Electronic monitoring – a progress update

a) The Ministry and HMPPS should ensure digital, data and technology colleagues
provide strategic direction and oversight at key decision points in the
re-procurement process. They should be involved in:
? developing requirements before bid processes commence;

evaluating bidders? tender documents and proposed solutions; and

exploiting opportunities to improve operational processes, contract
management and data

"b) HMPPS must apply lessons from its previous approach to integration and
ensure that it:
? understands the risks with its selected delivery approach and puts in
place mitigations for those risks;"

conducts scenario-testing to explore how it could resolve commercial disputes arising from, for example: (1) differences in interpretation of roles and responsibilities; and (2) incompatible solutions creating integration risks; and

c) The Ministry and HMPPS should set realistic expectations for what can be
delivered in the next two years. They need to put in place the capacity and
capability to handle new initiatives and an increasing caseload alongside
re-procurement activities. As part of this, HMPPS should:
? regularly review activity against demand forecasts to ensure it has the
people, systems and funding in place to support growth and take prompt
action should activity go significantly above or below expectations;

manage demand for further expansion of tagging services to new cohorts
as it transitions to new contracts to support new suppliers in delivering
a stable operational service.

implement a system to track the benefits articulated in its business case
? with robust baselines ? and embed benefits management into reporting
and governance to ensure accountability.

has sufficient controls and incentives in place to enable its future
monitoring and field services supplier to deliver an effective systems
integrator role

publish an overarching evaluation strategy setting out how it intends
to measure the impact of electronic monitoring on outcomes (such as
reoffending, diverting offenders away from prison, impact on probation
work, police and criminal justice efficiency) including how it will gather
systematic feedback from users;

d) HMPPS needs to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic monitoring. It should:
? publish an electronic monitoring data strategy explaining how it will
improve data ? and how policing and criminal justice stakeholders will
access those data. This should include addressing gaps in the diversity
characteristics of offenders to meet commitments in the Lammy Review