Serious Tagging Concerns

With so much going on in the probation world recently, the following article from Civil Service World about tagging has slipped down the agenda. The subject only got a brief mention on Monday at the Public Accounts Committee car crash session and the oft-quoted '£700 million':-

Probation Service ‘being set up to fail’ with tagging expansion, committee says

Peers warn resourcing for planned surge in electronic monitoring is "almost certain” to be not enough

A House of Lords committee has warned that the Probation Service is in danger of “being set up to fail” as part of the Ministry of Justice’s planned expansion of electronic monitoring (EM) to help ease the prison capacity crisis.

Under proposals set out in the Sentencing Bill, which was introduced to parliament in September, the number of people required to undergo tagging as part of the terms of their release is set to increase significantly.

However, a letter from members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee to MoJ ministers raises serious concerns about the resourcing for the expansion being offered to the Probation Service. Peers also question the capacity of private sector providers to cope with a near doubling of the number of offenders and defendants required to wear EM devices as a condition of their release into the community.

The committee says the government’s plans envisage 22,000 more people being subject to tagging each year – a significant hike on the 26,647 people being electronically monitored at the end of September. However, it says an extra £100m earmarked for investment into EM only represents an uplift of 30%.

The peers’ 28-page letter notes the MoJ’s “much trailed” pledge to invest £700m in the Probation Service over the next four years, but says the share that will go into staff hiring, development and retention is “almost certain to be insufficient”.

It also directly challenges the MoJ’s reliance on suppliers previously found to have massively overcharged the ministry for EM services.

“We find it extraordinary that contracts were awarded to both Serco and AUEM despite being found by the Serious Fraud Office to have been dishonestly misleading the government while providing EM services,” the letter states. Allied Universal Electronic Monitoring – or AUEM for short – is the new name for G4S Monitoring Technologies.

Serco and G4S wrongly billed the MoJ for tens of millions of pounds for tagging services under EM contracts first awarded in 2005. G4S eventually repaid the department £100m, and Serco repaid £70.5m. Investigations by the SRO resulted in Serco being fined £19.2m plus £3.7m costs and G4S being fined £38.5m plus £5.9m costs over the scandal.

The committee’s letter goes on to say: “Continued failures in service provision from Serco in particular lead us to conclude that without major changes in contract management, including flexing to additional providers where necessary, EM service provision will continue to be woefully inadequate.”

Committee chair Lord Don Foster said the government needed to reassess its approach to electronic monitoring.

“The Probation Service needs more funding, and many more well-trained staff if there is to be a successful EM expansion,” he said. “Without this, the Probation Service is being set up to fail. It is startling that the government is promoting the biggest expansion of EM in a generation at a time of great technological advancement yet does not see fit to accompany this with a new strategy.”

Foster said the rise of new technologies, including non-fitted devices and AI, further highlighted the importance of a new strategy that clearly defines the purpose of EM to both the judiciary and the public.

He added that a new presumption that all prison leavers will be subject to EM on their release from custody had the potential to hinder the Probation Service in its work.

“This blanket approach to tagging, regardless of crime and circumstances, diminishes the role of effective, targeted probation interventions, and risks creating an unethical system that is overly punitive and disproportionate,” Foster said.

Proper resourcing and training for the Probation Service is front and centre of the committee’s recommendations to ministers.

Additionally, peers are also calling on ministers to prioritise the publication of a new EM strategy that “comprehensively covers” the rollout, scaling, and implementation of the government’s new approach. The letter says the strategy should also address ethical issues, and the “intersection” between EM and AI.

Further demands include more longitudinal studies of the long-term efficacy of EM – both pre- and post-tag removal – in terms of reducing reoffending, supporting victims, and detecting crime.

Peers are also calling on ministers to “immediately begin” a tendering process to expand the number of EM service providers available to the MoJ.

An MoJ spokesperson said: “Tagging is a critical tool in our efforts to punish offenders and evidence shows it’s increasingly proving its effectiveness in cutting reoffending and keeping the public safe. That’s why we are increasing the probation budget by around 45% over the next three years and investing an extra £100m into electronic monitoring so we can tag tens of thousands more offenders under our upcoming reforms. We will carefully consider the committee’s findings and respond in due course.”

The ministry added that Serco has improved its performance and backlogs from last year had been cleared, with the number of outstanding visits back to normal levels. It said a “series of measures” had been introduced to toughen up scrutiny of Serco, including direct access to its systems.

The MoJ said it was “very confident” that its tagging service could meet the additional demand of the proposed reforms and said it is “working with suppliers to ensure change is implemented effectively”.

A Serco spokesperson said the company’s performance on the MoJ electronic-monitoring contract had “improved significantly” and that it is now “successfully tagging record numbers of offenders”.

“We disagree entirely with the committee’s suggestion that we lack the ability to cope with an increase to the volume of people tagged,” they said. “This is not based on recent evidence. We have already successfully dealt with a number of early release schemes and are well placed to deal with the forecast expansion in people being tagged.”