Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 20
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)
HMPPS launched an acquisitive crime pilot in April 2021 to impose location monitoring on prison leavers convicted for theft, burglary or robbery offences. The 19 police forces participating in the pilot send data on alleged acquisitive offenders to HMPPS’s system, which compares this with GPS location data to assist forces’ investigation of crime when there has been a match.37 HMPPS told us that the pilot had helped the police to secure 30 charges for acquisitive offences and that the police forces value the scheme. It told us that it was early days for the pilot, but it was testing whether the scheme was leading 32 C&AG’s report, Figure 5 33 Q 54; C&AG’s report, para 4.1 34 Q 67, 69; C&AG’s report, Figure 15 35 Q 61 36 Qq 68–69 37 C&AG’s report, Figure 15 and para 4.7 Transforming electronic monitoring services 15 to longer-term changes in offenders’ behaviour. It explained that it planned to evaluate the scheme over the next three years and will not extend it further until it has evidence that it is working.38 We noted that HMPPS had achieved better capability in the pilot for a smaller upgrade compared to its £98 million investment in the Gemini case management system. HMPPS believed that the technology used in the pilot is better than the planned functionality that the Gemini case management system and user portal were designed for originally. It told us this was the first time that it has been leveraging the power of location data from GPS tags and that it sees future opportunities to use the data more broadly.39
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.