17 September 2008
Together Women Project, Liverpool
Justice Minister Maria Eagle has given a speech about the achievements of the Together Women Project at a conference in Liverpool.
[Check against delivery: this is the prepared text of the speech, and may differ from the delivered version.]
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Maria Eagle):
Thank you for inviting me to speak today. As the Ministerial Champion for Women in the Criminal Justice System, it gives me great pleasure to speak at this event and to celebrate with you the achievements so far of Together Women Project in Liverpool.
Liverpool, as you know, is undergoing huge change at the moment both socially and economically. The city has enjoyed a marked turnaround in performance and prospects in recent years, and is currently one of the fastest growing parts of England. Despite this economic growth Liverpool still has concentrated levels of deprivation and worklessness. Significant work remains to improve targets around Education, Housing, Crime, Health, Employment and Transport. Liverpool is of course the Capital of Culture this year and this has brought high profile exposure with events planned for the year which are opportunities for the city and its residents. With regard to tackling and reducing crime Liverpool has seen a 22.7% reduction in crime overall between 2005 and 2008. The Together Women Project supports the work being done across the city to reduce reoffending.
The Together Women project is currently being delivered in two regions, the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside. The North West has two projects currently, one in Salford and this Liverpool project. There are plans to develop the model in Bolton as well as interest from other areas.
The speakers today will be talking about the background to Together Women Project, the reasons for its introduction and why women need to be offered specific services to meet their needs and that those needs differ to those of men who offend. The issues that women face that make them vulnerable within the Criminal Justice system are often complex and multiple but commonly include mental health problems, substance misuse, sexual and domestic abuse and concerns about their children's welfare, poverty and homelessness. The Together Women Project is delivering services to women offenders and those at risk of offending by removing some of the barriers that have previously prevented women from accessing services in the community. For example, child care, transport, and services being located in various places that may be difficult to access.
The model of service delivery which is still in its demonstration phase is testing out the multi-agency one-stop-shop approach in the community - exactly the approach Baroness Corston advocated in her report published in 2007 - A Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System. This report states that the women respond positively to existing women's centres located around the country, that these services are critical to their well-being and not only address issues relating to their offending, but to their wider needs and those of their children.
Due to the structure of the Together Women Project these wide-ranging needs can all be met in one place. Women can access just about every service they need meaning that they are not being pushed from pillar to post in order to tackle these problems. The range of knowledge and experience of the workers at the Together Women Projects means that someone at the centres will always know the best person or service that a woman should see or be referred to, depending on her particular needs. There are a range of providers from statutory and non-statutory sectors based at the centre offering a variety of group work and individual surgeries to women on site.
A key reason for Together Women Project being sited in Liverpool, in Vauxhall was the location of North Liverpool Community Justice Court. The ethos of that court being a problem-solving, community-based service to support men and women away from the criminal justice system dove tails very neatly into the Together Women Projects aims and objectives.
The fact that the Together Women Project is underpinned by strong multidisciplinary working, including agencies within and beyond the criminal justice system, is key to its success. Unlike many other partnerships, Together Women links criminal justice services with other women's specific services in the community in order to provide a service which treats women both holistically and individually. In particular there is a seconded probation support officer attached to the team to work alongside them and engage women on community orders in the centre to enhance the support they are getting from Merseyside Probation.
The project is also accessing women at different stages - before, during and after involvement with the criminal justice system. Referrals to the Together Women Project are being made through a variety of partners including Police, Probation, Courts and HM Prison Styal. The project also receives a consistent number of referrals from job centre plus, substance misuse services, housing and homelessness services, education providers, various teams in the local authority and other voluntary sector organisations. We have had positive feedback from local partners - for example the courts, who are now saying that a large proportion of their multi-agency work to reduce offending for women has involved linking in with the Together Women Project - and that this has directly resulted in diversion from custody, with women having been rehabilitated and resettled. It is these kinds of tangible results which highlight the worth of the Together Women Project and the knock-on effects for entire communities.
His Honour Judge David Fletcher from the community justice court said, 'the Together Women Project is a very useful addition to options available in terms of working with and rehabilitating female offenders in Liverpool.'
The Together Women Project delivers surgeries across the city to try and engage women who may not live close to the one stop shop or who may be experiencing other issues that prevent them from attending; this could be lack of confidence or problems surrounding the physical location. The Liverpool Together Women Project also employs a diversity outreach worker whose role it is to specifically engage women who require the support from black and minority ethnic communities across the city. 5.7% of the general population in Liverpool is of ethnic minority background but the referrals in the first year were 4% and so this post was created to try and address that and seek opportunities to support women from more diverse communities. Women are now being referred from faith and community groups and women who may not have English as their first language or have cultural issues that need some consideration are being supported through this worker.
You will be aware that the Together Women Project is subject to evaluation. A piece of action research, which is the first phase of the evaluation, has already been conducted and recently published. This has examined the set up of the Together Women Project and emerging issues following the early implementation of the projects, and provides crucial learning points for central policy, the Together Women projects themselves and for other areas looking at building on their services for women. The evaluators at Leicester University have highlighted how well the projects are managed and that the staff are well-trained and providing a high level of service. They have also highlighted the positive experiences reported by service users which will not be of any surprise to those of you who have been directly involved with the programme. Feedback from the women who have benefited from the Together Women Project has been unanimously positive with women stating that the services and support they have received has really helped them to turn their lives around. I therefore have no doubts about the results the Together Women Project can deliver to make a real difference to women's lives. Some of those women are here today and you will hear from them directly later.
With all the good work that the Together Women Project is doing, there are still challenges ahead. We will be using the lessons learned from the Together Women Project to see how similar approaches for women offenders, and women at risk of offending might be developed in other areas. There are alternative models that can be developed as long as the principles of the service delivery are maintained. These can include an outreach service or a satellite service - that is, services to women being attached to an existing service in the community for example, a women's centre or a domestic violence service. These models should be developed depending on local need and resources available.
There is an awareness now that women have been and are being excluded within a system designed by men, for men, for far too long. But things are beginning to change - Together Women Project is one of the best examples of that - and I would like to take the opportunity today to update you on what is happening at a national level for women offenders and how I and my cross-government colleagues are progressing with this agenda.
I have already referred to Baroness Corston's report and the government's response that was published in December 2007. I expect many of you have seen it. The main elements of the report which has government agreement is that more needs to be done to develop community-based provision and interventions, such as the Together Women Project, so that problems can be dealt with at an earlier point and certainly before women end up in custody. Baroness Corston recommended that the model be rolled out across the country, where appropriate as soon as possible. She mentions that the Together Women Project and other women's centres such as Asha in Worcester and Calderdale in Halifax are examples of good practice.
The cost of a prison place is £35,000 per year and the unit costs of the Liverpool Together Women Project in the first year were around £1,900 per woman. Prison costs more than any of the alternatives currently available and clearly there are some women, and men who do need to be given custodial sentences for public protection. 75% of all sentenced women serve less than 12 months in custody. The knock on effects for women and their families are enormous. 160,000 children a year are affected by parents being given custodial sentences in the UK. 60% of women in custody are mothers, with 45% of those having parental responsibility at the time of the imprisonment. 65% of children who have a parent in custody go on to offend themselves. The cycle of behaviour needs to be interrupted.
The financial and emotional costs of families that are separated and then have additional losses of their home, possessions and employment due to custodial sentences are high.
A lot of work has been done locally from the Together Women Project to engage sentencers to try and ensure they are fully aware of what is available through the project and that this can be used effectively as part of an alternative to custody. That way prison places can be used for those high risk offenders for whom prison is the only option. For those women who really do need to be in custody, the government must ensure the women's prison estate has the appropriate regimes and services in place to meet women's needs.
Baroness Corston considered that key to the successful delivery of provision for women in the criminal justice system is the need for high level governance and better mechanisms for cross-departmental working . Me and my ministerial colleagues are wholeheartedly committed to this agenda and new governance arrangements are already ensuring that the commitments set out in the government's response are being progressed.
The Inter-Ministerial Group on Reducing Reoffending now provides overall governance and has Corston implementation as a standing agenda item. The Inter-Ministerial Group brings together ministers from the relevant departments, including Health, Communities, the Home Office, the Department for Innovation, University and Skills and the Ministry of Justice. This is ensuring cross-departmental commitment at ministerial level to the actions required.
As ministerial champion for women and criminal justice matters, I am leading on implementation of the commitments in the Government's Response. I will ensure that issues for women are not marginalised. In addition, I have convened a Sub-Group to the IMG to drive the work forward. Barbara Follett, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Government Equalities and Vera Baird, the Solicitor General, are on this Sub-Group which has already met on two occasions to look closely at the progress being made with implementing the cross-government commitments.
Several strands of work are being taken forward in response to Corston's recommendations on how community provision could be improved:
- A cross-departmental project has been set up to examine the extent and nature of current women's centre provision and this will look to produce proposals on developing existing services and support in the community to deliver an improved and coordinated response to women's needs. The Together Women Project will be key in informing the work of this project.
- A National Service Framework for Women has been published and this sets out the national strategic aims, priorities and expectations for delivering services to women offenders. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is also working closely with partners across the reducing reoffending pathways at national, regional and local level to ensure that services for women offenders are improved in line with the recommendations of the Corston Report.
- 'Turnaround', a demonstrator project in Wales, has been set up to focus specifically on providing a women-centred approach to meet the needs of women offenders and their children and women who are at risk of offending. NOMS contributed £120,000 to the set up costs of the project and is providing further NOMS funding of £200,000 to March 2009.
- Funding was also allocated for two other demonstrator projects for women: one in the South West region to develop a commissioning model for accommodation services for women offenders; and the other in the South East to develop a commissioning model for appropriate end-to-end offender management of women offenders.
- Several government departments are jointly funding three projects for women as part of the Adults Facing Chronic Exclusion Programme. For example, £566,000 over three years has been provided to the Calderdale Women's Centre in Halifax to pilot a project for women experiencing chronic social exclusion as a result of domestic violence.
- The newly developing Offender Health Strategy will have a distinct pathway for women and will look at improvements in health provision for women across the criminal justice system or for those that may be at risk of offending. Lord Bradley is carrying out a review into diverting offenders with mental health problems and learning difficulties from prison into more appropriate services. There will be close links between Lord Bradley's Review and the commitments made in the government response to Corston. I know that the Together Women Project in Liverpool is represented on the groups that are delivering this work.
- A pilot project of conditional cautioning for women has just been launched by Vera Baird the Solicitor General on 1 September in Liverpool and Yorkshire. Liverpool Together Women Project is taking referrals now for all women eligible for a conditional caution, as an alternative to court proceedings. National roll-out of this scheme has just been completed and provides offenders who have admitted committing a low-level offence - such as shoplifting - the opportunity to be diverted from court by accepting a caution with conditions. For women in Liverpool who are eligible the main condition would be a rehabilitative one - to attend the Together Women Project for assessment. Following the assessment, we will be looking to see if these women continue to engage with the centre on a voluntary basis to help address the issues that underpin their offending behaviour.
So that is an outline of where we are with taking forward work nationally for women offenders and women at risk of offending, with community provision and specifically the Together Women Project approach, central to that.
The work on Corston is an opportunity to build on the work started with Together Women Project and other services designed for women in the community. The success so far here is testimony to the strong partnership arrangements and support from local stakeholders. This partnership needs to be the start of a long-term and sustainable strategy to deliver a more sophisticated and better coordinated approach to address women's needs and Together Women Project will help to shape the future of how provision and services for women in the criminal justice system are delivered both locally and nationally.
I'd like to finish off by thanking colleagues here today for their tireless commitment in tackling issues for women and in making a real difference to these women's lives and assure you that the lessons learned from this are being fed back into the ongoing cross-departmental work.