NOMS and the Future

I think we all know what a complete disaster NOMS has been, or the 'Nightmare on Marsham Street' as it became affectionately known amongst senior civil servants. But it's always satisfying to find yet more evidence to support this view. I would normally be somewhat sceptical about reports coming out of think tanks that describe themselves as 'centre-right', however 'Carter but Smarter' recently published by Policy Exchange is a cracking good read just for the forensic analysis it delivers on one of the biggest policy disasters by government in recent years.

The history of the National Offender Management Service is truly monumental and farcical, right from conception, all the way through to non-delivery. I'd say it's up there with aircraft carriers having no planes. Re-organised four times already since birth and described by two former Chief Inspectors of Prisons and Probation as completely ill-conceived and dysfunctional, at one time its costs exceeded the total annual probation budget. It lost a small fortune on the abandoned C-NOMIS computer project and the whole sorry saga has certainly gained its place in history as an excellent example of how not to develop policy. Although slimmed down further in the recent spending review, it stubbornly refuses to die, so what happens next?

This report goes on to discuss the current situation and background to imminent decisions on offender rehabilitation. It makes some extremely valid, if dare I say, patently obvious points such as querying the reduction in reconviction rates and wondering if this might be connected in some way to greater cautioning and fixed penalty notices being issued by the police? Also the staggering observation that money expended on putting offenders through programmes is not likely to be effective if they're homeless. Indeed the report highlights the fact that current rehabilitation efforts are significantly hampered because agencies involved with housing, drug treatment, employment and training are not in any way integrated. They identify this as one of the major failures of the whole Carter end-to-end offender management idea. Although they confirm that local initiatives like Integrated Offender Management have succeeded to a degree, they note that there has been little or no practical engagement or join-up with other public bodies and certainly no pooled budgets.

I guess it's not surprising that a report like this is very enthusiastic about the whole Payment by Results idea, but there is also a very timely word of caution and highlighting of several potential problems. The first is connected to whether the aim is to really reduce reoffending or just massage the figures. They make the point that if it's the latter, the money might be better spent paying the police and CPS just to prosecute less offenders! On the other hand if it's the former, then they make the equally obvious point that the statistics have to be honest and services actually have to be delivered. I think the key observation the report makes is:-

"As these services are largely being provided by the state, there could be a situation whereby private providers are using public money to commission services back from the public sector. In effect, this means the state is paying twice and, unless the measurement of success is robust, the state could be spending twice for outcomes that have not actually improved."

Another potential fine mess then. But hang on, hasn't the state always been paying the probation service to do battle with other state bodies like the NHS, Local Authorities, Job Centres etc in order to get the services clients require? Surely the answer has to be just work on them. Now I think the Policy Exchange intends to say more about this in a further report due out in January next year. Can't wait.