Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 16
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)
We asked HMPPS what information it shared with the judiciary to inform their sentencing choices. It explained that it had an extensive programme of engagement in place to ensure judges and magistrates were aware of available services. However, it told us that there were significant variations in the use of electronic monitoring between different courts, with differences in the use of types of tags imposed. Some courts made extensive use of radio frequency tags but do not use GPS and in others, it was the other way round. HMPPS made clear that it saw it as part of its job to ensure that sentencers, judges and magistrates have the information about what is available in their jurisdiction to make informed choices.29 23 Committee of Public Accounts, The electronic monitoring of adult offenders, Sixty-second Report of Session 2005–06, HC 997, 12 October 2006 24 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes on the Fifty-eighth, Fifty-ninth, Sixty-first and the Sixty-second Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts 2005–2006, December 2006 25 C&AG’s report, paras 9 and 2.9, Figure 10 26 Q 71 27 Qq 58–59 28 Qq 59–60, 89 29 Q 62 Transforming electronic monitoring services 13
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- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS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.