Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 7
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Ministry and HMPPS told us that they have learnt lessons from pursuing technology which have to be developed from scratch. HMPPS took a detailed and prescriptive approach to setting requirements for Gemini. This introduced complexity and inflexibility, and limited innovation in the programme.11 The Ministry told us that at the outset of the programme, government tended to prefer “bespoke and better” technology. Following a review of the programme in 2016, it opted to buy hardware off-the-shelf and is now also pursuing off-the-shelf hardware and software in its expansion programme. It explained that given how technology had now moved on and the range of products which were now available on the market, it would not be sensible to pursue bespoke solutions.12 Governance and scrutiny
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- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS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.