Wednesday 29 October 2014

Latest From Napo 44

Blog from Ian Lawrence, Napo General Secretary, MoJ letter and press release:-
Chaos reigns as CRC bidders are announced
Napo members have already signalled their disgust at the news of the preferred bidders for the 21 CRC contracts which are intended to be awarded under the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda.
The expected grand announcement that we had all been waiting for was something of damp squib and raises questions about the purpose of the veil of secrecy that had been put up by the MoJ and Noms in the weeks leading up to the news. In a press release issued by Napo, General Secretary Ian Lawrence said: “Chris Grayling is pressing ahead with his untried and untested so called reforms to probation despite increasing evidence that it is not safe to sell off. The 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) which will deal with low – medium risk of harm offenders are still in utter chaos following the decision to split the Probation Service up on 1st June this year. Staff of all grades have spoken openly about risks to public safety with offenders not being supervised properly, continuing IT failures, staff shortages and ever increasing workloads.
We have mounting evidence that neither the CRCs or the National Probation Service is stable at the moment and this is having a direct impact on the supervision of offenders and public safety. The fact so few organisations have won contracts also suggests that this has been a flawed competition with little or no real interest from providers in taking these contracts on.”
The announcement below which was deposited in the House of Commons Library sets out the list of preferred bidders, and copy of a letter sent by the MoJ to Napo is also reproduced.
Ian Lawrence also told Napo News that: ‘Grayling has made a written statement to Parliament rather than risk having to answer questions in the House. Yet again he is trying to avoid scrutiny which is in our view further evidence of a lack of transparency in the whole process. We would urge MPs to ask questions of him and to hold him to account for his decision to press ahead without providing evidence that it is safe to do so.” He added: ‘The underhand manner of the announcement will mean that our members will be even more determined to fully exhaust all possible legal avenues to try and prevent the share sale from happening. 

Ian Lawrence
General Secretary, Napo
4 Chivalry Road
London
SW11 1HT
29 October 2014
Dear Ian, 
TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION – ANNOUNCEMENT OF PREFERRED BIDDERS
As you are aware, in May 2013, we launched Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform, which set out the Government’s plans to transform the way we manage offenders in the community by opening up these services to a diverse range of new providers. These important reforms will bring together the 
best of the public, private and voluntary sectors to reduce the unacceptably high reoffending rates. The aim is to give future service providers the freedom to innovate and, via the payment by results mechanism, provide a sharp focus on turning around the lives of offenders.

These important reforms mean that, for the first time in recent history, virtually every offender released from custody will receive statutory supervision and rehabilitation in the community. This includes the 45,000 most prolific offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody, who have the highest rates of reoffending, but who are currently released without supervision.
Following a competitive bidding process and a rigorous evaluation and moderation exercise, I am pleased to announce that we have today confirmed the names of the 21 Preferred Bidders, details of which are provided in the attachment to this letter. 
All our Preferred Bidders have demonstrated how they will use the voluntary and social sectors in the delivery of services – in fact, 75% of the 300 delivery partners identified in the bidders’ offers are voluntary and social sector or mutual organisations. Bidders have put forward a range of new and innovative approaches to address longstanding issues such as getting offenders into housing and employment, as well as proposals for peer mentoring and greater use of technology to make sure that staff can spend more of their time working with offenders to turn their lives away from crime.
The bidders combine the best of the private sector, driving back-office efficiency; the social sector, creating local innovation and new approaches to working with offenders; and the public sector, working to protect the public from offenders who pose the greatest risk to society and now with ever more opportunities to make a difference to the communities they serve.
Next steps 
We will now be holding a series of meetings with the Preferred Bidders in preparation for contract award. These are the final discussions to ensure that contracts offer the best possible value for money before the announcement that contracts are being awarded to the successful bidders. As has been the position throughout the programme, this mobilisation phase will be done in a controlled way that gives time for new processes to bed in and to ensure public protection remains a key priority. We remain on track to sign contracts with the new providers in the coming weeks, as planned, with successful providers taking over the running of CRCs in early 2015.
After successful bidders have been announced and new contracts signed, we will then move towards the service transfer date, when the CRCs start delivering rehabilitation services under the new ownership of the successful bidders.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all the hard work by probation staff that has already gone into ensuring the successful stand-up of the CRCs and NPS in June and the subsequent work to bed in new structures. I recognise that this has been a time of unprecedented change and that there have been challenges to overcome. The fact that we are on track to deliver these important reforms is a testament to the dedication and hard work of all those involved.

Yours Sincerely

IAN PORÉE
Director, Rehabilitation Programme

For immediate release
Probation Union outraged as Secretary of State announces preferred bidders for the Probation Service despite evidence that it’s not safe to sell off
Napo is outraged today that Chris Grayling Secretary of State for Justice has gone ahead with his announcement of who his preferred bidders are for the Probation Service despite increasing evidence that it is not safe to sell off. The 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) which will deal with low – medium risk of harm offenders are still in utter chaos following the decision to split the Probation Service up on 1st June this year. Staff of all grades have spoken openly about risks to public safety with offenders not being supervised properly, continuing IT failures, staff shortages and ever increasing workloads.

Ian Lawrence General Secretary said: “it is purely ideological that Grayling is pressing ahead with his untried and untested so called reforms to probation. We have mounting evidence that neither the CRCs or the National Probation Service is stable at the moment and this is having a direct impact on the supervision of offenders and public safety. The fact so few organisations have won contracts also suggests that this has been a flawed competition with little or no real interest from providers in taking these contracts on.”
Napo has been on strike twice in the last 12 months in opposition to these outsourcing plans and will continue to campaign against them. Ian Lawrence said: “Grayling has made a written statement to parliament rather than risk having to answer questions in the House. Yet again he is trying to avoid scrutiny which is in our view further evidence of a lack of transparency in the whole process. We would urge MPs to ask questions of him and to hold him to account for his decision to press ahead without providing evidence that it is safe to do so.”

27 comments:

  1. I knew this would happen. Request nicely further time to respond to NAPO's lawyers, only to steal a march by then officially announcing the preferred bidders, as if nothing untoward is going on. Pure brinkmanship. I'm waiting for 4pm today.....
    Deb

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  2. What a load of bull, come to our office in Manchester to see how things are not working, yes we have been working hard but nothing is working right. Its utter chaos and moj refuse to acknowledge it. Its been hell and the duty of care to staff does not exist.

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  3. Theres so many issue (not least putting public safety in the hands of cooks and cleaners, Sedoxo and Interserve), but I really am struggling with the Working Links thing.
    It's part owned by the state, so I'm confused how a PbR model works there? Will we get a few pence off our tax bill as part of the company still belongs to the public sector?
    Will the public and private sector be able to the same data produced by Working links, doubling and duplicating any success or rate of reoffending?
    If part of the company is state owned will the public be able to access FOI applications?
    What influence or control will the SoS for Justice be able to weild over the rest of the company?
    CRCs and NPS because of the split have to access different systems and can't share confidential information, yet Working Links is a united partnership of both public and private?
    If Working Links should find itself the focus of any scandal (as it did when involved with the work programme), then automatically the state are associated as part of that scandal.
    It's just wrong.

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  4. ITS ALL WRONG AND THE UNIONS SHOULD HAVE ACTED SOONER.

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    1. If Working links are partly state owned, then the state must have been involved or at least have been consulted on the construction of the bid, that its then awarded in part to itself.
      Maybe theres someone with more legal knowledge then me out there but that seems very very dodgey to me.
      And I also wonder how any unsuccessful bidders may feel about that too.

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    2. From Wikipedia

      In May 2011 a former auditor of Working Links claimed that the level of fraud at Working Links escalated to "a farcical situation" and was "endemic" but that he faced a "stonewall" from managers. Mr Hutchinson said he had encountered "a multi-billion-pound scandal", after working for Working Links and A4e in the welfare-to-work industry.[3] Working Links said: "We firmly reject any assertion of widespread fraud within our business."[4]

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  5. I thought that at most one bidder could run 25% of the total CRCs. So how come Sodexo is preferred bidder for 6 aress?

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    1. 25% of the total TR value, not number of CRC's

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    2. Just wait for the mutuals to fail and Sodexo to the rescue then! What a clever way to get round the rules...and clean up ! Still they have employee stars incentive scheme and you get your picture on the notice board..always wanted to work for a catering firm croissants at the team meetings yummmmm

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  6. Featuring in Private Eye Again today!

    https://twitter.com/Andrew_S_Hatton/status/527467680866263041

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  7. http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/moj-announces-voluntary-groups-among-preferred-bidders-transforming-rehabilitation-programme/policy-and-politics/article/1319599

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  8. This article about the bidders announcement in the Guardian published only one hour ago has already attracted over 190 comments.
    The public aren't happy either.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/29/justice-probation-contracts-private-companies#comments

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  9. I wonder how many with an interest - employee - board member or shareholder - in one of the CRCs was immediately prior to the Split - which is where the most damage was done - an employee or Board member of a Probation Trust and if in their prior position they had any influence or made any decision about the staff appointed to the CRCs or not, so had a commercially unfair advantage over all others involved. I have read that there is not a good distribution of people between the NPS & CRCs, particularly regarding disabilities - might these be issues to be raised via a Judicial Review if some state employees have been either disadvantaged or advantaged on the basis of unfair selection criteria. Similarly, possibly some of the losing bidders have been disadvantaged because they did not have people involved who were 'one of us'.

    I just hope that at least we can stall this charade until past the General Election in the hope of a new Government not signing the contracts.

    Meanwhile, of course, there is still time for members of parliament; Lords and Commons to rethink the whole business and stop the contracts before they are signed - so this especially relates to the Liberal Democrats who I do not believe would have so badly split probation or sold it off if they had been in Government alone and not part of a coalition.

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  10. This little snippet cut from the bbc report.

    Responding to warnings by Napo that it will fight the plans through the courts, Mr Grayling told BBC News: "I don't think they have a basis [for a challenge]."

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  11. Personally I think those so called charities that are part of these consortiums should hang their heads in shame. So NACRO, Addaction, St Giles, CRI and Shelter can kiss my a*se before I will give them a penny. Talk about 50 pieces of silver, do they have no morality no sense of justice. They are a disgrace.

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    1. I intend to make a formal complaint about these charities see
      https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity
      under other serious complaints section
      they should hang their heads in shame being involved in making profit out of victims ( however they dress it up, they are aiding the multi nationals make profit for shareholders) IT IS DISGRACEFUL

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    2. Actually these charities work with some of the most complex clients and we also work in partnership with probation And without these organsiations I'm sorry to say you wouldn't be able to cope. I know every one is angry. So all unite and get NAPO to get a JR. Let your voice be heard go on strike.

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  12. Well we already know grayling doesn't know what the hell he is talking about . Sorry for this .. But I flaming hate that man and hope karma visits him sometime soon.

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  13. http://purplefutures.sites.interserve.com/

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  14. As for London CRC they are now probably going to be run by a Utah based corporation with a dodgy track record and a dogs breakfast of other organisations.

    I mean look at this lot for a letterhead of bullshit.

    MTCNovo.

    MTCNovo is a joint venture involving:
    MTC (Management Training Corporation) - A private company
    novo a consortium with a number of public, private and third sector shareholders including, but not limited to:
    RISE - a probation staff community interest company
    A Band of Brothers - a charity
    The Manchester College (TMC) - a public sector education provider
    Sanctuary Supported Living (SSL) - a registered social landlord
    Amey - a private company.

    You couldn't seriously make this up. I used to be proud to say I worked for London Probation Trust but now I'm going to be working for some bollocks organisation called MTCNovo

    Its like a poor name for a rapper.

    The word around the office is we're well and truly 'F****d'.

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  15. What have the letters been like from the companies?

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    Replies
    1. Bland 'we are lovely, you are lovely and we are all looking forward to being lovely together'. It's lovely.

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  16. I just noticed that Napo Greater London Branch are surveying their members with regard to 'hotdesking' https://t.co/dwJZS1X30d With morale at an all tme low would any employer be crazy enough to implement large scale hotdesking. It would not surprise me if the preferred bidder had suggested this as part of the bid process. So what's it going to be? Office closures. 3 to a desk? or working from the cafe next door?

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    1. If you check out occupational psychology studies into hot desking you will see what a disaster it is for work performance and employee morale. No sensible employer with an eye on productivity (and a commitment to their duty of care to their staff) would touch it with a 10 foot bargepole.
      Deb

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    2. You can bet your life they are pressing ahead with it then.

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  17. NOMS has a clear hotdesk policy and certainly don't care what occupational psychologists say. They have maximum staff:desk ratios which vary depending on department and senior managers attitude. 7 desks for 10 members of staff is considered generous.

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  18. Hotdesking? Re-arranging deckchairs on the titanic more like.

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