“Avoidable” mistakes in MoJ tagging prog “wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money” say MPs

In a report today the Public Accounts Committee says a “high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice” all contributed to the failure of a new case management system for electronic monitoring of offenders which has “cost taxpayers dear”.

The Committee says “avoidable mistakes” wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service “reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million”. 

Even after this, the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS still “do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending”. Despite the lack of knowledge and evaluation, government is pressing ahead with a £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years.

Given the “long history of poor performance in this area” the Committee is “unconvinced” that the MoJ is equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor the “serious risks” that remain for the expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024.

Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “The prison and probation service is reliant on outdated technology that is swallowing taxpayers’ money just to stand still. The existing system is at constant risk of failure – and let us be clear that in the case of tagging, “failure” can mean direct and preventable risk to the public – and attempts to transform it have failed.

“The incredible scale of waste and loss in the Government’s Covid response should in no way inure us to this: that’s another hundred million pounds of taxpayers’ money for essential public services just thrown away, wasted, lost. We expect a serious explanation, and a serious plan, from the MoJ and Government more widely how they are going to stop this haemorrhaging of taxpayers’ money that they are presiding over. We need assurances up front over the further £1.2 billion they have already committed to the tagging programme – what will be achieved, by when, and, crucially, what will be recovered for the public if goals aren’t met.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations: 

7. HMPPS’s failure to transform tagging services has wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money. By the end of 2020-21, HMPPS had spent around £157 million on its tagging transformation programme. Both its and its supplier’s (Capita) failure to deliver the new case management system, Gemini, wasted £98 million. Although the Ministry claims that terminating Gemini was the optimal value for money decision in 2021, we are deeply concerned about the scale of these losses. HMPPS adopted a high-risk and complex delivery model for the programme, but did not appreciate the inherent complexity of contracting with four different suppliers, resulting in severe delays. It has been similarly over-ambitious in its development of Gemini, where its pursuit of a bespoke technical solution introduced complexity and inflexibility, and limited innovation. It did not intervene early enough to resolve integration issues. There was weak governance in the programme and the Ministry took a light-touch approach to scrutiny, despite persistent delays and risks. HMPPS and the Ministry have since reformed their approaches to overseeing major projects and programmes, including introducing new thresholds to inform when risks and issues should be escalated for review.    

Recommendation: As part of its Treasury Minute response, the Ministry should explain how its new controls, governance framework, and risk tolerances which set time and cost thresholds for when issues should be escalated, will prevent future significant losses to the taxpayer across its portfolio of major projects and programmes. 

8. HMPPS remains reliant on outdated technology which puts the tagging service at risk of failing. Due to the prolonged delays in the programme, HMPPS is relying on legacy technology and will have to use its current case management system until at least 2024, which will cost £9.8 million for remediation work and licensing costs. As HMPPS has been using its current system since 2012, many of its applications are no longer supported by manufacturers and have severe risks, with outdated hardware and software. The telephone system Capita uses in the live service has failed six times since May 2021. HMPPS asserts that there have not been any undetected breaches by offenders, as it recovers data after an outage. But this clearly remains a significant risk until it replaces the system. HMPPS is updating and replacing systems to ensure they are stable and scalable as the number of people fitted with tags rises. It opted not to simulate additional tagging volumes on its existing systems to see how well they can cope with caseload increases, but asserts that it will improve resilience by moving the system to the cloud.  

Recommendation: To provide assurance that the risk of system failure will not materialise, HMPPS should explain the following in its Treasury Minute response:  

• what progress it has made in delivering planned remediation work on its case management system; 
• how well its systems are coping with caseload increases; and 
• how it will ensure that future digital contracts will factor in routine IT upgrades and maintenance.  

9. HMPPS has failed to provide police forces and the Probation Service with timely access to the tagging information they need to effectively supervise offenders and protect the public. HMPPS expected Gemini and the user portal to enhance probation officers’ supervision of offenders and improve public protection by providing: a single version of case management records; improved management information and reporting capabilities; and crucially, access to historical and real-time maps of offenders’ movements by using GPS tags. Without this system, police and probation officers cannot access real-time data and have to submit manual requests for location data, which limits the value of using GPS tracking. However, HMPPS’s acquisitive crime pilot - which involves comparing data from GPS tags against the locations of alleged crimes submitted by the police – has enabled probation officers to have real-time access to location data for the 650 offenders in the pilot. HMPPS has received requests from the police for direct access to its system, but it has so far not provided this due to data protection considerations. 

Recommendation: Before starting future contracts in January 2024, HMPPS should explore how it can provide police forces and other law enforcement agencies with real-time access to location monitoring data across all GPS tagging cohorts - taking account of data protection considerations – and update us on its plans.  

10. It is unacceptable that HMPPS still does not know if or how tagging reduces reoffending, and it has been too slow to improve data. Despite our previous recommendations, HMPPS still does not know the impact of tagging. The Ministry recognises that evaluation of the transformation programme was not as strong as it should have been. HMPPS has now strengthened its analytical capacity, and has committed to evaluating its expansion programme, although it will need to rely on higher numbers of tagged offenders to better understand differences in outcomes between tagged offenders and control groups if it is to build a rich evidence base. It recognises the importance of establishing links to reoffending, but accepts it has previously missed opportunities to develop this understanding. There is variable use of tagging between courts. Going forward, better evidence on what works in tagging will help improve magistrates’ and judges’ understanding of the sentencing options available.  Linked to this, HMPPS has not improved persistent issues with data availability and quality, such as the lack of data on offenders’ protected characteristics. It does not know whether ethnic minority offenders are over- or under-represented in tagging services but has committed to collect better data in future contracts. 

Recommendation: Within one year, HMPPS should publish a comprehensive plan outlining what it has achieved so far and remaining work required in: 

• improving data collection and analysis in tagging services; 
• monitoring the delivery of benefits in its expansion programme; and 
• building the evidence base for the impact of tagging on reoffending and offenders’ diversion from prison.  

11. HMPPS’s innovative use of technology in its expansion projects has yielded some encouraging early results. HMPPS has achieved some initial positive results from using new technology in its alcohol monitoring scheme and acquisitive crime project. For example, offenders have had high short-term sobriety rates while being tagged, although HMPPS did not explain how it will be able to monitor longer-term abstinence or whether the scheme reduces alcohol-fuelled offending. HMPPS’s acquisitive crime project has helped to secure 30 charges for theft, burglary or robbery and it claims that participating police forces value the scheme. However, HMPPS’s early experience in delivering non-fitted monitoring devices for Foreign National Offenders was much less positive, as the system was discovered not to be compliant with cyber security standards. It has created an £18.5 million innovation fund which will help it explore further tagging options, including a possible drugs tag. In order to ensure that HMPPS protects taxpayers’ interests, we expect it to rigorously apply learning from its experience of developing and using new technology as it continues to expand tagging services. 

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, HMPPS should explain how it will apply lessons from its tagging expansion projects to future schemes, including the forthcoming project for tagging domestic abusers.  

12. HMPPS’s poor track record in its transformation programme does not inspire confidence that it will be well-equipped to handle risks in its £1.2 billion expansion programme. HMPPS is re-procuring contracts to run the electronic monitoring service. It is attempting to apply lessons and reduce delivery risks, for example by using off-the-shelf systems and limiting the number of suppliers in the new model. However, there are inherent delivery risks to reprocuring a changing service where the number of tagged people is increasing. In addition, it will still face challenges in integrating the work of its suppliers, particularly given its tight timeframes to put new contracts in place by early 2024. It expects suppliers to integrate their systems in six months, but HMPPS has not yet started its testing work so does not know how difficult this would be. HMPPS intends to outsource the role of systems integrator again, something which it tried and failed to do before. There are significant risks with this approach, including the risk of conflicts of interest and unclear accountability due to dependencies between future suppliers’ work.  

Recommendation: HMPPS should write to the Committee in 2023, once the procurement of new contracts to run electronic monitoring is complete, on how it is handling risks in the programme. As part of this, it should explain how it will oversee suppliers’ work effectively and ensure clear lines of responsibility and accountability between the integrator and its other suppliers in the programme.