Think again before contracting out collection of court fines, Mr Gauke

One of the silver linings of the cloud of dust thrown up by the collapse of Carillion, the government contractor, is that it is forcing a review of the whole business of outsourcing public functions to the private sector.

As we report today, the Justice Select Committee is calling on the Government to think again about one of the more sensitive contracts, for the recovery and enforcement of court fines, due to be announced next month.

Collecting fines is part of the criminal justice system, one of the core functions of the state, and one in which the profit motive is widely regarded with even deeper suspicion than elsewhere.

We should be careful not to reach for the rhetorical blunderbuss of blanket condemnation. The Independent believes that what matters is what works, and that if companies or third-sector bodies can deliver public services better than the public sector they should do so.

We have no objection in principle to profit-making companies running prisons, for example, even though they too are part of the criminal justice system. The prisons system in this country is pretty dreadful, but that is a product of policies that lead to too many custodial sentences and of underfunding, not of some prisons being privately run.

However, the fines recovery role of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) poses a more stringent test. As Bob Neill, the Conservative MP who chairs the justice committee, says, “You have to be very sensitive in areas like this where you are dealing with arrest and restraint.”

Bailiffs have been the monarch’s local representatives in enforcing justice for much longer than police officers, a role invented only in the 19th century. Private debt collectors have been subcontracted by HMCTS for some years, but we remain uneasy about the collection of fines on a commission. This tilts the system towards getting money out of the easier, more vulnerable targets, which is hardly compatible with the impartial administration of justice.

David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, should listen, therefore, to the committee’s concerns. He needs to be sure that the contract is not underpriced, so that the winner is not under pressure to cut corners in order to deliver. The MPs point to the danger of letting the contract to a single national company, which would concentrate the financial risk as well as the accountability risk if there are problems holding that company to account for the behaviour of its employees.

More fundamentally, however, in the light of Carillion’s collapse, Mr Gauke should think again about whether it is really in the public interest to contract out such a sensitive service in the first place.