PAROLE REPORT EXPOSES SHORTCOMINGS

Chairman of the House of Commons' powerful Public Accounts Committee, Edward Leigh, said the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) needed to concentrate on the basics to help parole chiefs perform their difficult job.

Mr Leigh has demanded action after a National Audit Office (NAO) report showed delays in providing essential paperwork were making it harder for the Parole Board to decide whether criminals should be freed or remain behind bars.

In more than a third of cases looked at by the NAO which involved prisoners on indeterminate sentences - such as lifers - the prison and probation services failed to send risk assessment reports.

The paperwork was missing in 97 out of 276 case files examined by auditors.

Extrapolated across all oral hearings staged by the board from September 2006 to May last year, that would amount to nearly 500 cases, the report said.

As a result, the board was "heavily constrained" by the failings of the Ministry of Justice, the Prison Service and the Probation Service, it added.

Tory MP Mr Leigh said: "It is time heads were banged together. One of the core duties of the MoJ and the Parole Board is to deliver justice in a way which minimises the risk to the public.

"Public confidence will diminish unless those bodies start to get the basics right."

He added: "The Parole Board has a difficult job in deciding if and when an offender is safe to be released from prison. The very least the officials making those decisions should expect is access to all the relevant information."