The chapter summarises the main findings of the evaluation and draws some conclusions about the future of bail support schemes for adults.

Take-up and caseloads

A total of 655 defendants were supervised by the EBS scheme up until the end of June 2008. The take-up rate, in terms of the proportion of EBS proposals made to courts, was quite high. However, the EBS did not meet its target of 600 commencements per year outlined in the original bid to the Treasury Invest to Save Budget (ISB). Some of the defendants on the scheme were likely to have been destined for a custodial remand suggesting that bail support schemes can divert defendants from custody. There are indications that there may be some scope for increasing numbers on the scheme by widening the criteria by which defendants are selected so that the number of proposals made to courts increases. The risk of this approach is that net-widening will occur. There is already some evidence that the EBS was used for defendants who would not otherwise have been remanded in custody. The evidence comes from a number of sources. First, some defendants on the EBS were charged with less serious offences which would not normally result in custodial remands. Second, a proportion of the defendants on the scheme had limited offending and bail histories. Third, a significant number of defendants were re-bailed to the EBS after alleged offending on bail or breaching conditional bail including EBS. Fourth, a significant minority of the sentences imposed were fines or discharges. The high proportion of defendants subject to the EBS charged with domestic violence related offences also raises issues of net-widening. In many of these cases the main, and potentially, the only bail-related issue for the courts is whether an address can be found for the defendants away from where the alleged offence took place. This provides one indication, of several, that defendants may be subject to the EBS simply to provide bail addresses. Consequently, up-tariffing is a risk whereby any subsequent offending or breaches are more likely to result in custodial remands. The original ISB bid recognised that some net-widening was likely to occur, but these findings raise questions about the extent to which it happened and what an acceptable level might be.