Grayling Video : Original Script

Straight from Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence - what Grayling meant to say:-

Hello there, can I start by thanking all of you for carrying on doing the jobs you're doing and looking after and supervising offenders, before I do my darndest to sell many of you off somewhere in just a few months time. I know very well that these are difficult times in Probation as my policies have helped to create massive uncertainty. 

What I wanted to do was give you a chance to hear a bit more about why we're doing this and what we're trying to achieve, and I promise not to let a few facts get in the way of a story. 

First of all you have to understand the financial background against which we're working. Our austerity measures (remember we are all in this together) means that my Department is supposedly facing huge cuts to its budgets over the next few years and we're having to take really tough decisions in the level of staffing in prisons, in the level of Legal Aid we pay, in what we do within the courts and make big cuts to the Department's head office as well. 

That said, it fortunately hasn't stopped me garnering a veritable army of nearly 200 staff at the MoJ, authorising shedloads of additional cash to Trusts in extra Honoraria payments and yes, overtime as well, as I seek to push my challenging changes through regardless. 

You should also know, as I am sure you don't already, that I have also shelled out untold amounts of Taxpayers money on Ernst and Young Consultancy (since they can always be relied upon to tell me what I want to hear rather than those pesky Trusts that I am seeing off in a few weeks). 

But we're treating Probation a little differently, and I've won a little battle with my mate George at the Treasury (during a poker session at the RAC club) to treat Probation differently. That's not to imply that I have any actual treats in store for you, you must understand, but if we're going to carry on bringing down the cost of the Criminal Justice system in future, we have got to improve our performance on tackling reoffending and someone has to pay for privatisation and that's you and the wider public. 

Now I know that you have helped to contribute to the lowest reoffending figures since 2007, and if you look at crime in Britain today, the number of people entering the Criminal Justice System for the first time is coming down, with fewer crimes overall being committed. But as I said earlier, we don't have to mention the important fact that you don't get to see those clients serving sentences of less than 12 months so I have conveniently decided to ignore this when making my plans to decimate the one service with a proven track record in making a real difference. 

But more and more of our crime problem is about people who are committing crimes again and again (no I don't mean my fellow Ministers), going round and round the system and what we're doing, rather than giving resources up front to tackle this which would bring real value for the taxpayer, is to close Trusts, split the core functions in two and eventually make people redundant to meet a tough budget settlement, so that I can weigh off the privateers who want to cream off the top. So what we're actually doing is spending more money on creating a bidders market to bring their still to be proven skills to supervise those people such as my mate Jeffrey once did, who go to jail for 12 months and less, who at the moment walk onto the streets with £46 in their pocket, get no supervision and are more like to reoffend than anyone else. 

Now you know and I know that the rate of reoffending for those people who are not supervised post prison is much higher than for those people who are, and that is something we have got to change. So the obvious question is why not just do it within the current system? 

Well there's a number of answers to that. To start off we have a system that is much too bureaucratic. I mean you all went into the Probation Service with this over inflated idea of spending more time working with offenders, and all of the evidence I see is that the processes that we have in place means that much too little time is spent working with offenders, and too much time just dealing with the systems. So what I want to do is to create a Probation system where the professionals working in the front line have got much greater freedom, don't have the interference of central bureaucracy and have got much greater freedom to innovate and do things completely differently. Well we can all dream cant we? 

Unfortunately for you and your colleagues, we have no intention of addressing the underlying problems that are the root cause of all this, such as inadequate IT systems, under resourced training programmes and the centralist bureaucracy of Noms, so I intend to fragment the service and hope for the best that the new IT systems that will be introduced by the private sector will do the job, even though they won't be joined up so to speak. 

Anyway, (and hoping you are all still awake out there?) we looked at whether that could be done across the current system of 35 trusts and actually the last government looked at whether we would provide supervision for the under 12 month group, using the current system. They, like us, came to the conclusion it wasn't affordable (despite the hundreds of £billions spent on managing reoffending that you keep telling us could be better invested) and that we would need to do things differently. I don't think we can afford to carry on with a situation where we're not supervising those 'under 12 month people' (I know you all prefer to call them 'clients'). And the other thing, what was it now? Oh yes, I don't think we can carry on with a situation where we don't have a proper, through-the-gate service. So that means I have decided to not include you in any transparent bidding process because the bottom line is that I need to make savings. There is absolutely no reason why several hundred 'Old Lags' can't help turn people's lives around and lead by example. I just need to find them from somewhere! 

So let me explain to you briefly about the two new organisations. 

The Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service. The CRCs are going to have much greater freedom than has ever been the case before for front line professionals to do things completely differently, and they give a real opportunity to all of you to think about new ways of providing support to offenders. You will have to muddle through a bit between 1st April and share sale when the cavalry arrives, as I am a little short on detail right now about how this will actually look, but I am sure it will all be sorted with hopefully no risk to the public. 

So for example, if I was running a CRC one of the first things I would do is set up a housing operation. I'd probably negotiate deals with landlords, so that you knew when somebody comes out of prison that you've got somewhere to place them like a 'third bedroom' or some such. Let's ignore for one minute the fact that many landlords won't touch social tenants with a bargepole and see them as bad for business let alone ex-offenders. For the truth is that Treasury rules just don't allow us to do that kind of thing in the public sector, but the CRCs will have that sort of freedom in the future and I think that can make a real difference and I think there'll be real opportunities to build on some of the things that the trusts do at the moment, for example in tying in with Welfare To Work Services and the success of my 'Work Plan' experiment. 

And there is a really important point to make as well. I know there's been a lot of chatter around the system (that bloody pain in my a**e Napo has not stopped wittering on about - G4S and Serco, who as you know have decided that they are not going to be involved in the bidding process to take over CRCs) and yes, I know that you say I should not have even given them that option, but let's try and draw a line under their activities shall we? Instead we've got a list of partnerships very often between private sector organisations and voluntary sector organisations. Some of the biggest charities that work with offenders, coming together to hopefully take up the partnership role with the public sector that will exist in the new system. And I think there's a really exciting opportunity for people to build their careers, working with different organisations that offer not only the opportunity to do more within the CRCs, but also a wide variety of different and positively inferior terms and conditions giving them the opportunity to do more, for less, more broadly in future. 

The world we're ultimately trying to create is one without you, where we have a partnership between public sector, voluntary sector and private sector: Private sector to help us run our systems and our processes and our organisation more efficiently as has been consistently shown in many outsourced IT and procurement contracts across many departments (according to my 'Spin Doctor).' The Voluntary sector will add mentoring skills to the work our Probation professionals already do once they find the people, and of course we will continue to use the risk management skills and expertise that already exist within the public sector, but you will just have to whisper to your colleagues in the NPS or CRC between yourselves when you need to. 

And the other point to make, which I think is also very important, is the process of bringing in new partners is not going to be about price, we're not about selling the operation to the lowest bid. That is not what this is about. This is about improving quality, it's about innovation. So what we're going to be asking the people who bid to take on the CRCs to do, is to demonstrate to us that they're giving us the best value in terms of improved reoffending outcomes, for the work that we're doing with them and for the money that we're paying. *Unfortunately, as you all now know since I made the DVD, not as many bidders as as I thought would do so made the first cut so I may have to review that statement as we go along. 

And then there's the National Probation Service, which is going to have a very different focus to the CRCs. Looking after the most challenging offenders, working on a multi-agency basis to supervise people who are a real risk to our society (unlike the 25% of low and medium risk offenders who move across tiers over the course of the year), and having responsibility for risk assessment, for allocation of offenders to different risk categories, for decisions about recalling people to court and I think increasingly operating in new areas as well. Unfortunately, I am not able to substantiate the risk factors behind all of this as I am not prepared to release the risk registers previously prepared by my department. 

I'm for example very keen to see the National Probation Service much more involved in decisions about release on Temporary Licence, so that we've got real expertise in taking decisions in an area where we've had problems in the last few months. So let me tell you a bit about the process going forward. We've already got the new leadership teams of the two organisations in place, and we're moving quickly to shove people into their new teams despite not having much in the way of facts (told you that earlier) as I don't want there to be a longer period of uncertainty, no honestly, I don't. But then after that there is going to be a long period of bedding in, in the public sector, making sure all the new systems are working such as being able to pay you on time. We're not rushing to move problematic cases from one part of the future to another as we don't yet have a clue about how can do this safely, so mark my words we're not going to take risks with public safety. We'll take most of this year to continue bedding in the new systems, long before we ever actually involve any of the new partners who are going to be coming in and working with us. 

Now I know that all of this is disruptive and unsettling, and there are of course going to be changes so you will just have to get on with it. We are inevitably going to be merging back office operations, we'll be simplifying systems and there's no doubt there'll be some changes in the organisation as a whole and I'm pleased to say we've now reached agreement with the unions on the transition arrangements, on the voluntary redundancy package, on issues around continuity of service, and I think there's now a really good package for everyone that I hope will give you greater confidence going forward. There are small issues such as new collective bargaining arrangements, interchange agreements and recognition that could still make the whole thing go south but let's be positive shall we?

So (finally) what does the future look like? Well my vision is of a network of CRCs, working in the resettlement prisons, preparing people for release, meeting them at the gate, mentoring and supporting them for 12 months after they leave prison, with a particular focus on that new group of people who will be supervising the under 12 month people, really bringing down reoffending rates and doing it in new ways, finding innovative ideas to help them get their lives back together. Sadly, as the years go by and even supposing that this will work, that won't involve many of you whether you soon find yourself in the NPS or a CRC. 

Thank you and HNY