Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 15
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 admitted that its evaluation in the transformation programme was not as strong as it should have been and recognised that it needed to put more effort into evaluation going forward. It told us that it was extending its team of analysts in its expansion programme, from three to 17.26 The Ministry told us that while there was evidence which suggested that tagging changes offenders’ behaviour while offenders were wearing tags, insights into longer-term impacts after tags are removed were limited. It committed to rigorously evaluate its current and future programmes and the extent to which tagging impacts on longer-term outcomes, including reducing reoffending, which it described as the “holy grail” of insight.27 The Ministry told us it looked forward to collecting robust and world-leading evidence, but that it did not underestimate the challenge ahead. It explained that it would need to rely on higher numbers of tagged offenders to produce robust analyses, while it still needs to better understand differences in outcomes between tagged offenders and control groups.28
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- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS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.