6. What recent discussions he has had on research into the effect of imprisonment on reoffending rates among women. (32682)

The Ministry of Justice recently published research showing that reoffending for women offenders under probation supervision was 6 percentage points lower than for similar women who served short-term prison sentences. We also publish a statistical report on women in the criminal justice system that is informed by an independent advisory group. This group has expressed interest in looking at whether reoffending rates for women vary by sentence length in the same way as it does for men.

I thank the Minister for his answer. He will know from Baroness Corston’s 2007 report that much can be achieved to prevent female ex-prisoners from reoffending by proper intervention that addresses drug use, prostitution and domestic violence. Chepstow House in my constituency, which is run by the Brighter Futures housing association, does exactly that—cutting reoffending rates and saving taxpayers’ money. Will the Minister agree to visit Chepstow House in the coming year to show his support for a charity that is putting some of the principles behind breaking the cycle into action?

I would hope to have the opportunity to do so, but I cannot promise to do so. I have yet to visit a substantial amount of the prison estate and a number of probation trusts, but I would certainly like the opportunity to visit. I suspect what is underlying the hon. Gentleman’s question is the funding issue. On funding for centres such as Chepstow House, what I can say at this stage is that we have identified funding to sustain those projects that have demonstrated effective performance and we will make an announcement shortly about what will replace the current funding arrangements.

With regard to imprisonment and reoffending, can the Minister tell the House how the National Offender Management Service is performing and what has happened to the C-NOMIS data system, which was supposed to assist it and cost £161 million prior to 2007?

The C-NOMIS information technology system was one of the greater disasters that surrounded the provision of IT under the previous Administration. Rescued out of that has been the P-NOMIS system, which does not deliver quite the co-ordination between probation services and the Prison Service that was intended of C-NOMIS. However, we will continue to work to ensure that we make the proper connections as far and as best we possibly can to ensure that IT properly supports our management of offenders.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) spoke about the excellent work done with women offenders by Brighter Futures. I know of the valuable work that is also done by the Saltbox chaplaincy project, which has cut reoffending rates to just 12% even among prolific offenders. However, these fantastic providers, along with many others in the third sector, are at risk of having to cease their effective work because of this Government’s ill-thought-through change to the payment-by-results scheme, which is still in consultation. I welcome what the Minister has said, but before third sector organisations with a track record of success on reoffending rates have to end those services up and down the country and make key staff redundant, is he prepared to give much greater reassurance that programmes will not come crashing to an end this coming March, with the loss of all that good work?

As I said, we have identified funding to sustain those projects that have demonstrated effective performance, but, as the hon. Gentleman will be well aware, the Department is not in a position to sustain funding on the current level. A total of £10 million was put aside to set these schemes up, whereupon they were then meant to move to local commissioning. There will be continuing support for the schemes from the Ministry of Justice, but we will be looking to them to win the support of local commissioners. They also have access to the Government’s £100 million transition fund, which is precisely designed to bridge that gap, as well as potential access to the big society bank.