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Home Secretary's speech on offender management

7.11.06

Home Secretary John Reid today delivered a speech to an audience of serving prisoners, voluntary sector workers and prison staff at London’s HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

The Home Secretary says he will open up the probation service to private and voluntary sector competition.

"We need to bring the voluntary sector back to centre stage as an equally professional partner in supervising and rehabilitating offenders when they leave prison and in the community.

"This year and next year I have given every local probation area a target of doubling and then doubling again the proportion of services they contract out.

"But I want to go further. So from April 2008, once we have passed the necessary legislation, we will compete services with an annual value of up to £250m – on a compulsory basis if necessary."

He added that "probation officers have nothing to fear – and everything to gain in this new world."

The Home Secretary went on to say that the probation service is not working as well as it should and that there were some areas where performance is not good enough. He added that the service needs rejuvenation and reinvigoration.

He says that while individual probation officers are committed, professional and hard working, none of them can be experts at everything. He added that we need to match appropriate skills to appropriate tasks to free up professional probation officers to focus on the most serious criminals in the community.