Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 18
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)
In 2020, HMPPS launched a tagging expansion programme to widen the use of tagging to different groups of offenders. As part of the programme, it aims to: develop a flexible and scalable service; build the evidence base to demonstrate the effectiveness of electronic monitoring; be “data driven”; be led by user needs and integrated within probation services; and ensure cost-effectiveness.32 HMPPS expects to monitor an additional 10,000 offenders over the next few years, bringing the number of people who are tagged to around 25,000 offenders. It is delivering projects to expand the service to new types of offenders while undertaking a major re-procurement of contracts to deliver the service, with the new contracts expected to be in place by January 2024. It expects to spend £1.2 billion from 2021–22 to 2030–31, including £55 million for the re-procurement, £232 million for expansion projects and £808 million for the live service.33 Progress in delivering expansion projects
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- On outdated technology, remediation work has moved from December 2022 to March 2023, and system improvements "by the end of January 2023" are intended to let the GPS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.