COUNCIL leaders have not ruled out taking on the responsibility and the bills for petty criminals as suggested in a ground-breaking new report.

Brighton and Hove and West Sussex County Councils are both sympathetic on proposals of taking on responsibility for home-grown offenders to help cut the growing prison population.

Brighton and Hove City Council leader Warren Morgan said the reforms could form part of a later move towards greater devolution for Sussex councils if and when the Greater Brighton bid is granted new powers.

Under proposals in a report made by leading think tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), government funding for custody costs should be devolved with the money spent on improving drug and alcohol dependency programmes to help prevent repeat offending.

The reform, the report’s authors said, is designed to reduce the "extraordinary" amount of money spent on prison places for low-level criminals in England and Wales which often fails to rehabilitate offenders, cut crime or protect victims.

By handing councils the bill for the full cost of a prison bed, the system would often be an incentive to improve local services and stop low-level offenders returning to jail.

The report suggests that by putting custody funding of around £400m into local authorities’ pockets, councils would then have to cover the costs of every local offender sentenced to less than 24 months.

The report also recommends an increased use of non-custodial sentences, such as community supervision, unpaid work, curfews, banning orders and restorative justice programmes.

Jonathan Clifton, associate director for Public Services at IPPR, said: "Our court system is clogged-up, our prisons are overflowing and we have the highest re-offending rate in Western Europe.

"We need to free up cash that is frozen in the prison system, and give it to local areas to invest in tackling the social problems that drive re-offending such as lack of qualifications, mental health problems and homelessness."

Cllr Warren Morgan, Brighton and Hove City Council leader, said: “Our current devolution bid is already in, and this is not included within it, but it could form part of a future devolution ask.”

A West Sussex County Council spokesperson said: “The report by the Institute for Public Policy raises some very interesting ideas and should be carefully considered.

"However, currently local authorities do not have the powers or funds to deliver services that could help reduce the prison population or cut the rates of reoffending.”