Introduction
I am genuinely delighted to be here today for a number of reasons. The first because if I wasn't here I'd be presiding over the House of Lords in a pair of tights. But as Ruth said I have been involved in the wider social agenda and I am enormously impressed by the work you do. Despite my recent move from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, I have retained my Ministerial responsibility for Street Crime in Manchester so I am a regular visitor to the region. I am always impressed by the North West's commitment to clear objectives and outcomes in crime reduction, and by its willingness to innovate in order to achieve them.
The importance of resettlement
Can I start talking about the importance of resettlement. Resettlement is good for offenders, but it is also good for society. And this is strongly recognised in Government. We need to make progress through the downstream causes of crime as much as we will make in the upstream causes of crime. Many of the people we are trying to help are the most vulnerable, and there is a fine line between these people becoming the perpetrators of crime, or the victims of crime. It is important that we do not underestimate the importance of resettlement and the Government understands this.
The effective resettlement of offenders is vital work. Offenders often have chronic and inter-related problems - many of which are associated with their offending - and very few skills to help deal with them. Prisoners are highly likely to have acute problems with their mental health, debt, access to benefits, educational achievement, stable accommodation, family breakdown, their attitudes and self-control, their thinking and life-skills, and in two-thirds of crimes significant drug and alcohol problems. They are also highly likely to have histories of school exclusion, poor access to services, homelessness, abuse, and time spent in secure hospitals or local authority care. These problems are exacerbated by difficult and disrupted pathways through the criminal justice system. Like so many socially excluded groups they have a much greater dependence on the state and need greater access to it.
This is not an apology for offending behaviour, but a clear-sighted assessment of the problems and the problems we have facing prisoners and services in reducing the likelihood of re-offending. Unaddressed, these problems erect a formidable barrier to prisoners going straight on release. But this need not be an insurmountable barrier. Each of the agencies in this room, and many others, has a responsibility to provide services to offenders, as to other members of society. Once this has been acknowledged, which I am quite sure it has been in the North West, the key is joint-working on a proper and co-ordinated basis. The challenges of this cannot be under-estimated. Gathering and exchanging information about prisoners is clearly key; strong links established between prisons and outside services are also crucial; as is collaboration to provide multiple interventions that are effective and on time in relation to individual prisoners. These are exactly the challenges that a Regional Strategy needs to address.
The national level
Can I talk a little bit about national issues. At a national level, since I launched the Social Exclusion Unit's report on re-offending, departments have been working together to ensure that policies and programmes join up to form a coherent and co-ordinated response to offender rehabilitation. A key element of this work has been the shift in responsibility away from the Prison Service to the departments and agencies that have wider mainstream responsibility. Hence, education is the responsibility of the Department for Education and Skills; health is the responsibility of NHS. This shift in accountability places resettlement policy firmly within mainstream public service delivery but it also makes the challenge of joint working even more important.
Of course, we can't expect other departments and agencies to engage fully if the Correctional Services are not working effectively together. The joint Offender Assessment System, or OASys, will be a major step forward in joint working between the two services, and will help them to communicate significantly more information to other agencies about offenders. OASys builds on the Prison/Probation 'What Works' programme, which has been critical, over the last few years, to ensuring that the interventions and programmes provided by Prison and Probation match up to external standards of effectiveness. It is important however to emphasise that we cannot rely solely on one system. OASys is vital to any effective information sharing to track offenders throughout the Criminal Justice System. But it should not be the sole agency.
The most significant advances are being made but we have along way to go on drugs strategy. Two-thirds of prisoners are known to have a drugs problem, which has so far, been addressed by considerable investment in treatment and support in the Prison Service. But we've recognised that we need to go further, and have announced the development of a system of drugs throughcare and aftercare, which will seek to deliver properly joined-up treatment and support in custody and that available the community. More intensive integration of drug treatment in the Criminal Justice System is currently being piloted in 25 Drug Action Team areas, 5 of which are in the North West, where there are the highest levels of acquisitive crime. The two prison pilots, which are road-testing guidance on this work, are also in the North West. So you are at the forefront of this important approach to resettlement.
The importance of the regional level
Nationally generated initiatives can only take us so far. We need robust systems linking national policy and local delivery. This is the regional level. This needs to ensure that there is operational buy-in between the different agencies on the ground; that there is a strategic point from which gaps can be identified and filled; and that there is a proper overview of what is available, and how this provision can best be co-ordinated. This latter point is becoming increasingly important as national policy asks for more and more attention to particular groups of offenders: those who contribute disproportionately to the fear of crime in our neighbourhoods. The Street Crime and Persistent Offenders initiatives, in particular, will benefit from being pulled into a more strategic framework of delivery.
The regional strategy produced by the North West puts in place some strong foundations, particularly in terms of the priorities agreed between the Correctional Services and the Government Office. As this strategy is developed, I would ask that it becomes an all-inclusive response, a strategy for all services, that capitalises on all the excellent initiatives, practice and established working partnerships that already exist.
For example, the strategy provides a good opportunity I believe to bring in both the police and local authorities. I am very pleased to see Chief Executives here today, as we need to recognise each authority as a key player, capable of making vital contributions to rehabilitation. For instance, changes to legislation, priority orders and guidance have all pointed to offenders as a group requiring housing authorities have the right information to make their decisions, which will require them to be part of the wider understanding of what offenders need to stop offending, including links to drug treatment, benefits advice and other help for the more vulnerable, through Supporting People programmes.
I should also mention several other, well funded-initiatives, where considerable dividends could come from making the links: Neighbourhood Renewal is one; New Deal is another; Crime Disorder Reduction programmes; Connexions; the Children's Fund; Sure Start; and many more. Many of these initiatives will have hard-to-help groups as their target; many will be working in deprived areas; and there is huge scope for exploiting them more for offenders.
Importance of partnerships
All of course this - and this must have been a theme for today - requires improved partnership working. The partnership formed for the regional strategy is important, but I would also urge the links to be made with partnerships: Local Strategic Partnerships, Crime Reduction and Disorder Partnerships, Community Legal Service Partnerships and Local Criminal Justice Boards. They are important aspects of a similar agenda.
But we need to be careful that we don't create another partnership. We need to use existing partnerships.
Persistent Offenders
It may be thought that the Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs) do not have a role in relation to resettlement. But the Persistent Offender Scheme, which is a part of the Narrowing the Justice Gap programme, does now need to shift its emphasis to resettlement. This came out clearly from a recent review, which has been widely accepted. As some of you know,it has proved difficult so far to develop fully a resettlement strand of the Persistent Offender Scheme. But we are keen to develop, mainly through the response to the Social Exclusion Unit report. As this develops, so the Local Criminal Justice Boards will have a greater interest in the management of persistent offenders after disposal, to ensure that the local Criminal Justice System is providing a 'whole system' response to persistent offending. And here in the North West, Lancashire, Great Manchester, Merseyside - the police and other agencies are focusing on it and making the links with other agencies that are so important.
In the context of persistent offenders, it is worth drawing attention to the multi-agency "Tower Project", which has been working with persistent drug offenders in Blackpool, and which has seen significant reductions in crimes since the scheme was introduced. Similarly, the PROSPECTS Project in Preston also reflects the importance of joined up multi-agency working. In providing a support service from prison to supported housing accommodation, the project is seeking to break the cycle of local persistent offending and help short term ex-offenders remain drug free on release. It is also worth mentioning the Step on Project in both Manchester and Liverpool and its innovative approach to working with short term offenders who are very often the hardest groups to reach, no licence restrictions, slip back into the system, no focus - very often the greatest problems.
New Sentencing Framework
I would like, finally, to look forward to the significant changes to the sentencing framework, which will soon be upon us. These will be a considerable challenge, but they will also be a major opportunity to effect a step-change in what the Correctional Services and related agencies can deliver. In particular, Custody Plus will ensure that all offenders leaving prison will be supervised on release, and the Generic Community Sentence will allow sentencers to tailor community sentences to the individual needs and circumstances of offenders. The Regional Strategy provides an opportunity to pave the way for these changes, through better joint-working and communication.
We need proper case management if we are ultimately going to be effective in delivering national objectives at the level of the individual offender. Case management should be a powerful lever in breaking down the disjointed approach to service delivery that can hold up rehabilitation. As with all of the work on resettlement, this is going to require some difficult movement in priorities, some changes to working practice, and in some cases, some shifts in culture. However, the payback in terms of reduced re-offending and a heightened sense of purpose and clarity for the Correctional Services will be considerable.
A national joint board of prison and probation has been set up to oversee implementation of the sentencing framework, and it has been charged with ensuring that the principles of case management are central to this. We are convinced that case management has to be the backbone of how we deliver sentences in the future, and - to continuing the theme of today - it will be vital to ensure that partner agencies are kept fully involved in how it develops.
Conclusion
In conclusion I think the resettlement agenda is incredibly important. One that we can make progress and bring people who have slipped into crime back into society. We will do our best to provide the tools that are needed. But the conference today is good. Working together to deliver change. I congratulate you and we will do all we can to assist.