I’ve come here to plead guilty. Over the years, I’ve put out dozens of articles, hundreds of press releases and thousands of leaflets. In them all, the probation service has barely featured. So yes – I am guilty of largely neglecting what should be one of the most important public services.

I hope I’ve begun to put that right since joining the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team in Parliament last year. And why do I feel that the probation service should be considered one of the most important?

It’s because it is at much at the forefront of fighting crime as the police. The figures are stark: six out of ten people released from jail go on to commit another crime within two years of their release.

Right there – at the heart of where the probation service works – is a key front in the fight against crime. And in case my military metaphors mean you mistake me for a general (or Paddy Ashdown), let me add that there is also another, more humane perspective. If we are to cut re-offending rates, that means helping people who leave jail put their lives back together, getting them out of the cycle of crime and back on their own two feet. Many of them are people who, frankly, have committed horrible wrongs and are people you or I probably wouldn’t want to sit down and share an evening with. Yet those in the Probation Service have to work them, do work with them, and we all benefit from when they succeed.

Because – unless we cut those re-offending rates we are hobbling the struggle against crime. And our rising prison population will not fall.

So, yes – the theory of the Government’s plans for the National Offender Management Scheme (NOMS) should be music to Lib Dem ears – the potential for end to end management of each offender with all the services and support needed, with costs saved, innovation encouraged, and giving the courts and the public greater confidence that community sentencing can work, all leading to lower re-offending rates – oh, and I’m the Christmas Fairy.

Because the key word is “potential”. NOMS has the potential to improve joint working between those involved in working with offenders in custody and those doing so in the community.

It has the potential to improve the resettlement of offenders by developing co-ordinated resettlement plans. It has the potential to increase the effectiveness of the way in which individual sentences are planned and managed from the pre-sentence report right through to release. Perhaps, most importantly, it has the potential to reduce re-offending.

But the restructurings and mergers are chaotic, and fragmentation and profit are not the natural allies of success. And the rush to launch NOMS makes us question the rigour of the business plan and the likelihood of success.

The thorough consultations which heralded in the new form of probation servicein 2001 followed lengthy consultation with all parties involved in the Criminal Justice System.Most who worked in the system felt that the establishment of 42 regional probation boards gave the Probation Service a national voice and clear focus, while maintaining the local accountability that was at the root of its success.

But now probation boards, which have a statutory obligation to provide services, will be replaced by probation trusts, which will not.The strength of the Probation Service has been rooted in it being run on a local level. The Probation Boards have brought a broad range of skills and experience to their work because they are part of the local community and of statutory services.

Under NOMS there is the risk of losing these benefits of a service rooted in the local community. Local co-operation between the courts, the police, the CPS and the Probation Service has been crucial in reducing crime and in public protection work, most notably with sex offenders and youth offenders.

Losing this local co-operation will be counter-productive as it will be produce a less efficient and less effective Criminal Justice System.

One of the risks is that without proper care outside of prison, the courts (and the politicians and public pressuring them) look to lock up more people for longer periods of time – putting more pressure on a prison system that is already struggling to cope.

Whereas prison should clearly remain the penalty for anyone who commits violent or sexual crime, Liberal Democrats believe that non-custodial sentences can be a more appropriate punishment for some offences as indeed can be restorative justice.

Tough community sentences can be more effective than prison at reducing re-offending and giving offenders skills for legitimate work, and are more cost-effective. Restorative justice can produce real results too.

But for all that to work, we need a fully functioning Probation Service too.

The aim must be to ensure that those sent to prison leave crime behind on their release and become responsible citizens and those sentenced to non-custodial sentences are properly managed.

Only then will we have safer streets and social justice.