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

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 455 March 2013 Liz Calderbank, Val Castell and Liz Rijnenbergwhat is needed. It is different in different places, so thatwould be a very sensible approach.Q218 Gareth Johnson: I am not clear why you feelthat it would work at the local level but not nationally.You say that there are differences in different areas, butwhat would work in London that would not work inLiverpool, for example?Liz Rijnenberg: London is a very different placefrom Liverpool, and London is a very different placefrom a small shire. It gets complicated when youcommission nationally and then try to hold people toaccount at all sorts of different levels under all sortsof subcontracting arrangements. It seems sensible tohold that accountability at a local level. In any case,accountability would need to be local.Liz Calderbank: Just to be clear, I didn’t intendto say that I don’t favour national commissioning,because I am aware of its impetus in terms of the costcuttingissues behind it. However, I think very firmlythat, whatever model we choose, if we go down thenational route, it very much has to have a very stronglocal element, and it has to be informed by localcommissioning for the reasons that Liz has given.If you look at the development of services acrossthe country, you have a number of national services,but within each of the different localities and areas,particularly within the voluntary sector, you getvoluntary groups growing up in response to local need,plugging the gaps that they perceive in local authorityand national services. The national commissioningmodel cuts across that, and cuts across police andcrime commissioners, and the latter are probably stilltoo early in post for us to have a distinct idea of howthey will proceed.Val Castell: The Magistrates Association has gonedown a slightly different route. In our response to“Transforming Rehabilitation”, we suggest that, asfar as commissioning women’s services is concerned,it should be done nationally. The reason for that isbecause of the gaps that are there.We think that a strong central steer is very important inmaking sure that you get a more consistent provisionacross the country. If you are not careful, what canhappen with doing it too locally is that each localarea becomes quite city-centric, and you end up againdealing with majority numbers. If you are not careful,you will be dealing with most of the women—those inthe main cities—while the ones in the more rural areastend to be left out, whereas, if you are looking at it ona national basis, you will be thinking that for the citieswe need this sort of model and for the more rural areaswe need that sort of model, and you would probablyget a more consistent approach.Q219 Gareth Johnson: Surely, it should be right toshare best practice.Val Castell: Oh, yes.Liz Calderbank: Yes, yes.Liz Rijnenberg: Yes.Q220 Gareth Johnson: My next question follows onfrom what you said earlier about how the probationservice can cater for minority groups among womenoffenders. To what extent are you able to cater forthe specific needs of particular minority groupsamong women offenders? Is there anything that youspecifically have to do, or anything that you are able todo, in order to satisfy the needs that are there?Liz Rijnenberg: Yes, and I think that this is true formost probation trusts. We use information to identifythe needs of women, and then we often work closelywith local voluntary organisations to provide bespokeservices for women with particular needs. We are quitesuccessful in doing that. We have a range of differentactivity requirements that we use with women fromdifferent minority backgrounds. We have a range ofdifferent services that we can put in place for womenwith mental health problems, in terms of where weprovide the resource and how we do it. We are quitegood at that.Liz Calderbank: Certainly, we saw that the womenwho posed a high risk of harm to others formed onlya small proportion of the whole—probably only in theregion of 1%. As Liz said, we have seen some verygood and very detailed work in putting out bespokeprogrammes for these women and taking themforward. The difficulty, of course, comes once theirthe statutory involvement with the probation serviceends, signposting these women to other services andgetting them picked up and ensuring that there is thatcontinuity of work. Again, that takes us back to theneed for a cross-departmental approach.Liz Rijnenberg: The value of community projects is inthat continuity of service— because women come intothem before they offend, and perhaps when they haveoffended and they have an order of the court, and theycan carry on with that support afterwards.Q221 Seema Malhotra: I want to focus on commentsthat you have already made on national commissioningand payment by results. The White Paper in Januarythat envisaged national commissioning received quitea mixed reaction for the impact on women offenders,with some favouring national commissioningarrangements but being concerned about payment byresults. What are the implications for the post-Corstonagenda of the Government’s decision to shift the locusof commissioning for its rehabilitation revolution fromlocal to national? What impact do you foresee thecurrent proposals having—for example, on the existingprobation inspection regime?Liz Calderbank: I shall deal with the inspectionregime first, and then turn to some of the comments onpayment by results.We have been anticipating these changes, although ithas obviously not been possible to see their exact shapeor form for some time. Our next inspection programmewill start in April of this year and will roll out over thenext four years, so we will actually cover the period oftransition up to 2017. It has been specifically designedto be sufficiently flexible to take on other providers asthey come on stream.As you are aware, our role is very much to focus onthe work that is being undertaken with the offender,and to look at the quality of that work regardless ofthe management and arrangement structures that arebehind it and deliver it. We look at what is on theground, what is happening with the individual. That iswhat we see as our particular contribution to this work.