As I tweeted a couple of days ago: in a world where a joined up justice system remains a pipe dream, to fragment it further into NPS & CRCs is dangerously incompetent
Evidently the government is speeding ahead with these reforms in the hope that all will be done, dusted and 'unpickable' in time for the next election (which I presume the government is expecting to lose?) This speed is unseemly and high risk. The chance of significant cracks opening up in a service that is already straining to make rehabilitation work is, in my view, highly likely.
But allow me to take a longer term view and imagine that the new arrangements remain for some years to come. These are my predictions of what will happen:
- There will be slow but inexorable exodus of experienced probation officers from both the Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service. These will be replaced by more junior staff with fewer qualifications.
- Rehabilitation rates (as measured by re-convictions for example) will not improve in most areas and, in a few will, worsen. The government of the day will ensure there are one or two flagships who do manage to make improvements (but the level of central support to achieve this will be glossed over).
- Criminal justice agency partners (the other parts of the National Offender Management Service, the police, local authorities, housing agencies etc) will become very frustrated that where there was one organisation to liaise with there will now be two or even three if you include the contract management structure from regional NOMS.
- The CRCs will develop robust (but covert) strategies to get more of their clients reassessed as high risk so that they can shift responsibility over to the NPS. They will do this saying publicly that it is all about ensuring community safety. Privately they will be glad that this will improve their rehab rates (and therefore Payments by Results) and reduce their workload.
- In contrast the NPS will do all that it can to assess 'objectively' an offender as low to medium risk and make the CRC pick them up as a client. However, this will increase the chances that offenders will be 'breached' and sent back to jail. More offenders will return to jail as a consequence.
- Some offenders will fall between stools.
- Staff at an operational level will become even better at 'gaming' the targets & objectives to ensure their backs are covered.
- Payment by Results will be replaced as the owners of the CRCs will quickly realise they are not getting any return on their investments.
- Overtime, the CRCs will be bought out such that there will only be between two and three owners. These organisations might be hedge funds or some of the existing private sector players in the justice 'market place'. Some of the architects of this new model who currently work in the Ministry of Justice will find their way onto the boards of these companies.
- The National Probation Service will creak and be broken down again into smaller local units. These too will then be outsourced and sold off. The remaining vestiges of NOMS will struggle to contract manage the new CRCs and the new local NPS mark two units.
Private security firm Serco has put together a "thorough plan for corporate renewal" after overcharging for tagging criminals, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude says.
Serco has already repaid £68.5m to the government for discrepancies, including billing to tag people who were dead. Its plan includes creating ethics committees in each company division. Serco chief executive Ed Casey said the company was taking "significant steps" to rebuild government confidence. Serco and another private security firm, G4S, were stripped of responsibility for tagging criminals in the UK after details of overcharging emerged.
An audit by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers alleged that overcharging began as early as 2005. The Serious Fraud Office has begun a criminal investigation. And the tagging contracts have been handed to outsourcing company Capita.
Serco said it would place dealing with customers fairly "above any other conflicting drivers for success". Mr Casey said he believed Serco could "now be considered on an equal basis to other suppliers for current bids".
In a statement, Mr Maude praised the firm's efforts, saying: "This plan represents the right direction of travel to meet our expectations as a customer." He said the government would continue to monitor Serco's implementation of its plan and he "hopes this will enable our confidence to continue to build". "This does not affect any consideration by the Serious Fraud Office, which acts independently of government, in relation to the material concerns previously identified," he added.With an on-going SFO investigation, it just beggars belief!
Serco warns on profits as ban is lifted
ReplyDeleteBy Gill PlimmerThe UK government gave the all-clear for Serco to win public sector work on Thursday but it was not enough to spare the outsourcing group from shareholders’ wrath, as it warned a series of botched contracts would continue to take a toll on profits.Serco, which runs facilities from prisons and hospitals to air-traffic control towers in the UK, had been barred from winning fresh government work after it was referred to the City of London police for manipulating figures on a prison van escorting contract, and to the Serious Fraud Office for overcharging for electronic tagging.But the government said on Thursday that it was reassured Serco “had developed a thorough plan for corporate renewal”. Although it will continue to monitor the group, the Cabinet Office said it had “accepted this plan represents the right direction of travel to meet our expectations as a customer”.The good news from the government was overshadowed by a 12.3 per cent fall in the company’s share price to 447p in early afternoon trading.Although Serco welcomed the news that it would be considered “on an equal basis” with other suppliers for public sector contracts, it also warned that the scandals would continue to have a “negative impact” on profitability this year. Investors expected operating profit of £277m for the year ending December 2014, but Serco said the final figure could be between 10 per cent and 20 per cent lower.Serco cited as factors the cost of corporate renewal, the withdrawal of the electronic monitoring work and a scaling back of its largest contract – a five-year deal to manage onshore detention centres for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in Australia. The company has strengthened its board and tightened ethics procedures but further job losses are expected as part of a continuing restructuring of the business.
Getting a clean bill of health was essential to Serco, whose shares have plummeted with each successive crisis. But it is also important to the government, which remains keen to farm out work to outsourcers as part of its attempts to shrink the state and drive down the budget deficit.Serco is enmeshed with government with more than £4bn in contracts for the Ministry of Defence alone, including one to run the facility that builds Britain’s nuclear weapons until 2024. Although the company employs 122,000 staff in 30 countries, about a quarter of its £4.9bn annual revenues come from UK government work.Experts said the decision to clear Serco despite the ongoing investigations was indicative of the government’s reliance on too few big suppliers.Richard Johnson, former managing director of Serco welfare to work and a consultant to the Work Bank, said: “Serco is really an arm of government and a product of the ways that contracts are designed and managed. I see no evidence of any significant change within Serco so would expert Serco’s approach and culture to remain pretty much as before.”The clearance paves the way for the government to award Serco more public sector contracts, including a 10-year £400m deal managing the MoD’s military estate. Serco is leading one of three consortiums and has been tipped to win the work. It is also in the race for a series of deals running facilities management services at British prisons in five-year contracts worth £100m a year.As part of its redemption, Serco has repaid £68.5m for overcharging on electronic tagging of prisoners, although it is still under investigation by the SFO.It has also agreed to repay £2m of past profits – plus any future profits – on its contract to escort inmates to and from London courts, after revelations that Serco staff had been altering records on the transport of prisoners. Last month Serco also announced that it was terminating a contract to operate out-of-hours GP services in Cornwall, where it was accused of manipulating figures to meet performance targetsMeanwhile, in a sign of a change at the heart of the organisation, Serco continues to search for a new global chief executive after Chris Hyman resigned in the midst of last year’s crisis.The clearance had been widely expected after the company won a series of contract extensions in the past few months including a £38m deal to continue running London’s cycle hire scheme until 2017. It also won a £1.2m, five-year deal to continue delivering training at the Warsash Maritime Academy in Southampton.Handing more government services to the private sector has been at the heart of the coalition’s plans since it came to power in 2010. David Cameron, prime minister, declared then that he wanted to “release the grip of state control” on public services and open them to the private and voluntary sector.But the mismanagement of tagging contracts, worth £700m to rival G4S and Serco, has threatened to slow the pace of progress, sparking public hostility and making the award of contracts more difficult.Serco’s troubles have already led to the cancellation of two large outsourcing contracts. The company was involved in a controversial plan to hand the job of procuring £14bn of military equipment a year to the private sector. But the deal was dropped last year after all but one of the bidders – including Serco – dropped out. Serco had also been named preferred bidder on the South Yorkshire prison group, but the award was cancelled in the wake of the fiascos.Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the civil service trade union, said: “Ministers appear to have learnt nothing from the recent scandals surrounding Serco and it is absolutely shocking that it is being lined up for yet more handouts from the taxpayer.”Tom Watson, an influential Labour MP, said: “Most reasonable-minded people will think that this is a very poor judgment by the government. The message it sends out to rogue contractors is that it’s business as usual – which is shocking.”
DeleteWhich paper is this please? Cheers.
ReplyDeleteSorry fo no link- sometimes I get on the article, sometimes hit paywall- just grab it while I can
ReplyDeletehttp://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/4145300a-8994-11e3-8829-00144feab7de.html
The government are in desperate need of Serco and G4S for their MoD contracts.........no-one else will touch them
ReplyDeleteHeres more about the 'all clear' on sky news.
http://news.sky.com/story/1203568/serco-shares-down-17-percent-on-profit-warning
It makes me wonder if the SFO inquiry is a foregone conclusion??!!
ReplyDeleteIt's not all great for Serco though, 17% off their share price, and if you google 'Serco' and click on 'news' you'll find things like this,
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/21183158/detention-provider-serco-facing-industrial-action-after-immigration-detention-centre-prison-escapes/
Serco's share price may very quickley drop to peanuts!
Troubled outsourcing firm Serco has seen its shares drop 17% after it issued a profit warning.
ReplyDeleteThe company said its 2014 profit may be 20% lower than market forecasts, due to implementation of a business overhaul following contract disputes with its biggest revenue stream, the UK Government.
The dramatic fall comes just minutes after the Government said it could bid for future contracts, provided it continued with reform plans.
Serco added it was in the final phases of appointing a new chief executive.
The share drop eased in late morning trades but worsened to more than 17% in late trades. Here is the latest share price.
The firm was restructuring its UK division and bolstering expertise on its board following political pressure over a series of contractual blunders.
City analysts had forecast an average 2014 adjusted pre-tax profit of £277m, but Serco said it may only reach £221m.
Last month Serco agreed to repay the Government £68.5m for overcharging for the tagging of convicted criminals.
Both Serco and rival G4S were found to have charged the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds too much for monitoring criminals in a contract dating back to 2005.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) opened a criminal investigation after it emerged the companies were paid for supposedly electronic tagging of offenders - some of whom turned out to be dead, back in prison or overseas.
Last year, Sky News also revealed that both Serco and G4S, the firm embroiled in the Olympic security staff disaster, had pulled out of bidding for lucrative probation service contracts in the wake of the overcharging scandal.
This is just another sign of the corruption at the heart of the state. Politicians are the administrators only for big business. All of the professions are under attack its our turn to "eat cake"
ReplyDeleteSadly we're way behind the reality and 'out of the loop' with these matters - look at what Francis Maude was saying about Serco in Nov 2013, effectively "they'll get the all clear, it'll be a purging experience and we'll be very pleased because they'll be cleansed and we can give them shitloads more money." I don't doubt that Grayling's 2013 decision about the SFO and all that comes with it was yet another example of parliamentary choreography.
ReplyDeleteIf I may briefly shift focus, something else came to my attention on this blogsite today, namely the decision (revealed in an earlier set of posts) about the father of a victim being given permission to read the full SFO reports relating to his son's murderer. I wonder what it contains? I would guess its something that Grayling can crow about and use to shore up his anti-probation stance. I was told no-one would ever see the full report on my client's SFO - and I have never been shown any form of the report, neither a redacted copy nor an executive summary. I've no idea what account it gives of my practice. I have a fair idea it won't be complimentary about me at all, given the eagerness of management to throw me to the wolves. Presumably I didn't taste very nice and they eventually threw me back.
A very interesting point you make about SFO reports. I was wondering what Grayling's motivation was and if it sets a precedent.
DeleteI'm sure there are many SFO reports that the MoJ would not want anyone to see.
DeleteI feel Grayling has opened another can of worms for the sake of popularity that he may come to regret because he hasn't considered where the road may lead to. But he's opened the box anyway.
No forward thinking is I'm sure becoming his personal trademark!
The local MP quoted in that report was Philip Davies (Con, Shipley), who I think we all remember from the ORB debate where he was complaining about women prisoners getting preferential treatment: "I am afraid we hear that time and again in the main Chamber. Questions focus on female offenders, female offenders, female offenders; there is never the same focus on either offenders overall or male offenders. All I am trying to do is introduce some balance to the debate."
DeleteHe also had a subtle and nuanced approach to using prison as a means of preventing further victims: "I am a big fan of sending more criminals to prison" and "presumably the best way to ensure that someone is not a victim of crime is to ensure that offenders are in prison, because while they are in prison they cannot go out and commit another crime" being highlights.
I can't think why he might possibly also have an agenda against Probation.
I had an issue once over access to a SFO report. I wanted to know what it said about my role, but I was refused access by management. I applied for 'subject access' under the Data Protection Act and it was granted and thus those parts of the report relating to me were disclosed.
DeleteThey do deserve though. Don't they?
ReplyDeletehttp://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25966552
The Home Office was "irresponsible" to pay its staff more than £6.5m in bonuses "despite poor performance in many areas", MPs say.
DeleteIn a report, the Home Affairs Committee also criticises the way in which money is spent on police equipment and urges civil servants to give more guidance.
Leadership at the department is at "crisis levels", it adds.
The Home Office said it was succeeding in cutting crime and immigration at a time of falling funding.
While compiling its report, the committee heard that in the financial year 2012-13, 40% of Home Office staff received bonuses totalling £6.52m - an average of £559.
It praised the department's permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, for waiving his bonus.
The committee's chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, argued that others "should have followed his lead", saying: "It is irresponsible that the Home Office has continued to pay big bonuses despite presiding over many failures."
He added: "We should end the culture of rewarding failure."
The report also said there was an "urgent need" to make Home Office procurement contracts more transparent and efficient and that it was "futile to continue to pay vast amounts of money to large companies who do not perform. Smaller deals will allow the government to root out those who do not deliver."
The Home Office was also not doing enough to help improve the "hopelessly fragmented" nature of police forces' spending on equipment.
It had "only the sketchiest idea of what is going on", despite this being one of the most important ways in which the department could make spending cuts.
The government should issue detailed guidance to police and crime commissioners and chief constables on "good procurement practice", the committee said.
The report also said that, based on the 2012 Civil Service People Survey of staff, "engagement and confidence in the civil service leadership of the Home Office are at crisis levels and need to be addressed as a matter of urgency".
But a Home Office spokeswoman said: "The Home Office is succeeding in cutting crime, reducing immigration and securing the UK from terrorism at the same time as reducing expenditure.
"Staff who make exceptional contributions to the work of the Home Office are eligible for special one-off payments - the majority of staff given payments during 2012/13, the year of the London Olympics, received less than £500."
£500!?! For best report or piece of work we used to get a tasty chocolate snack that helped us work, rest and play. Our magnanimous team leader used to tell us she had paid for them out of her own pocket. Didn't imagine it would amount to £6.5M or that it was being claimed from the Home Office budget. I feel a bit queasy now.
DeleteAnother prediction......SFOs under either a SERCO or G4S dominated CRC will result in identifying individual rather that systemic error-removing the cause of that error (ie hard working PO or PSO) and allowing them to proceed on their merry way...however this is more than a prediction this is how privately run prisons are currently operating.....coming to a CRC near you soon.......
ReplyDeleteAll the more reason for staff in both CRCs and NPS to stick rigidly to the bureaucratic script we'll be given - especially pre-June and then pre-share sale. The more unattractive this proposition looks, the better. Obviously I'm not saying we should prioritise this at the expense of work with clients and victims, but it's going to get even more important to protect yourself.
DeleteAnd keep a file of all the written instructions you get!
"Comments imminently to be forwarded to NOMS, so any final observations would be welcomed"
ReplyDeleteHere: -
http://www.napo2.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=423&sid=cf1d69e9e3e56501b7d5402b481f9a8f&p=2431#p2431
Andrew Hatton (on behalf of Mactailgunner)