Friday 12 July 2013

A Capability Gap

Well it was left to poor old Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister, to face the flak on Channel 4 news last night in the absence of Justice Secretary Chris Grayling and the emerging electronic tagging scandal.

Inquisitor-in-chief Jon Snow managed to extract from Maude that there was a 'capability gap' within the portals of the Ministry of Justice and Snow certainly voiced the view of us all in probation that neither G4S or Serco should get any more contracts until both companies are shown to be squeaky clean. Maude ducked that question, obviously, but in reality both companies are now completely out of the running for any probation contracts. 

Grayling really lost his cool yesterday and somewhat reminiscent of a cornered animal, lashed out, reacting without a great deal of thought. It now looks as if every contract by these two companies, right across all areas of government, will be looked at in minute detail. This not only means share prices will be affected, it's going to make other privateers think twice about the reputational dangers of taking on government contracts that might turn toxic one day.     

Of course there are plenty of privateers in the wings, but these were the biggest and I think this whole sorry saga is going to rebound spectacularly by demonstrating that the MoJ is, to quote the nauseating former Home Secretary and current G4S director John Reid, "not fit for purpose"

Apparently, such is the quantity of brown stuff that is contacting the fan down there at MoJ/Noms HQ, that staff were 'crying in the toilets'. As a bit more time has elapsed following Graylings astonishing Commons statement, it's emerged that the fault may indeed lie fairly and squarely with the incompetent MoJ itself. 

Thanks to helpful briefings by G4S spin doctors, a picture is emerging whereby it would appear that according to the contracts drawn up by the MoJ, it was their responsibility to notify the tagging contractor when tagging of an individual starts and when it ends. Now I'm no contract lawyer, but that seems reasonable to me. The trouble is it makes a naive assumption that there is a robust and reliable data exchange system in place that ensures that these two bits of straightforward information are communicated to the tagging companies in timely fashion.

Without wishing in any way to prejudge the conclusions of the enquiries just announced, I suspect that G4S and Serco said to themselves something along the lines of 'if the MoJ is too lax to tell us that X and Y are dead or have been returned to jail, we'll stick to the letter of the contract and just keep collecting the fee'. Surely in this instance it's up to the client to know who is being tagged, for how long and therefore how much to pay, rather than the contractor to 'bill' the client? Or is this too simple?

In essence, isn't this the essential difference between a company working to a contract and making money for shareholders, as opposed to a public service with a sound ethical base working for the public good? Doesn't this all very neatly demonstrate why privatising something like the probation service is a very bad idea indeed? 

I'm not entirely sure the companies 'over-charged'. I think they just took advantage of the MoJ's inability to keep to their side of the contract and decided not to help them out. It's a commercial arrangement, not a public service any more and the MoJ just isn't up to dealing with such slippery customers in the world of business. Isn't there a universal truth that says 'customer beware'?   

Now I stress I'm not a lawyer and I'm only guessing, but I think it's entirely within the realms of possibility that this whole sorry saga will end up reflecting rather more badly upon the hapless MoJ and Chris Grayling than it does on those nasty big private security behemoths.  

So, if I'm right, where does this leave the chances of the hapless MoJ making a decent fist of drawing up cast-iron contracts for privatising probation? Err, zilch I'd say.          

19 comments:

  1. In essence, isn't this the essential difference between a company working to a contract and making money for shareholders, as opposed to a public service with a sound ethical base working for the public good? Doesn't this all very neatly demonstrate why privatising something like the probation service is a very bad idea indeed?
    Excellent point and sums up the crux of the matter

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  2. As a retired Probation officer I could scream at the idiocy of this whole process of privatisation. Will it save money? No evidence that it will. Will it provide a better service? Please refer to current contract debacle. Has the Probation Service a proven track record of excellence and professional service....I'm biased , but a significant number of Judges, Magistrates, politicians etc. seem to think so. What is behind this ludicrous policy? Ideology or stupidity?

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    1. Funny thing is we are waiting for evidence before introducing plain packaging for cigarettes, but not for privatising probation.

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  3. I imagine your assessment of the over-charging being down to a mixture of MoJ indifference about public funds and private sector opportunism is probably on the right track. I blame the MoJ more than G4S, as what do you expect if you put the fox in charge of the chickens. Private companies are always looking, by hook or by crook, to increase their take. Think of the corrupt lending by banks: Libor, the mis-selling of insurance (It's more accurately called 'fraudulent lending' in the U.S.). Think of cartels like the one was operated by Virgin and B.A. to bloat air fares. Think about big pharma – GlaxoSmithKline fined 3 billion for the biggest health fraud in U.S history. This is how the market really works...deviously, corruptly. No surprise to read recently that corrupt behaviour in the UK is now at 5% compared to 1% ten years ago. However, I don't think we should carried away with the notion that all is ethical in the public services: I cannot excuse those so-called 'leaders' in the public services who seem to be more preoccupied with self-enrichment than public service. Think of all the payoffs in the NHS and BBC. I suspect there have been plenty of compromise agreements in probation as well...maybe I'll put in a Foi! You only need compromise agreements when you have something to cover up.

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    1. I'm hoping the tide might be turning in relation to the public swallowing the line that public services are better and more cheaply provided by the private sector - patently they are not.

      As for leadership and the conspicuous absence of it, it's a huge disappointment - I had no idea that all the bosses would turn out to be weasels - some are even going to retire FFS - but not a squeak of opposition - disgraceful!!

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  4. Its exactly the same problems that were present in the PbR work programme. Who was responsible for that? Oh of course! It was Chris Grayling!!

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  5. My experience with G4S/Tagging has been quite negative, although I have almost always been pleasently surprised by those members of staff at the end of a phone, when things have not been going to plan. Things like, someone not yet 'tagged' 10 days after the court made the order, because they had not got around to it.

    If the MoJ share responsibility for this mess, then it is hardly 'news' as many of those people writing the contracts have absolutely nil idea of what we do, or the compexity of making something work where there are so many layers, so many opportunities for things to go wrong....i.e. at arrest, during bail periods, in transfer to court, with CPS presenting the case, the defence who, on occasion argue against things like tagging, because lets face it, service users, don't like them; and sometimes because the judiciary don't like it when told they should not tag a domestically violent convicted individual to the home they previously shared with their victim, and make it anyway, only to be faced with an applicaion to vary the sentence.

    Tne major issue, with stand alone curfew/tags I have noticed, is that people get tagged to fake addresses or to properties where they are not welcome and nobody checked with the occupant in advance and the 'taggee' does a runner. Now you may think, they'll be picked up on a warrant and brought back to court - sadly, it is not unusual for the Police not have either the will power or staf power to chase up warrants raised by the probation service, for weeks, even months! Presumably until the tagee is returned to court, G4S will be paid, unless the contract has a range of caveats protecting the public purse and there you go, unless those drafting the terms of the contract fully understand the systems, professionals and procedures involved, they may as well give the job to pre-school children.

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    1. Exactly! Those drawing up the contracts have virtually no knowledge of how the whole system works. An omnishambles in the making.

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  6. TheUrbaneGorilla12 July 2013 at 19:23

    Ah, "a naive assumption that there is a robust and reliable data exchange system in place that ensures that these two bits of straightforward information are communicated" - right, so presumably that's a bit like the impending system for managing the movement of offenders between probation and the private sector as risk goes up and down. There may be trouble ahead.

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  7. Just like the robust and reliable data exchange that won't exist when transferring between low/med risk to high and visa versa!

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  8. Said it before and I'll say it again, it's morally wrong for a private company to have any part in front line CJS work.

    The Magistrates Blog pointed out that if the directors of G4S or Serco were convicted of a crime, they could well end up being tagged or imprisoned by their own employees - how would that work?

    Also, G4S refused to conduct any further internal audits (unless they were paid more) because it wasn't in their contract to do so! This demonstrates that public service is always changing and it's folly to pretend that you can cover every eventuality in a contract.

    I’m all for private companies getting profit for running businesses which are not a monopoly, but a service like probation/criminal justice/policing is just plain wrong. You may as well contract out Parliament!

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    1. I agree entirely - thanks for commenting.

      Cheers,

      Jim

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    2. I wonder how all this tagging stuff will pan out. G4S would have known an individual was no longer on tag because if they weren't in the house at the time of curfew then the company have to inform the relevent authority. If someone is returned to custody then someone has to recover what I assume is quite expensive equipment.
      On the other hand the government must take full responsibillity for spending tax payers money.
      Im thinking that the next problem for these companies will be their tax returns. Watch and wait.

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    3. The question I would ask is this.
      Of all the people you've been overpaid for when they were actually returned to custody , what percentage were returned to privately run prisons? How many times have you not only been overpaid, but been paid TWICE for the same individual?

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    4. I think you get paid for conveying them in the van as well. I think it's called a 'vertically integrated business model'.

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