Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
Twenty-First Report: Transforming electronic monitoring services
Published 21 Oct 2022
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Electronic Monitoring programme All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
HMPPS’s poor track record in its transformation programme does not inspire confidence that it will be well-equipped to handle risks in its £1.2 billion expansion programme. HMPPS is re-procuring contracts to run the electronic monitoring service. It is attempting to apply lessons and reduce delivery risks, for example by using off-the-shelf systems and limiting the number of suppliers in the new model. However, there are inherent delivery risks to reprocuring a changing service where the number of tagged people is increasing. In addition, it will still face challenges in integrating the work of its suppliers, particularly given its tight timeframes to put new contracts in place by early 2024. It expects suppliers to integrate their systems in six months, but HMPPS has not yet started its testing work so does not know how difficult this would be. HMPPS intends to outsource the role of systems integrator again, something which it tried and failed to do before. There are significant risks with this approach, including the risk of conflicts of interest and unclear accountability due to dependencies between future suppliers’ work. Recommendation: HMPPS should write to the Committee in 2023, once the procurement of new contracts to run electronic monitoring is complete, on how it is handling risks in the programme. As part of this, it should explain how it will oversee suppliers’ work effectively and ensure clear lines of responsibility and accountability between the integrator and its other suppliers in the programme. 8 Transforming electronic monitoring services 1 HM Prison & Probation Service’s tagging transformation programme
From: Public Accounts Committee, Twenty-First Report: Transforming electronic monitoring services (HC 34), 21 October 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 December 2022 (deadline 21 December 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with each of the Committee's six recommendations on the Ministry of Justice's electronic monitoring services, and gives target implementation dates for five of them.
- On real-time police access to GPS data, the government agrees with the recommendation, but says police have advised that live access is not a current priority; it will "consider whether and how changes to the service can be made" should the police's view change.
- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS system cope with rising volumes.
- On evidence of impact, a benefits management strategy and realisation plan will be in place "By April 2023", and a formal evaluation strategy for electronic monitoring is being developed. The target implementation date is August 2023.
- On oversight of the expansion programme, the agency commits to write to the Committee in August 2023, once new contracts have been awarded.