"We've got two projects – one in greater Manchester and one in some London boroughs – kicking off this summer,” MoJ permanent secretary Suma Chakrabarti told Civil Service World last week, in an interview to be published on 13 July.

The scheme “is one of six payment-by-results pilots being launched this summer,” he added. “We’re trying to test a wide range of different pilots over the next two years and see which are the best.”

Under the scheme, the MoJ will measure demand on the criminal justice system in 15 council areas over two years from today, and where crime rates fall below what it calls a “reasonable threshold” it will hand to the local authority a proportion of the savings that accrue to the MoJ. Chakrabarti explained that “many of the costs of failure [to reduce crime rates] fall on councils, so the revenues from success – or the reduced costs – should also be shared, we feel.”

Chakrabarti explained that the methods used to tackle offending, and the types of offending targeted, are being left up to councils. “We’re not prescribing up front” how local authorities tackle crime, he said. Councils are free to operate alone or to work through partnerships with other statutory agencies, and “they can use the voluntary or private sector to drive this as well.”

All 10 Greater Manchester councils are involved in the pilot, and in London the scheme is running in five boroughs: Lewisham, Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Hackney. In these areas, the MoJ is closely monitoring figures on offending, the load on the criminal justice system, and the nature of policing activity, in order to try to understand which approaches are most successful.

See our 13 July issue for the full interview with Suma Chakrabarti.

Written by Matt Ross