Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
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)
In 2006, our Committee found that there was insufficient evidence available to determine whether tagging helped to reduce re-offending or promote rehabilitation. We recommended that the Home Office—which previously managed tagging services— should carry out research to establish the role that electronic monitoring could play in minimising reoffending and make the results available to courts and prisons.23 In its response to our report, the Home Office committed to conduct analysis of the reconviction rates of offenders on tagging curfew orders and make its analysis available in 2007.24 In its 2022 report, the NAO found that the evidence base for tagging still remained weak 16 years later. HMPPS did not assess the impact of tagging on demand for prison places or reoffending in its GPS location monitoring pilots due to limited resources. More broadly, HMPPS did not monitor its planned benefits in its transformation programme, which included involving diverting offenders from custody and modifying offenders’ behaviour.25
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- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS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.