It is not clear how Parliament, the public and other stakeholders can hold the Ministry to account for delivery of the strategy’s commitments. The Ministry’s decision not to set targets affects not only its ability to make good funding decisions, (see conclusion 2 above), but also makes it difficult to hold the Ministry to account. This is compounded by the way the Ministry implemented the strategy. It did not set out clearly how the female offender programme’s progress could be measured. Col...

It is not clear how Parliament, the public and other stakeholders can hold the Ministry to account for delivery of the strategy’s commitments. The Ministry’s decision not to set targets affects not only its ability to make good funding decisions, (see conclusion 2 above), but also makes it difficult to hold the Ministry to account. This is compounded by the way the Ministry implemented the strategy. It did not set out clearly how the female offender programme’s progress could be measured. Collecting data, or metrics as the Ministry refers to them, is not sufficient unless Improving outcomes for women in the criminal justice system 7 it is cle Type: conclusion | Number: 5 | Response status: not_addressed Government response: 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation Target implementation date: Summer 2022 5.2 The Female Offender Strategy Delivery Plan will include a list of the commitments in the Female Offender Strategy with an assessment of whether those commitme