My Trust were requested by the MoJ to trial and help fine tune the 'RSR calculator' system which as you know is the new Risk Assessment tool. Only a few cases were tested as part of the trial, but at the time of the initial training, the bench mark or score that identified if an offender went to the CRC or NPS was 4.7%.
When it was time for formal training on this system, the bench mark/score had been raised to 6.9%. No one seemed to particularly notice, but the trainer confirmed that the program had the capability to change the level at any time.
This score is a major indicator to decide who is allocated at the time of sentence to CRC or NPS, so this means the MoJ can change the acceptance level to suit their requirements - 'Too many in NPS this week raise the bar to 7.5% and send more to CRC!'
A very neat way of controlling offender levels, expenses and budgets in the NPS, don't you think? How can this RSR be considered accurate if you can move the goal post at will?
Our annual publication, supported by the Hadley Trust, tracking year-on-year developments in criminal justice and social welfare across the UK. Now in its third year, UKJPR combines analysis of the main policy developments with key data on themes such as spending, staffing and the numbers going through the criminal justice system to offer an accessible overview of UK-wide developments.
One of the most striking facts to emerge from UKJPR 3 is the degree to which contracts for prison and probation work in the UK are dominated by a few multinationals and large voluntary sector organisations.
G4S and Serco, the two companies accused of overcharging on electronic monitoring contracts, were paid nearly £600 million by the National Offender Management Service (Noms) for prison and probation-related work between May 2010 and October 2012: some 40 per cent of the £1.5 billion spent by Noms during this period. The figure, taken from page 25 of UKJPR 3, illustrates very clearly the way in which these two companies dominate the marketplace.
Most of the other organisations listed in the figure above are variously linked with either G4S or Serco. Bridgend Custodial Services, Fazakerley Prison Services and Onley Prison Services, for instance, are all part of the G4S network of companies. Moreton Prison Services, Lowdham Grange Prison Services, Pucklechurch Custodial Services and BWP Project Services are part of the Serco empire. This means the dominance of these two companies is even greater than the figure above would suggest.
A small group of organisations also dominated the marketplace for third sector providers. In England and Wales RAPt, Working Links and Nacro shared two thirds of the £53.7 million spent by the Ministry of Justice on third sector contracts between May 2010 and October 2012.
Unfortunately the Ministry of Justice has declined to publish ‘transparency data’ covering the period since October 2012, despite a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. This means it has not proved possible to analyse more recent developments in England and Wales.
Despite the government’s expressed commitment to creating a diverse marketplace for criminal justice services, it is currently dominated by a couple multinational security companies with tarnished reputations and a few large national charities.
As the government continues to press ahead with plans to privatise the probation service, this only adds to concerns that there are simply not enough credible and experienced organisations out there that can competently undertake the complex work involved.
The London Evening Standard has been running a campaign basically supporting Graylings TR plans, and much of the following has the familiar fingerprints of the MoJ spin doctors all over it:-
Among adult prisoners, the re-offending rate is also high at 46 per cent, rising to almost 60 per cent for those sentenced to less than 12 months. As some crime inevitably goes undetected, the true rate of recidivism will be even higher. Is our criminal justice system turning first-time offenders into career criminals? What is going wrong? There were 5,648 offenders under the age of 25 in London who were given custodial sentences in 2012. Every week dozens of these prisoners, including gang members who have served their time, are freed.
They are given a £46 discharge grant and expected to fend for themselves. Even if they sign on for Jobseekers’ Allowance immediately, it is six weeks before they receive any benefits, leaving them to survive on the £46. As the Standard has witnessed first hand as part of our award-winning Frontline London campaign, these young people have no other money, no job, and frequently nowhere to live, having fallen out with their families.
Many end up sleeping on the floors of the very friends and gang members they committed crime with in the first place. They have nothing to do and nothing is expected of them, except a 15-minute weekly appointment with their probation officers. One former armed robber, Eliot, 20, released six weeks ago and now being helped by the charity Kids Company, told the Standard: “I spent two years in Feltham and got out when I was 17, but I was back inside in no time.
“I had nowhere to live so I slept at my grandmother’s. I thought probation would help, but they were just going through the motions and saw me for five minutes. They were totally useless and it became just a matter of time before I did crime again.” The total cost to society of this disastrous revolving door is between £9.5 billion and £13 billion a year, says the National Audit Office. That is the price of hosting an Olympics every year.
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling recognises that something radical must be done and has begun to roll out what has been billed as the biggest shake-up to the criminal justice system in a generation. His cornerstone reform, which yesterday received Royal Assent, ensures probation supervision for the first time to prisoners serving less than 12 months. He said: “We are finally addressing the glaring gap that sees 50,000 short-sentenced prisoners released every year with no support, free to go back to their criminal ways.”
But widening the net carries further costs and the highly controversial part of his plan is to privatise the part of the probation service that deals with low and medium-risk offenders. On May 31, 35 regional probation trusts, including the London Probation Trust, will be wound up and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies will take their place, employing many of the same staff.
In addition, a new National Probation Service will be set up to handle high-risk offenders. “In reality,” said a spokesman from the Ministry of Justice, “this process is already under way and staff will be re-assigned to their new teams by April,” even though the change will only be formalised on May 31 with ownership of the 21 CRCs passing to private companies who successfully bid for them later in the year.
Will it work? Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan believes that Mr Grayling is “taking a huge risk with public safety” by letting “inexperienced private companies motivated by profit” take charge of a large chunk of the probation service. He said: “The rehabilitation process should begin the moment somebody is found guilty. A single person should be put in charge of each prisoner, assessing the help they need, be it literacy courses or courses to up-skill them. We need a joined up system.”
Charlotte Weinberg, head of Safe Ground, a charity working with fathers in 16 prisons, agrees. “The key is to help prisoners understand how they got into prison in the first place. Unless this maturation process starts while they are inside, they are doomed to fail when they get out.”
Yet help from a probation service undergoing dramatic change is often sadly lacking. Andrew Hillas, assistant chief officer of the London Probation Trust, said: “I have been here 26 years and it is clear to me that the resources available to help young people from reoffending is much worse than it was 20 years ago. Ex-offenders need stability if they are not to reoffend, but today they have fewer benefits, less access to housing and more difficulty finding jobs.”
What offenders need, social reformers say, is not bigger TVs in their cells or more gym time, but targeted help from the moment they arrive and to be met at the gate by the CRCs (or their partner mentoring organisations) charged with their rehabilitation.As Chair of Napo Greater London branch, this was Pat Waterman's response:-
Dear Editor
The "glaring gap that sees 50,000 short sentenced prisoners released every year with no support" is, as Chris Grayling, Justice Secretary is quoted as saying in your article published on Friday 14th March entitled "Revolving door justice system that just turns out career criminals" deplorable and NAPO would be the first to agree. But to use it as a justification for winding up Probation Trusts to create Community Rehabilitation Companies, which will in due course be put up for sale, is dishonest and disingenuous. The Probation Service has not been funded, or required, to work with anyone serving a sentence of less than twelve months but would be only too happy to do so.
What you fail to mention is that the governments plans to transform the existing probation service are opposed by the relevant trade unions, professional bodies, academics and many others. You also fail to mention that, at the Public Accounts Committee meeting on Wednesday 12th March it was admitted that £9 million has been spent on consultancy fees for destroying the service. Is this an appropriate use of taxpayers money as Mr Grayling choses to ignore all the advice he has been given by the professionals involved in rehabilitation of offenders.
The existing Probation Trusts have all been rated highly for the work they do. Indeed London Probation Trust won the 2011 British Quality Foundation’s ’Gold Medal for Excellence’ It is the first time a public sector organisation has won the award. Londoners might wish to ask why then are they being abolished.
While pretending to be concerned about the fate of those sentenced to short sentences, Mr Grayling is embarking on a costly dismantling of a proven public service without any evidence that his reforms will work. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence that the private companies to whom he proposes to offer the service to are not up to the job.
Two years ago SERCO was awarded a four year contract to provide Community Payback (formerly known as Community Service) in London. I know, from information I receive from my members, what a poor job they have been doing. I have been unable to ascertain just how much money was spent on the procurement process that led to the award of this contract. But I do know that the contract is being terminated early and Community Payback in London will be put out to a costly tender process again later this year with over half of the rest of the work currently being done by London Probation Trust. Your readers should have concerns about that.
Pat Waterman,
Chair of NAPO Greater London Branch
NAPO (The Trade Union & Professional Association for Probation Staff)
Talking of Greater London branch, I notice that their next meeting on 21st March has a surprising guest speaker:-
Lee Jasper
Co-Chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) and former advisor to the Mayor's Office in London on race and policing issues. Like NAPO, BARAC is affiliated to the Justice Alliance
I can't wait to hear to hear how it goes.
Yesterday's follow-up in the Standard was a real treat for lovers of balanced reporting: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/dispossessed/east-london-mum-fighting-to-help-her-son-make-a-fresh-start-says-probation-failures-have-left-him-high-and-dry-9196627.html
ReplyDeleteMs Anderson thought nothing more of it until a month later when she heard banging on the door. “I opened it to find five police officers who said they’d come to recall Riaz to prison,” she said. “I was shocked. They said Riaz had been scheduled to see his probation officer on the Monday after his release and that because he hadn’t, he was in breach of his licence.
Delete“We protested that nobody had told us about this appointment, but it made no difference: there was a police van waiting to take him away.”
For Riaz, it meant another seven months inside. “I was devastated,” he said. “I had served my time and learned my lesson but this felt not fair.”
Tears welled in Ms Anderson’s eyes as she recalled her feelings. “Inside I broke down,” she said. “But outside I had to stay strong to fight. I wrote to his mentor Colin James at Gangs Unite, I wrote to the charity’s patron Iain Duncan Smith, I wrote to our MP and I wrote to probation.
“I told them we had moved home since Riaz had first gone into prison and we never got any appointment letter from probation which must have been posted to our old address. I also learned that on the day Riaz was supposed to see his probation officer, no probation officer had been assigned, so anyway he would have been told to come back at a later date.”
“I rarely see my probation officer,” Riaz said. “I am supposed to see [them] monthly and when I do they give me ten minutes max, but often they cancel my appointments without telling me. They don’t even bother to call. They make me travel all the way and then tell me it’s cancelled. But if I miss one appointment, just one, it’s back to prison for me.”
Ms Anderson brandished her son’s licence papers and pointed to a line that said: “The purposes of your supervision … are to protect the public, prevent you from re-offending and help you re-settle successfully into the community.”
“Lies,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “They are lax about keeping their side of the bargain and just make endless excuses about being too busy. Why should they get away with providing such a lousy service? They should put the same level of effort into keeping him out as they did into recalling him to prison. They have not helped my son at all. It’s a failure of duty. They have left my son high and dry.”
Jim Brown says:-
It's a shame Ms Anderson didn't notice the bit on the Licence that explains probation supervision and gives reporting instructions on day of release. MoJ - sponsored spin, pure and simple.
I assume the Probation Officer is that rubbish that s/he doesn't have anybody out because s/he recalls every last one of them? ;-0 Or perhaps s/he has just got it in for this one person?
DeleteGot to love the mother's who rail against the injustice of how her son is being treated by probation. It's not the son's fault! No!
Yes very one sided, probably direct from Mr Graylings PR department.
ReplyDeleteA good plug for Gangs Unite of which Ian Duncan Smith is a patron. You would think that someone would have been sharper on the matter of licence conditions.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it perhaps grates there is some truth in those reports of less than meaningful probation contacts and to mention it is not always about probation bashing though in the present example it probably is. We also know that supervision periods, including licence supervision, are too long for many clients. What is needed is not monthly reporting but either early discharge or allowing probation more autonomy so reporting can be quarterly if there are no concerns. After all this was the reporting pattern for lifers in the latter stages of their supervision, usually before the lifer unit rescinded it proper. So professionally driven practice existed long before the must- have probation institute popped up and claimed a vanguard position...
The lazy assumptions that the press feed off – that whatever probation is you can't do it in five minutes, basically rests on a stereotype of wily criminal behaviour which extends to gullible and bumbling probation staff.
You can sometimes do enough in five minutes and in other cases you cannot do enough in five hours.
The workload weighting tool designed and approved by NOMS allowed for contact time to be as limited as five minutes. It was workload weighting that promulgated a one-size-fits-all mentality and processed people through a bureaucratic lens...
"You can sometimes do enough in five minutes and in other cases you cannot do enough in five hours."
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good point - and the story suggests that the young man concerned has a lot of support from his mum and his mentor (though the mentor should have been bugging him to phone up the probation office from the word go, otherwise what use is he?) If it were my case, and there weren't any risk concerns that the Standard isn't telling us about (funny how one dimensional this tale is) then I'd probably be reducing reporting to monthly pretty sharpish, and not duplicating work.
Netnipper - I've covered the topic a few times - this from the archives July 2011
ReplyDeleteThe 5 Minute Interview
I've heard a lot recently about the '5 minute interview', otherwise known as the 'tick box interview' over on the Prisoners Families Voices website. I know exactly what they mean because I've seen it myself. A car pulls up outside the probation office, a guy gets out and he heads for reception and the friend keeps the engine running while he 'reports.' There is clearly no need to bother stopping the engine because just as quickly the guy reappears and is driven off.
A pointless exercise many would say and I have to agree. There's no wonder significant numbers of clients think it's a waste of time and don't turn up, thus triggering either breach or recall action. So, what's been going on, especially as it's long been known that it's the relationship between probation officer and client that is fundamental in effecting change in behaviour? Well by a handy coincidence, the explanation is contained in the latest edition of the newsletter for sentencers produced by the London Probation Trust and I'm grateful to a reader for passing it on to me. It's basically about one of the latest buz issues within the Service generally at the present time, and called 'engagement.'
"London Probation Trust is committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of service delivery, which also means improving our engagement with offenders. Over the past decade, there has been a national emphasis on achieving performance targets. Although it has been essential for probation to demonstrate our effectiveness against performance targets, this approach has resulted in some unintended consequences, in particular a lack of focus on how we engage and motivate offenders.
The renewed emphasis on offender engagement has been driven by a recognition by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), that although we may be "hitting the targets", we may also be "missing the point" - the point being that "the relationship between offenders and probation practitioners can be a powerful vehicle for changing behaviour and reducing reoffending." The NOMS Offender Engagement Programme (OEP) is a three year initiative working in collaboration with Probation Trusts to improve offender engagement. This fits seamlessly with the journey which we have already begun in London to rebalance our work and refocus on the quality of practice.
London Probation Trust is listening to the staff who deliver our frontline services and to the offenders who receive these services to ensure we understand how best to maximise our influence with offenders in order to reduce reoffending. We are delivering four pilot projects, two in conjunction with NOMS, which are aimed at improving the way in which we engage with offenders."
It's stuff like this that alternately makes me very angry and want to weep. Don't you just love the bit about there being some 'unintended consequences' of an approach that was based on targets? 'in particular a lack of focus on how we engage and motivate offenders.' If it wasn't so serious it would be funny I guess. A casual admission that an absolutely fundamental aspect of probation work was overlooked for the 'essential' business of measuring the effectiveness of probation against targets. The tragedy is that in undertaking this 'essential' business at the behest of NOMS, we lost the bloody plot.
"Hitting the target and missing the point." Oh dear! Of course some of us remained unimpressed by all the target-driven nonsense and have continued to operate according to well-tried and tested methods that include seeing people as-and-when-required and for as long as it feels necessary in order to try and achieve something. I've even been known to indulge in the heinous activity of seeing a client 'voluntarily.' In my experience, effort put into making interviews worthwhile often pay off in the form of clients repaying the courtesy by turning up.
DeleteIt's quite a sobering thought to come to realise that what at one time was quite a dissident and reactionary activity, is now at the cutting edge of probation practice. Sadly I think it might all be too late though as the damage has been done. Just as we could do with some public support, websites like Prisoners Families Voices are full of very negative stuff. Anyway, the London Probation Trust goes on to trumpet some of their new initiatives:-
Skills for Effective Engagement and Development (SEED)
"This project is a 12-month pilot sponsored by NOMS currently on trial in Barking, Dagenham & Havering, and Merton & Sutton. The SEED programme focuses on training practitioners and their line managers in effective engagement skills and techniques. Practice is embedded through continuous professional development including quarterly follow up training, observation and feedback from line managers and monthly practitioner-led action learning sets.
SEED draws upon the Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS) research from Canada which demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in reoffending by offenders whose supervising officers had been specifically trained in engagement skills. SEED is providing a real opportunity for the Trust to refocus on "what happens in the room" in terms of the offender-practitioner relationship and practice skills, including a unique professional development experience. It will be externally evaluated by Sheffield University."
How about that?! Training probation officers in engagement skills AND wanting 'to know what goes on in the room?!!'
I can feel one of my heads coming on and need to lie down.
Did that external evaluation by Sheffield University ever happen?
ReplyDeleteIt's the alienating management-speak that disengages my mind. It's all language derivative of old and new technology. All the stupid acronyms that must thrill the pants off its creators, all the daft sayings and jargon that mystifes clients and public alike. We knew from the outset that targets were missing the point of probation, but as we know it was heresy to speak the truth to power. I don't think probation can be reinvented. All the SEEDS in the world won't bear fruit. Probation is full of skill sets, toolkits and accreditations, but something is sadly lacking: moral concern. It ain't more offender engagement that's needed – it's human engagement that's lacking in a profession that was once renowned for its humane values – until it lost the plot.
ReplyDeleteI hope people at NAPO start to read their posts on the forum ! Whilst the Cats are toying with what is left there is a new thread running on the imposition of the masses of caseloads. Noted on here too!
ReplyDeleteWake up NAPO if your napping, there is a long standing agreement backed by local strike action. Many branches hard fought dispute on workloads and priorities agreement that is still alive today as an agreement is an agreement !! Nationally and locally organised on the balance of workload weighting . There is the absurd role boundary situation but workload weightings are required no matter who is doing the tasks and those have to be agreed. What gives goes. So dust off the files and lets have that battle again ! Pease look into this they wont have enough staff as they separate out the tasks Come on NAPO !!
err and UNISON ?????
Deletewho are unison ?
DeleteA tip for all you offenders, lawyers and Parole Board members who read this blog. As soon as you get the chance ask"What is the RSR score for me/my client/the parole applicant and (ii) what is the research evidence for it?" Dammed if I can find the latter.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else seen this Probation Officer vacancy for Hertfordshire Probation? Am I right in thinking that Hertfordshire are due to merge with Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Cambridgeshire? I would have thought there were a few Probation Officers allocated to CRC in those areas who might have something to say about this...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hertfordshireprobation.gov.uk/jobs-and-careers
Probation Officer £29,038 - £36,084 Full Time 37 hours per week (part time hours will be considered) based initially in Cheshunt
We need an experienced qualified Probation Officer to join the team at our Watford Centre. Located in a busy centre, you will be working with medium to high risk offenders to enable them to change their offending behaviour, whilst working in partnership with other agencies. You need good decision-making skills and be able to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing. You should be able to demonstrate developed risk management skills and have experience of managing a caseload. Although primarily based in Cheshunt, it is a requirement of all post holders to work at any of the Trust’s offices on request. THIS POST WILL TRANSFER TO THE NPS ON 1 JUNE 2014.
I have been allocated to NPS and I am starting to worry. I don't want to end up doing court as I have never done it before. t the moment I do 1 PSR a week, how many PSRs a week will I end up doing after 01.06.14.
ReplyDeleteI'm allocated CRC. I love court work and PSR writing and I'm good at it. This is stark raving bonkers.
DeleteI chose NPS as it is safer and I would be working in the public sector. Put post of 20:34 as worried that I will end up writing lots more PSRs than I'm used to.
DeletePlease dont think NPS is safer, its going to be shitty as much as CRC. High risk out the ears, responsibility for all initial assessments before going to CRC, budget cuts, Civil service code so cant kick up a public fuss if shit aint right, serve at the pleasure of Mr Grayling.
Delete1 PSR a week! Before I left West Yorkshire Probation I was writing about 8 a month! I dread to think how many they will have to write now!
DeleteSorry anon @ 20.34, just to clarify. I don't think your bonkers for not enjoying the same work that I do. This ridiculous allocation system that hasn't allowed us to play to our strengths and do the work we enjoy is. No offence meant at all, my writing skills suffer after a couple of glasses of wine :-)
ReplyDeleteI know you weren't. Just starting to wonder about the consequences of getting what I wanted. Worried about what will happen when CRC staff stopped writing PSRs and FDRs.
DeleteAnd we will, trust me, because the only way to show what a complete train wreck this whole idea is, is to play it exactly how CG wants it. So no holding on to your 'special' cases, no helping out a colleague, no writing a PSR in the CRC for an NPS colleague to then sign off (as suggested in our area) Even tho' today you are deemed perfectly capable and qualified for task A, if task A falls in the other camp post June 1st then it becomes outside of your remit. Then we'll see how long this sorry tale continues before grinding to a complete halt (sorry for all the mixed metaphors).
DeleteDeb
Hi Deb. Can't do that. Been told by management in my trust that this can happen right up until share sale.
DeleteWe've been told that post June 1st the MoJ have said that CRC staff will no longer be Officers of the Court. If I am no longer an Officer of the Court, I can't write PSRs. Trouble is, everyone wants to have their cake and eat it, to try and keep things running. I shall be studying TOM v2 closely ...........
DeleteDeb
This is exactly what we need URGENT employment law advice on - whether there isa legal basis for declining tasks based on 'good will' once assigned. It will be painful, but if we cannot be forced, and we don't bend, this whole sorry mess will come crashing down.
DeleteThis is correct CRC staff due to having all 'legal' functions removed from to facilitate TR they are no longer officers or servants of the court. That's why CRC staff cannot do any court reports, parole reports etc. and why breach papers need to be 'checked' By Nps court staff. Further as far as risk escalation is concerned if a CRC officer put risk up to high they cannot at the same time submit MAPPA referral because MOj have decided they are not allowed. Further due to CRC officers having limited security clearance if Nps knock back a risk escalation referral due to lack of information CRc might not be able to obtain the additional information required because there security clearance will compromise info sharing with police and CRC staff will not be able to check delius and OASys to investigate links with other offenders who they don't supervise. Plus there will be occasions when someone is increased to high risk but due to victim issues or source of information they are not informed to protect the victim or source, obviouslty when they find thenselves being moved from CRC to NPs they will put 2&2 together, which could actually increase risk to victims etc. this is a very dangerous situation we are talking about the system actually creating the potential risk thats madness
DeleteI think Napo have already said that if you are 'directed' to do something then you should do it. The only exceptions would be if you were asked to do something that put your health and safety at immediate risk and of course you cannot be directed to do sessional work on top of your normal working hours. When managers want to 'direct' or 'instruct', they will and this exposes the weakness of individual actions vis a vis collective action.
DeleteIf they abuse goodwill like this then they're only storing up problems for the privateers - who certainly won't be willing to lend their staff to help the NPS out. Buyer beware as they say - or be careful what you wish for, Grayling
DeleteThey might be if they get profit out of it - but as mentioned earlier as CRC staff will no longer be officers of the court this won't happen. I can just see it now, things will go fine until share sale, then after share sale I won't know what's hit me re PSRs, FDRs.
DeleteThis is why the judicial review is crucial. There ARE elements of the '07Act that are questionable and/or will assist with the above. But it needs a lawyer to do the doings, not some ham bar-room nitwit like me.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree and I believe the Napo leadership have been giving this issue their urgent attention - for aeons, it seems. Still, I am sure there will be some 'genuine news' from Napo in due course...
Delete