I wish to begin by reiterating what we said in our written response to the report, that is, we very much welcome it. We did not have the resources to undertake an analysis of this kind - resources were the heart of the difficulties we had in the Department, a matter to which I will return separately, Chairman, if you wish. While the various records and other sources on which the analysis is based are less than they should be, it is clear that the Comptroller and Auditor General has done a comprehensive job which will be of great assistance to us in coming up with solutions to improve the system.
It is a mistake to look at the fines system in isolation from the whole justice system and come to the conclusion that inefficiencies in the system mean there is inefficiency in the whole justice system. That is partly the reason, but a very efficient fines system - others will be able to explain this better than I - could create costs and inefficiencies elsewhere in the system, a matter to which others will return.
The Comptroller and Auditor General correctly recognises that the fines system is very complex, involving interaction between various agencies and between separate units and agencies. He also recognises that because of its pivotal situation in the whole justice system the Department is in the best position to ensure the activities are co-ordinated to achieve greater effectiveness. We accept this.
By way of opening comment, I wish to make some general observations. First, I wish to refer to the difficulties involved in achieving improvements. Second, I wish to acknowledge the absolute need for improvements. Third, I wish to outline what we have been doing during the years. The Comptroller and Auditor General accepts there have been improvements, albeit not as many as we would like. It is not as if we are starting afresh. Finally, I wish to indicate where we think we need to go to sustain the developments that have already taken place and enhance the progress made. Individual features of the system will be addressed in more detail on the Garda side by Assistant Commission Egan and on the courts side by Mr. Fitzpatrick because they are closer to what happens on a day-to-day basis and involved in significant improvements. Mr. Farrelly will comment on matters concerning the Department of the Environment and Local Government.
By way of general comment on the fines system, we welcome the fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General has recognised that its primary purpose is not to collect revenue, but to reduce the tendency towards offending. This is often misunderstood. Unlike the taxation system where the ultimate objective is to collect all taxation which may be deemed owing, the ultimate objective of the fines system is to improve behaviour, that is, to produce a situation where nothing is owing and the State collects nothing.
While the overall factors which contribute towards a less than effective system include the matters rightly referred to by the Comptroller and Auditor General such as the lack of management systems, lack of technological developments and so on, it is important to make the point that no matter what management systems or changes are made or technological aids are put in place certain difficulties will remain with a fine system. These difficulties have to do with human behaviour and human nature, not with management systems. It is a fact of life that many people who receive summonses do not turn up in court for a variety of reasons, including illness, family commitments, etc. There will always be people who fail to turn up for less valid or persuasive reasons. They simply do not bother. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of cases handled by the courts every year, it is not practical for a judge to stop proceedings and to find out why somebody did not turn up. That is an unsustainable proposition. What often happens is that a fine is imposed without the judge having any idea of the capacity of the individual to pay. There is no time to find out these things. This might not become apparent until much later in the system when a garda arrives with a warrant and finds that the person who is due to pay the warrant may have a young family or poor financial circumstances, or may have suffered a bereavement in the meantime. There is always a certain amount of loss between the commencement of the process and its end.
Another major contributor to the non-payment of fines - the Comptroller and Auditor General mentions this also - is that people change address. This is quite significant. It applies particularly to younger people and those in rented accommodation. Address changes frustrate the fine collection system from beginning to end. It can frustrate at the point of summons service and at the warrant stage. It is not practical to chase up all cases. While these factors remain, there will never be a 100% effective fine collection system. However, I accept that these factors do not constitute an adequate explanation for the shortcomings that have been identified.
Improvements have taken place in recent years. The Comptroller and Auditor General recognises that some improvements have taken place and we accept that more should have taken place. In 1993, the number of outstanding warrants was 61,000 with a value of £2.6 million. In 1998 that was brought down to 3,400 with a value of £750,000. Mr. P. J. Fitzpatrick and the Assistant Commissioner will refer to other improvements that have taken place.
To enhance the fine collection system we need to hugely improve the system of data capture and data analysis. There are close to 500,000 cases before the courts every year. Many of these cases are handled manually. This is because it was not easy until recently to get financial support for the installation of IT systems. It is only in more recent years that money has become more freely available. Apart from that, IT systems were more primitive in the past and not up to the required standard. Much was handled manually with limited staff resources. There were bound to be inefficiencies. For example, since I was last before this committee I have not been able to put even one of my staff on this job full time. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform was running the Courts Service with an assistant secretary, who was also responsible for immigration, and about 20 staff. Thankfully, the Department has now moved many executive functions outwards to the courts, prisons, the Land Registry and the probation service. This has improved the administrative system. There is no way the Courts Service could be properly administered with 20 people. Thankfully there are now up to three times that level of staff available. In the past we had a very low level of IT as it was difficult to get support for investment, but that has changed.
We are now engaged in a major capitalisation programme which is designed to produce more integration across agencies, including the prison system. This has resulted in improved interface between the Garda and the courts system through the use of the courts criminal case tracking system or CCTS, and between the PULSE computer system and the national vehicle file system. This is a complex programme which is well advanced. Its objective is to track people from the time of offence to the time of ultimate disposal, whether that is prison or payment of a fine. The exchange of information between systems will not suffice alone. We also need research on how the incidence of fine defaulting varies between different categories of offence and statistical information on why people end up being committed to prison for non-payment of fines. We have engaged a consultancy firm to carry out research in these areas in connection with legislation which is currently being prepared.
Apart from technological developments, another major requirement is that we establish whether there are better methods of paying fines, for example, by credit card or at outlets such as post offices. This is likely to become more important with the extension of on-the-spot fines as contemplated. The Department of the Environment and Local Government will be able to deal with this. The Courts Service is also looking at possibilities regarding different payment systems. We are currently preparing legislation to be called the payment of fines Bill. Options being considered in this context include the provision of payment of fines by instalments to assist those who wish to pay but may not have the financial means. However, these measures do not necessarily provide a panacea because all are quite costly in administrative terms and have been turned down in other jurisdictions. We are trying this option because it works reasonably well in Northern Ireland.
We also need to look at much broader approaches to the fines system and to do this on a cross-agency basis. Alternative approaches include measures like clamping which does not involve a fine but is quite effective in law enforcement terms. We need arrangements which make it impossible or difficult for a person who has offended to re-use his or her car without paying a substantial penalty. Other approaches in this category, such as is employed in the US, would be to deny people the possibility of taxing their car if the record showed that they owed a fine. That applies in other jurisdictions but would only work if the penalty for not taxing a car was severe. The measure would be useless if the end result was that people simply drove in untaxed cars. However, these are different approaches from the simple fine approach.
A possibility that might be looked at in the case of very large fines would be to register the fine as a charge on property or to confiscate the car in the case of serious motor offences carrying a substantial fine, such as drunken driving. These are possibly more effective ways of dealing with wrong-doing than fines. They also eliminate the need to collect fines, which requires a complex and costly system no matter how it is arranged. However, there is also a down side in that these measures are controversial. People may not go along with, for example, £50,000 fines for certain offences if that became a charge on their land. They remain options to be considered.
The overall management of the system is to be overseen by a high level group following the findings of the report. This will be chaired by an assistant secretary in our Department, Mr. Michael Mellet, who is with me today. It will include representatives of the Garda, the courts, the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Department of Finance. The task of looking at ways of improving the overall management and looking at the wider issues that I have mentioned - that is moving away from fines to alternative approaches for dealing with wrong-doing - will mean that we will need to widen the number of interests on this high level group due to the breadth of the issues to be considered.
Concerning the management of the system, this group will have the option of looking not only at how the existing management systems might be improved but whether a totally different structure should be put in place involving people from the private sector or a mixture of public and private sector elements. It will not be possible to bring every stage of the process under a single agency because the courts and the Garda will still have their tasks to perform. It may be possible to bring about improvement by having a better management structure, even a private sector structure, for handling the actual collection of fines. Apart from looking at overall management, there are specific matters this team will have to pursue in the short-term. The Comptroller and Auditor General has stressed the importance of tackling the problem of persistent offenders. There is obviously a need to do this immediately because of the message that failure to act sends out.
It will take this cross-agency team some time to get its job done but I envisage coming back to the Comptroller and Auditor General on a regular basis to keep him informed of the progress being made. I am fairly confident that with the kind of IT developments taking place the situation will change out of all proportion in a fairly short time.
