Contracted services
Some services have never been provided directly by the Department and have always been procured. In addition, the Department has renewed and renegotiated a number of contracts for areas of work that were outsourced prior to the creation of the Ministry of Justice. At any one time there are over one hundred procurement projects underway. Some examples of major procurement projects undertaken by the department include but are not limited the following:
- electronic monitoring;
- maintaining bail accommodation support services (BASS); and
- prison escorting and custodial services (PECS).
Contracted services overview
Electronic monitoring
At March 2022 (source).
Some electronic monitoring subjects are dual tagged. These subjects have been included in the figures for their Electronic Monitoring order but removed from the total electronic monitoring caseload.
Electronic monitoring was introduced in 1999 to support the police, courts, prisons and wider justice system in England and Wales.
It is a way of remotely monitoring and recording information on an individual’s whereabouts or movements, using an electronic tag which is normally fitted to a subject’s ankle. The tag transmits this information, via a base unit installed in a subject’s residence, to a monitoring centre where it is processed and recorded in case management systems. Staff in the monitoring centre review this information to see whether an individual is complying with the conditions of their curfew or other electronically monitored requirement. Where a subject is not complying, the electronic monitoring provider either acts on this information themselves or provides it to the relevant authority to take the necessary enforcement action.
The figures for 31 March 2019 onwards include details of those on location monitoring tags, which were introduced in November 2018.
The figures also include those fitted with an alcohol monitoring tag. Alcohol monitoring was introduced to courts in Wales in October 2020 and expanded to courts in England on 31 March 2021 to support the new community sentencing option, the Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR). For offenders being released from custody whose offending and risk is alcohol related, an Alcohol Monitoring on Licence (AML) additional licence condition was introduced in Wales in November 2021 and rolled out in England in June 2022..
Electronic Monitoring service performance of service level measures - national performance.
From July 2019 performance includes the service delivery of GPS tags. The delivery of alcohol monitoring tags are not included.
The testing of EMS March 2020 data was significantly affected by COVID-19. The access to the EMS systems to test the data due to the lockdown was not possible initially and afterwards very limited. It was agreed in April by members of the Contract Accountability Meeting (CAM) to accept EMS's provisional figures for March 2020.
Equipment installation and subject induction - first attempt within specified timescales (EMS SL004A)
97.1%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Equipment installation and subject induction - further attempt(s) within specified timescales (EMS SL004B)
88.5%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Equipment re-installation - attempt within specified timescales (EMS SL004C)
93.5%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Equipment removal - attempt within specified timescales (EMS SL005A)
96.8%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Equipment removal (bail cases) - attempt within specified timescales (EMS SL005B)
96.1%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Equipment check following tamper violation - attempt within specified timescales (EMS SL005C)
94.3%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Request for information required to commence orders - within specified timescales (EMS SL007B)
91.4%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Call to curfew location following possible violation - within specified timescales (EMS SL008)
97.4%
Value for Jan-Mar 22. View time series.
Bail Accommodation and Support Services (BASS) provide accommodation to offenders from courts, offenders from custody and offenders referred by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). These offenders are placed in BASS-owned properties when they do not have a permanent place to live.
Referrals are made by prison establishments, courts, community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) or youth offending teams.
The BASS contract was provided by Stonham until June 2018 and then NACRO from June 2018 onwards. As the contracts overlapped, there may be a small number of duplicate referrals.