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

54 Women offenders: after the Corston ReportResearch evidence on which to base commissioning decisions136. Witnesses were concerned that the future sustainability of gender-specific provisionwould be dependent on existing providers being able to demonstrate their effectiveness inreducing reoffending. The Government are beginning from a lower baseline in seeking toreduce reoffending by women as they have lower reoffending rates than men: “Overall, therate for women is 19%, including all forms of conviction, compared with 29% for men; thatincludes cautions and so on.” 272 Nevertheless, we heard that there were several constraintsthat were likely to hinder commissioning. Despite the fact that many projects have beenrunning since 2007/08, no coherent approach has been taken to data collection andevaluation. 273 Responsibility for performance management of individual women’s servicesappears to have evolved over the years. Appropriate systems were not put in place from theoutset and when performance management regimes were imposed, the reportingrequirements for centres have shifted over time and have tended to focus on outputs ratherthan outcomes, resulting in the current situation where NOMS has only one full year ofcomparison data. 274 Neither women’s centres nor probation trusts have been consistentlyusing appropriate performance measures, leaving them unable to articulate those practices,that were having most impact on women’s offending. 275 Neither was such informationavailable for Approved Premises. 276 There has also been a lack of comparison of outcomesfor women offenders who have accessed women’s centres and those who have not. 277137. Some data exists, for example, Clinks and RR3 cited NOMS data that showed thatfemale offending rates in probation trusts where there was a women’s community centrewere 8.82%, significantly below the predicted 9.09%. 278 Anawim’s reoffending rate forwomen on specified activity requirements—which can be made for up to 60 days for up toa 12 month period—who completed their orders was 1%, compared with 63% for thosecoming out after a short prison sentence. 279 Nevertheless, the positive work that centreshave done is difficult to evidence across the board. 280 Women’s Breakout and PrisonReform Trust expressed concern that despite a growing body of evidence relating to thevalue of women’s community services, the evidence base is constantly challenged as beinginsufficiently robust for commissioning, as the women supported by these centresrepresent too small a sample to be significant. 281138. It was apparent that processes for monitoring the impact and performance ofwomen’s centres and other gender-specific interventions need to be vastly improved. 282Michael Spurr explained that the limited evidence base for women’s centres’ effectiveness272 Q 293273 Ev 69274 Q 115, Ev 120275 Q 203, Q 204276 Q 271277 Q 202278 Ev 89279 Qq 91–93. See also Q 28 [Baroness Corston]280 See for example Ev w32, Ev w45, Ev 114, Ev w63, Ev 74, Ev w80, Q 28 [Baroness Corston]281 Q 158 [Ms Lyon]282 Ev w74