Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
The Ministry recognises it needs to work together with many other national and local bodies...
Conclusion
The Ministry recognises it needs to work together with many other national and local bodies to improve outcomes for women in the CJS.26 It established a concordat with other government departments, creating a basis for joint working, although this was only published in January 2021—two years later than planned.27 The Howard League for Penal Reform told us the that as well as the Female Offender Strategy, there are numerous strategies across government to tackle drug abuse, mental illness, violence against women and girls and that the challenge is to bring them together: “we know that drugs affect a lot of women. We know about mental ill health and violence.... We know that a large number of women who are in the Female Offender Strategy are equally captured as victims under the violence against women and girls strategy. They are the same women. We need to better understand how these strategies fit together”28
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
3: PAC conclusion: Effective implementation of the strategy has been undermined by insufficient joined-up working. 3: PAC recommendation: The Ministry should set out how it plans to influence more joined-up working. It should write to the Committee alongside its Treasury Minute response with an assessment of any barriers to local areas implementing ‘whole system approaches’ and how it plans to work with other government departments and organisations to address these barriers. 3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation Target implementation date: Summer 2022 3.2 The Female Offender Strategy Delivery Plan will be cross-departmental, led by an inter-ministerial board chaired by the Prisons Minister, which will drive forward action across government and hold individual departments to account. 3.3 A delivery board of senior officials from across government responsible for delivery of the activities outlined in the Delivery Plan will report on progress to the inter-ministerial board. The Women in the Criminal Justice System Expert Group, which brings together stakeholders and criminal justice agencies, will monitor progress, providing oversight, support and constructive feedback on the Delivery Plan and the Concordat on Women in or at Risk of Contact with the Criminal Justice System. 3.4 The department will publish a report setting out progress to date against the actions in the Concordat, with next steps of further expanding local and national partnership working being set out in the Female Offender Strategy Delivery Plan. The contents of this report have been discussed with interested stakeholders during its development and the department has