women tostay at a national level. What we see happening thisyear with probation trusts confirms that is what shouldhave happened. You have heard from Sharon about herfunding issue; you have heard from Joy about hers. Imet with 21 of the 31 projects just before Christmas,and talk about depressing—that was really depressing.I wrote up the sorts of things they were saying. Themajority of them had been told that they were seeing30% to 50% cuts in their services. Projects were beingtold, “You are going to have a reduction, but we nowwant you to cover the whole trust area.” So, for Joy, thatwould be Stafford down to Coventry, Wolverhamptonand Birmingham. There are some very big centres thereand that is one of the big areas in terms of numbersof women offenders. Some were told that. Some weretold, “You’re going to have all the women referred toyou”, so they would become the probation office forwomen. There is a whole range of different things.Essentially, what has happened with the money thathas driven this is that NOMS have passported it toprobation trusts without managing the process. Wecome to Peter’s point about time. A timed-managedprocess might have been more effective, but theyhave just passported it to probation trusts. They haveactually passported it to clusters of probation trusts.At the moment, 20 out of 35 probation trusts receivedfunding like this. They have now passported it to fiveclusters. Say, for argument’s sake, that within thoseclusters there are seven probation trusts. Maybe two ofthem previously had projects; maybe five of them didnot. The argument has now gone that that money has tobe split among the seven probation trusts.Not only that, but in some probation trusts they aresplitting it down to their local delivery unit. We areseeing services that were previously supported butcost quite a lot. It was £160,000 here; Joy’s was about£250,000. A £250,000 service has now got one twentyfifthof the budget that has gone to the cluster. Forinstance, in Reading, it means that Alana House hasnow got £16,000. You cannot even employ someonewith £16,000. We have seen appalling behaviour but anunmanaged process. In an unmanaged process, it is afree-for-all for the money, so what is the easiest route?The easiest route is to spread it out and be done with it.Q128 Chair: But can national commissioning workfor you?Jackie Russell: National commissioning is what theyhad last year, which is NOMS commissioning that.NOMS do not want to do that, so they are moving itfurther away. I think a national contract could work,but that brings you back to the PBR problem. If therewas a national contract at the moment and it was notNOMS but a prime provider or a large organisation, theproblem is that it is driven by profit. On employmentissues, we have projects working in prisons. Forinstance, Working Chance works in Holloway tosupport women in employment; Working Links is alsoin Holloway. I have visited that. The Working Linksworker sat in the office reading the paper. The WorkingChance organisation was working on a workshop withwomen to connect them to employment. It is WorkingChance that gets them into employment and WorkingLinks that takes the credit and the money.That brings me on to another point. I have heard it saidby the Minister that the voluntary sector needs to get
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