Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Despite its emphasis on community provision in its strategy, the Ministry has not yet quantified...
Conclusion
Despite its emphasis on community provision in its strategy, the Ministry has not yet quantified how much funding is required or invested heavily in community services for women. The Ministry has declined to set targets for its female offender programme. It says that doing so would be inappropriate as achieving its outcomes depends on decisions by independent bodies such as the judiciary. However, without setting out its own expectations of what can be achieved, the Ministry cannot assess how much it should spend on community services or ultimately how much can be saved from reductions in the numbers of women coming before the courts and being sent to prison. The Ministry spent £9.5 million between 2018–19 and 2021–22 on providing services in the community for women in, or at risk of being in contact with, the criminal justice system (CJS). This contrasts with the £200 million the Ministry has committed to spend on creating 500 additional prison places for women that it projects it will need due to increased police numbers. When it made this projection, the Ministry did not build in any expected reduction in numbers of women in court or being sent to prison as a result of improved community services. Recommendation: The Ministry should assess the level of funding required in the community. To do this, it should estimate and publish: • the proportion of women that are currently arrested or prosecuted, and the proportion of women currently remanded or sentenced to prison, who could appropriately be supported in the community instead; and • how much it would cost to provide support for these women via women’s services in the community.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
2023. This will reflect the revised costs for defueling/deconstruction and uncontracted liabilities. 2.3 As noted to the Committee, Électricité de France’s (EDF) strategies, plans and the estimated costs are scrutinised, challenged, and approved by the Non-NDA liabilities assurance team (NLA) under the terms of the revised funding agreement. EDF’s estimated costs of decommissioning is now to be presented as a range of costed scenarios reflecting risk and uncertainty and this is contractually updated on an annual basis. 2.4 EDF’s liabilities from 2020 onwards have utilised a new methodology based upon “top down” scenario evaluation specifically designed to improve understanding, make external scrutiny easier, and counter optimism bias. This has created a much wider range of costs (recognised in the liabilities numbers). HM Government’s Government Actuary Department (GAD) was involved in assessing this methodology.