In evaluating the effect of its interventions, the Ministry told us it is difficult to attribute changes in the number of women in custody to specific actions, such as the use of out- of-court disposals, pre-sentence reports and community interventions. It accepted that it should be able to evaluate its interventions as it is spending taxpayers’ money.59 It told us that patchy data was part of the problem but that it was still building the necessary data, several years after the strategy was published.60 The Ministry told us that it is evaluating some individual interventions, for example out-of-court disposals and housing advisers in prisons (both for men and women) but that evaluating interventions takes time especially in relation to any impact on reoffending.61 It does not currently have plans to evaluate its £9.5 million in grants to community services.62