A Guide to the Offender Management Act 2007 regarding Probation services

The following information was circulated to the 42 National Probation Service areas from Helen Edwards (NOMS Chief Executive) in September 2007, following on from the Offender Management Bill receiving Royal Assent on 26 July 2007. 

New arrangements for the provision of probation services

The main sections of the Act set out new arrangements for the provision of probation services.  The Act lifts from probation boards the statutory duty for making arrangements for probation services and places this duty on the Secretary of State who will contract with providers to deliver these services. 

The Act enables the creation of new public sector bodies, probation trusts, with whom the Secretary of State may contract, alongside providers from the voluntary, charitable and private sectors.

The Secretary of State will not commission everything directly.  It is envisaged that commissioning will be national, regional and local activity, with the local level playing a crucial role.

Some very specialist, low-volume, high-cost services will be commissioned on a national basis. 

Commissioning at the national level will generally focus on setting the overall framework, objectives, standards and targets for the system.  

The Act includes the following two requirements on the Secretary of State in relation to national standard-setting:

• to publish national standards for the management of offenders; and
• to publish guidelines about the qualifications, experience or training required of staff working directly with offenders.

In both cases, the Act makes clear that these standards are to apply, so far as practicable, to all providers from whichever sector.

Regional commissioners, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, take the strategic overview for their region.  They will commission some services directly on a regional basis, where this is most appropriate, for example in the case of specialist services or to enable an intervention to be delivered across prison and probation to support end-to-end offender management. 

Other services will be commissioned at the area level by the local lead provider with whom the regional commissioner will contract for that purpose.

The local lead provider will thus act as both provider and commissioner.  Lead providers will concentrate on delivering the core offender management work, while being able to commission interventions work from local providers, based on their assessment of what is most effective at reducing re-offending for local communities.  Provided their performance meets the requirements, the lead provider in a probation area will be the probation trust.

The Act places a duty on the Secretary of State to agree and have regard to local improvement targets.  It enables the Secretary of State to delegate this responsibility to the probation trust, or another lead provider, and this is what will happen in practice. 

It is the lead provider who will engage with other partners in the local strategic partnership to agree and implement local area agreements, and the regional commissioner will need to ensure that the contract with the lead provider enables these obligations to be fulfilled.

The Act sets out that the Secretary of State will not be able to contract with any non-public sector provider for the work which the probation service currently does in relation to courts.  This restriction could be repealed at a later date but it would require the approval of both Houses of Parliament. 

Ministers have also given a commitment that core offender management work will be commissioned from the public sector for three years, until at least 2010.

Transition from Boards to Trusts

The areas which will form the first wave of probation trusts have already been identified as Dyfed Powys, Humberside, Leicestershire and Rutland, Merseyside, South Wales and West Mercia. 

We are now working closely with them to explore how we might decentralise powers to them (for example in respect of support services and budget flexibility) and to ensure a smooth transition to trust status on 1 April 2008.  At that point, the relevant provisions of the Act will be brought into force in those areas, while the existing provisions of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 will remain in force elsewhere pending the establishment of trusts in those areas.

We plan to set up two further waves of probation trusts in April 2009 and April 2010.  If any areas are at that point unable to meet the requirements of trust status, we will use the powers in the Act to open up their services to competition, either from existing trusts or other providers.  This is consistent with the three-year commitment in respect of offender management.

In the meantime, we will be encouraging, and offering incentives to, all probation areas to apply "best value" principles in determining whether to deliver services in-house or commission them from others.

Other provisions in the Act

The Act also contains a number of other provisions relating to the management of offenders sentenced to custody.  The Act:

• enables information to be shared between relevant bodies and persons for offender management purposes;
• removes some of the inconsistencies between the powers of staff in public and private custodial institutions;
• reforms existing offences of bringing articles into prison and taking articles out of prison;
• removes the requirement for the appointment of a prison medical officer;
• changes the name of "Boards of Visitors" to "Independent Monitoring Boards" and removes the requirement for two magistrates to be members of a Board;
• makes technical amendments to enable more efficient management of juvenile offenders sentenced to custody; and
• introduces polygraph testing of sex offenders on licence from a sentence of imprisonment of 12 months or more.

Further Information:
The Offender Management Act 2007 
The Offender Management Act 2007 Explanatory Notes