Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 10
10
We asked the Ministry if it had assessed the impact of spending the £200 million...
Conclusion
We asked the Ministry if it had assessed the impact of spending the £200 million on prison places for women. It has not. It told us this was because it has a duty to provide places for those sent to prison by the courts and its projections are that increased police numbers would result in an additional 500 prison places for women being required.22 The Ministry told us that implementing the Female Offender Strategy might bring that number down, and if so, it would not need all the additional prison places.23 However this modelling of expected need for 500 more prison places did not take into account any effect from the female offender programme such as more people being diverted away from prison sentences.24 The Ministry and HMPPS told us the newer prison places will be higher quality than some existing places and if they were not needed older places could be closed, but that was not an explicit objective.25 Working with others
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
2: PAC 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. 2: PAC 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. 2.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 2.2 It is not possible to estimate a counterfactual to determine where an alternative intervention may have been respectively more successful. In addition, it would not be appropriate for the government to do so given that the police, Crown Prosecution Service and judiciary are all independent and responsible for decisions relating to arrest, charge and sentencing. 2.3 As an alternative, the department has instead estimated the number of women that could be supported through women’s services as a result of the funding available.