Electronic monitoring: improving resilience to meet increasing demand
The National Audit Office have completed a review of progress by HMPPS in meeting objectives for electronic monitoring including plans for significant expansion. This is the conclusion.
“EM is a central component of the government’s plans to manage pressures on prisons. Since 2021, HMPPS has successfully and rapidly expanded EM to new groups. However, overall EM is not working as intended, creating public protection risks. HMPPS has worked with Serco to reduce backlogs in fitting tags, but supplier performance improvements alone are not sufficient to provide confidence that the system is resilient or protects the public. Significant inefficiencies persist across the system, wasting staff time and taxpayers’ money, and limiting performance improvements. Of particular concern is the likely significant number of unmonitored individuals. Additionally, police and probation officers often lack relevant information or capacity to respond to breaches quickly, and governance is fragmented. Overall, we conclude that MoJ and HMPPS have therefore not yet achieved some key aspects of their 2022 vision of a data-driven, robust and responsive service.”
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