Friday 31 October 2014

Omnishambles Gets Bigger

Some four months on from the split, we know in some detail the extent of the chaos reigning everywhere in both NPS and the CRCs and now we know the identity of those in the frame who are likely to be owning and running 70% of this increasingly dysfunctional Service.

Not only do most have little or no knowledge of our work, many have murky backgrounds, and to top it all off, information is already emerging of interesting and cosy relationships and connections that are worryingly going to give rise to thoughts of possible conflicts of interest.

But, as if that wasn't enough, mindful of the expression that truth is usually the first casualty of war, the junior justice minister Simon Hughes managed to tell three lies in two sentences yesterday morning on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme. Here's Ian Dunt on the politics.co.uk website:-
Did minister mislead public over probation sell-off?
Questions were raised about ministerial comments related to the sell-off of privatisation today, following Simon Hughes' appearance on the Today programme. The justice minister said that:
  • a pilot had been carried out
  • there had been no criticisms from the independent inspector
  • serious cases would still fall to the national service
But critics of the scheme cast doubt on all of those statements, as the war of words over the sell-off turned into a full blown legal battle.
Lawyers are currently preparing to issue papers after the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) decided to pursue a judicial review over the plans. The announcement came a day after the Ministry of Justice published the winners of the sell-off, with private firms Sodexo and Interserve winning the lion's share of contracts. Probation workers have warned that officers, offenders and members of the public are being put at risk by an atomised system, with staff overworked and unable to access all the information about the people they are responsible for. This morning, Hughes said:
"When you change the system there is naturally nervousness amongst the people who work in the old system but we have taken our time, we have done this deliberatively, it's not done in a rush, there’s been piloting of the new sorts of system in parts of the country. 
"The independent inspector of probation has alerted us to no concerns that the system isn't moving across and there will be a new national public probation service for serious offenders, in every part of the country, in England and Wales."
Critics say the comments contain several inaccuracies. Firstly, they say there has been no pilot of the scheme.

"It is a fact that there has been no piloting of these plans," shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan told Politics.co.uk. "What's more, Chris Grayling cancelled the pilots of the scheme in his first week in the job, instead boasting to the House of Commons he prefers to 'trust his instinct' over hard, statistical evidence." 
Hughes' insistence that the independent inspector has not warned of risks in the plans is also open to doubt, given he is not due to give his report until December.
The comment that serious offenders will be kept in the public probation service was also dismissed by critics.
While it is true that high-risk offenders will be kept in the national service, many of the low-to-medium risk offenders who will now be handled by private companies have committed violent crimes, including robbery, violence against the person and sexual offences.
"On the day a legal challenge is launched against the government's reckless probation privatisation, Simon Hughes is out on the airwaves doing the Tory party's dirty work," Khan added. "The Lib Dems have fallen hook, line and sinker for the propaganda that this massive gamble with public safety has been tried and tested to make sure there are no problems or risks."
Lawyers for Napo will pursue the absence of published evidence on the new system's safety as the basis for a public duty legal challenge through judicial review. They will also pursue a private law duty based on the secretary of state's duty of care to probation staff.
The Ministry of Justice refuses to publish details of the safety tests it says it has conducted into the break-up of the national service and will not respond to freedom of information requests. 
Grayling originally received the letter threatening legal action on Monday last week but Treasury solicitors did not respond until the deadline, on Friday afternoon, when they issued a holding letter asking for another two days. Before the two days had passed the Ministry of Justice quietly published the list of preferred bidders. They then issued a response insisting there had been sufficient consultation on the Transforming Rehabilitation programme – a claim probation staff deny.
Academic Rob Allen is more measured on his Unlocking Potential websitebut raises other worrying issues and a whole new aspect of the ever-growing TR omnishambles created by Chris Grayling:-
Is Inspectorate up to the task of alerting Ministers to risks of Probation reforms?
This morning, Justice Minister Simon Hughes defended the government’s probation reforms. He used three main arguments, all highly questionable. First he claimed that Transforming Rehabilitation has been undertaken “deliberatively” and over an appropriate time scale. 
Yes there has been consultation but it is hard to see much evidence of how debate has influenced the shape of the programme. And the timescale has been widely criticised as too rushed, dictated by the need to sign the contracts ahead of the election. Even new providers are concerned about the pace. Only half-jokingly, a senior representative of one told me recently that there was only one thing more worrying than losing out in the bidding process and that was winning the contracts.

Hughes’s second contention was that the reforms had been piloted. This is a half- truth at best. Yes there has been piloting of post release supervision of short term prisoners which seems to have shown positive results. Payment by Results has been tested in a number of contexts. But just as trying out new computer programmes is of limited relevance if you are planning to change the whole operating system, so there is a good deal of uncertainty about how the moving parts in the new probation machinery will actually mesh together. Yes that new system has been running for a few months; not before time, it looks as if a court of law will judge on the reasonableness of such a wholesale reorganisation given the risks that have been widely identified.

But perhaps Hughes most interesting point was that the independent inspector has alerted us to “no concerns that the system isn't moving across”. In fact the Chief Inspector of Probation wrote in his most recent annual report that “like all significant change programmes the transitional phase of Transforming Rehabilitation carries inevitable heightened risk.” But to be fair to Paul McDowell’s position, he recognises “the opportunity to innovate, to think afresh, and to make a significant impact on reoffending outcomes”. 
If Ministers are to look to the Chief Inspector to alert them to problems, it is obviously important that the office is structured to do that effectively, impartially and independently. In the case of HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the Chief Inspector is always appointed from outside the prison service to give that assurance. Moreover, the Prison Inspectorate website contains a register of interests for the Chief Inspector. On it, Nick Hardwick reports that he has a close relative who works for the Metropolitan Police service.

In the case of the Chief Inspector of Probation, there is no requirement that the post holder is drawn from outside the service which he or she inspects. Most have been former senior probation staff. Paul is a former Chief Executive of NACRO, the charity which will henceforth play a major role in the probation landscape which he will inspect. NACRO (for whom incidentally I worked from 1989 to 2000) has been named as the preferred bidder in six Community Rehabilitation Company areas.

NACRO’s partner is Sodexo, whose deputy managing director is Janine McDowell, who is a close relative of Paul. I have no reason at all to question the integrity of either Paul or Janine, whom I have met, like and respect as professionals. But I do think there is a potential for a perceived if not actual conflict of interest. It needs addressing at the very least by greater transparency and in future by recruiting Chief Inspectors from outside the world of probation and community rehabilitation companies.
Here's Mr McDowell explaining Nacro's plans on YouTube in 2011 and here's a couple of contributions from yesterday:- 

To be clear - Mr McDowell, former Nacro Chief exec, is now HM Inspector Of Probation, a person who SoS Grayling quotes as having no issue or concern with the probation split or TR. Ms McDowell (wife? Sister? Mother? Of...) is Deputy Managing Director of Sodexo Justice Services, who have just been awarded six preferred bidder spots in the probation sell-off. Ms McDowell moved into Sodexo Justice Services in 2007 - the point at which New Labour Govt passed the Act Grayling has just used to expedite TR. What did she do up to 2007?

I wonder who Sodexo's partner is in the six bids? A charity called NACRO perhaps? What's that we can smell?


******
Seems Ms McDowell made her name within the prison service, then moved to UKDS to run Bronzefield. At some point she was at HMYOI Feltham.

******
Bronzefield was a purpose-built establishment which opened in 2004. Originally run by UKDS (private company UK Detention Services), then Kalyx, then Sodexo. I suspect (to be confirmed) that UKDS became Kalyx which then became Sodexo.

Over the coming days we're all going to be kept very busy digging up more details of these fascinating relationships and the murky past of the privateers. I notice Harry Fletcher has posed some questions via twitter:-
Who is behind Purple Futures, and who is their Chair? Did all Primes know that contracts would be packaged?
These new provider Purple Futures, MTC Nova! Must be under complete scrutiny. Who are they? Whats their track record?
Which preferred bidders are backed financially by Gem Capital and by how much and will this be made public?
Will providers of probation services who also have contracts for work programmes for offenders be paid twice for same work?

65 comments:

  1. Purple Futures website states they "will provide probation services from 1 February 2015". Nothing about preferred bidder status. They say clearly & simply "we're in". No names, just that they are led by Interserve.

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  2. It's just a thought, but if some of the unsuccessful bidders are reading this blog (such as Capita whos shares dropped 6% as a consequence of non selection), they may decide to mount a legal challange of their own. It's already happened with a MoD tender, and on the face of it selection of contractors dosen't look to have been done very fairly.

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    1. Oh definitely! There are some big boys out there that have been shafted by the selection process.

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  3. You'll love this Jim. Wonder how much an hour hes on!

    http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/10/edward-boyd-tory-reform-4-chris-grayling-his-overhaul-of-the-probation-service-is-desperately-needed.html

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    1. Chris Grayling took over from Ken Clarke in 2012, and immediately injected energy and pace to the Ministry of Justice. He has instigated a number of wide-ranging ranging reforms to legal aid, the court system and the probation service, to name just a few. While there are important areas that the Ministry of Justice still need to tackle with urgency – none more so than the concerning spike in prison suicides – the reform of the probation service (the focus of this article) is encouraging and holds significant promise.

      It has been met with predictable hostility from the unions who have called it an “untried and untested ideological experiment”. Yet scratch beneath the surface, and it is not hard to see that this reform is not just welcome, but is desperately needed.

      It is made increasingly important by a recent change in the nature of crime. Put simply, while fewer people are committing crime we are struggling to rehabilitate a hardcore group of offenders who keep coming back to prison time and time again.

      The statistics tell the story: there has been a 30 per cent rise over the last decade in the number of people going to prison who have already committed at least 15 previous offences. Offenders are being given sentences that are not changing their criminal behaviour.

      This is primarily the probation service’s role, and it is right to be ambitious in improving it. Any government concerned with protecting communities should not tolerate the fact that almost six in ten of those given short-term sentences are convicted of further crimes within a year of being released. We need a more effective approach to turning round the lives of the most dangerous and broken people in our society.

      Grayling’s “Transforming Rehabilitation” reform seeks to address this issue head-on. It will contract out the responsibility to manage low and medium risk offenders released from prison and on community sentences. Those delivering the contracts will be made up of voluntary and private sector organisations, whose pay will partly be dependent on their success at reducing reoffending.

      We should ultimately judge this reform on whether it reduces reoffending. Whilst we won’t know this for a several years, there are a number of reasons to be optimistic.

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    2. The ignorance is truly stunning. I'd go to Con Home and point out all the fallacies if I thought it would make the blindest bit of difference, but the Tories have never had any particular difficulty with holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time - mainly because the only real belief they have is in money.

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    3. The only area where crime rates are not dropping is amongst the cohort that has nothing to do with probation?
      I'm sure theres a clue there somewhere?

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    4. It is worth paying attention to Conservative Home as they are the people the likes of Grayling is keen to impress - I would like advice about the bloggers that the Lib Dems like Simon Hughes might be concerned about.

      ConservativeHome pays attention to the Iain Duncan Smith connected Centre for Social Justice, some of whose folk are really connected to those at the frontline of Britain's deprived and despised people.

      The Addiction Centre where I got my succesful treatment was awarded by them (CSJ) or at least the founder was - and rightly so - The Living Room, Stevenage.

      They (CSJ) are/or were also involved with the bloke from Easterhouse who is involved in long term with Community work there, I have forgotten his name, he was a left wing type Sociology/Criminology academic on a par with the likes of Jock Young, I think at LSE. Furthermore the Easterhoue bloke is also over generations connected with the Christian Children's Home in Mill Road, Woodford Green who have been generationally sucessful.

      Strange links, maybe like the links the McDowell bloke has so that the HMIP is apparently living at the same address as a CRC boss and also the former boss of one of the major charitable CRC partners.

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    5. Bob Holman was the name I could not remember of the bloke from Easterhouse, used to write in The Guardian

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    6. What is in a word? - everything if you put the wrong one in an internet search!

      The name of that Children's Home in Woodford Green (we could have debate about what is meant by children's home) is Mill Grove. I do not know how Bob Holman came to be associated with it, but he is.

      The current or recent top bod there is Keith White and it was founded by his grandfather and is still going strong.

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    7. ConservativeHome (Jim's 8.10 write-up) 'it is right to be ambitious in improving its role (probation)' -er- how can Probation improve a role they have been refused permission to introduce?

      'we need a more effective approach to turn around the most dangerous and broken people in our society' - er - are those people not still under NPS or have the short termers suddenly become dangerous?

      and even in the festering deluded remnants of brain cells, when they know this is all about looking after your mates, making money, and projecting absolute power, surely there must have passed a small thought 'why can't this be tacked onto the existing public service?'

      and have they not noticed (anon 8 57) a tiny little point - that ONLY the none supervised group has an increasing crime rate?

      But then, what does the nation expect from tories??

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  4. http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/sector-fears-not-for-profits-will-subservient-mojs-transforming-rehabilitation/policy-and-politics/article/1319792

    What the hell did they expect, it was purely about getting it into private hands

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    1. Not-for-profit organisations due to be awarded contracts for offender rehabilitation are likely to operate in subservience to the private companies they have partnered with, charities have warned.

      Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice announced the preferred bidders for 21 regional payment-by-results contracts for the management of low and medium-risk offenders, as part of its Transforming Rehabilitation programme.

      All but one of the 21 successful bidders are consortia with some charity, voluntary or social sector involvement, but only one involves no private sector firms.

      Dan Corry, chief executive of the think tank NPC, said: "Not-for-profits may have a presence in all but one of the preferred bidders, but this doesn’t tell the whole story."

      The list of preferred bidders does not identify prime contractors within the consortia, but Corry said that in many cases it appeared the private firms were taking that lead role. "Our slight disappointment, and I think the MoJ is slightly disappointed too, is we hoped there might be a number of non-profit primes, the likes of Catch22 and CRI," he said.

      Corry said it was not clear whether a charity working as a prime contractor would treat its subcontractors any better than private companies did. "Life as a subcontractor isn’t great," he said. "Risk gets passed down to you, because that’s what a prime contractor does, and then you don’t know how much work is coming to you."

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  5. Is Lord Blackwell still the chairman of the board of directors for Interserve? Are they the lead for Purple Futures? Feels like XFactor when Simon Cowell isn't happy with the competitors so puts together his own group a la One Direction!

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  6. A comment yesterday that they had been silenced and signed an agreement not to talk about TR.... I know for a fact in my area that team managers and above also had to sign instructions forbidding them for talking publically about TR!! WTF Our area clearly well prepared for Sodexo to take over as they are obviously well versed in silencing staff for highlighting risks and concerns.

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  7. Will all CRCs who have contracts for unpaid work be paid twice for same work when using unpaid work for Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and are also paid by MOJ for cheap labour? Will all CRCs who are being paid by PCCs to do Restoratative Justice work be paid twice for same work when they use RJ as part of Rehabilitation Activity Requirement?

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  8. London chancers MTCnovo were founded on.....28/10/14. WTF??

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    1. http://www.mtcnovo.co.uk/

      the website if you want to count the buzz words i suppose

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    2. Founded on the day they were identified as preferred bidder. So much for experience.

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  9. The Six Million Dollar Scam? (More like $600M)

    "We will draw on MTC’s BIONIC (Believe It Or Not I Care) philosophy to provide ex-offenders with a series of proven, tailored interventions that give them the opportunity to improve their lives and be successfully reintegrated back into society."

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    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-D99_UBhaU

      All i can think of is the bionic man intro.

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    2. "BIONIC"? I just lost a portion of my breakfast.

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  10. Things aren't going at all well at HMP Northumberland

    http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/suspected-class-drug-haul-found-8024876

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    1. A police probe is underway after suspected class A drugs were seized at a jail where a riot broke out in March.

      Officers at HMP Northumberland raised the alarm when a large package of powder was found during a routine search on Tuesday lunchtime.

      Police say the haul includes other “illicit items” and a substantial amount of a substance which, if proven to be a class A drug, would be worth tens of thousands of pounds.

      The firm which runs the jail - French company Sodexo - has just been announced as the winner of a contract to manage probation services Northumberland, Tyne and Wear. A Sodexo Justice Services spokesman said: “We can confirm that as the result of routine security measures a substantial amount of illicit items including drugs were seized at HMP Northumberland on Tuesday.

      “The police investigation into the incident is ongoing and we working with them to find those responsible.

      “Safety and security of prisoners, staff and visitors is always a top priority for Sodexo Justice Services as this seizure demonstrates.”

      The discovery follows a series of incidents at the 1,300-capacity Category C prison, including a riot in March which saw inmates take over a wing.

      It has also been revealed how staff numbers at HMP Northumberland fell from 441 to 270 from 2010 to 2013 - a drop of 39% and prison officers have described the Category C jail as “a powder keg waiting to explode”.

      Mike Quinn, for the Northumbria Branch of Napo, said the revelation is further evidence that the jail is in “chaos”.

      He said: “The discovery of a substantial amount of drugs at HMP Northumberland will surely come as a massive blow to Sodexo, who just yesterday were announced as preferred bidders for the private probation contract in the Northumberand, Tyne and Wear.

      “The toxic mix of staff cuts and the availability of such a quantity of drugs is highly likely to be contributing to the problems the prison is currently experiencing.

      “Of course the public are protected from this chaos in a custodial environment, it’s our colleagues working in the prison who are out at risk by the decisions of the company.

      “This is the danger the Government are talking by handing Sodexo a monopoly on punishment and rehabilitation in the area.”

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  11. add to that the sudden death of a seconded PO working there, staff trying to cover the workload whilst devastated themselves....duty of care to staff? duty of care to prisoners?
    The Sodexo future my friends...RIP

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  12. Does anyone have any back ground info on MTC Amey who are to run Thames Valley? Aren't Amey involved in laying roads, railways and construction. Lots of relevant probation experience then! I understand MTC is involved in American Correctional Services. Of course the USA have an excellent track record on Rehabilitation - I think not!!!! There may have been some vague hope of innovation following a Scandinavian rehabilitation model. I still can't believe this has happened, it's surreal. I'm actively looking for an exit, this is going to be a total disaster and an affront to tax payers, who foot the bill through the whole criminal justice journey, to watch as some private company creams off the profits to a select cohort of shareholders. What a f***** sham!!!!!!!

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  13. WHERE ARE THEY NOW: -

    MAX CHAMBERS - (He has been quiet in recent months and especially with all this bidders announcements stuff): -

    " Max Chambers is now Special Adviser for Home Affairs and Justice in the Number 10 Policy Unit.

    Before joining Policy Exchange, Max worked for a leading welfare-to-work provider, where he was recruited to help establish and grow a new justice services division. As Commercial Development Manager, he led the company’s bids for Ministry of Justice payment-by-results pilots, probation contracts and as part of a major programme of prison competition. Prior to this, Max worked for Policy Exchange as Senior Research Fellow, authoring seven influential reports on police reform, criminal justice and health. Max has also worked in Parliament for the Shadow Justice and Home Affairs teams. He read law at the University of Nottingham. "

    http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/people/alumni/item/max-chambers

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  14. This is worthy of note for those who may have missed it:

    HMI Probation
    Transforming Rehabilitation – inspections underway

    https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/transforming-rehabilitation-inspections-underway/

    One already report filed:

    http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/workload-audit-report-probation/#.VABKREuFGl4.

    "Workloads were minor and were not statistically significant."

    Note this was filed in July as split happening (or before).

    Two reports to come:

    "Case Transfers

    We visited Chester, Poole, Doncaster and Shrewsbury with two inspectors on site for three days at each location. Inspectors looked at a number of cases to identify whether they had been transferred accurately and in a timely fashion. Fieldwork is now complete and the findings will feed into a wider report being published in November.

    Court Work, Assessment and Allocation and the Inspection of Start of Order

    We have already visited Leicester (for a pilot inspection), Lincoln and Birmingham. Next we are in Carlisle, Oxford and finishing in Cambridge during the week of the 22nd September.

    At each of these inspections we have up to 6 inspectors on site for 2 or 3 days at a time.

    We will publish the report of our findings in November."

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    1. Well if they report the truth they should know that some cases have still not been transferred, and a lot of the cases that have been are in an utter state. The whole system is not working. But they will probably feedback a load of bull to suit their purpose.

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    2. The leadership of the Inspectorate is in sympathetic TR hands - ideologically in tune with agenda which has a political consensus. There will be need for retuning, etc, but nothing that rocks the cradle. All hopes pinned on JR - but that has yet to pass its first hurdle. Wages are going to plummet. The talented will either leave or not join. There will be more zero-hours contracts, high staff turnover, while those up the hierarchy will be amply rewarded.

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  15. I'm in NPS and at last count we had 30 CRC cases.
    Also my colleague got handed a risk escalation case. It was a custody cases which along with others was being held by one of the managers. The person just before release had made serious threats to ex and so it was deemed to be a high risk case by a PO in court/interface team But no risk escalation paperwork done ! Just an agreement to take case between crc and nps manager. Needless to say case was handed back to said managers and crc to do risk esc paperwork

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  16. To Anon 14:03 I have every sympathy with any colleague trying to do the "risk escalation paperwork" it is a nightmare on Delius ( v little on "paper" actually) it is the single most 'unfit for purpose' system/tool in 30 years of working that I have had the misfortune to encounter.

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  17. I can imagine '

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  18. How is it a trial run when they argue the whole damn point of this is to supervise U12 months and it's not being done?!?!?????? Safety of system cannot be ckecked without said system in place.

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  19. URGENT REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FOR JR Please try to respond by 5pm Monday 3rd November to tbassett@napo.org.uk
    So much is so wrong let's make them fully accountable

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  20. Let's not forget the great big fudge..burglary with intent which is listed as a serious and specified offence yet those with 12 months or more remain in CRC they should be Mappa1 ...Napo

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  21. Just saying, how can we provide services to an extra 45000 people a year for the same money without providing current offenders with an inferior service. Add this to the under 12 month offenders being given a custodial sentence as there was no appropriate community punishment available. To me these types of offenders are likely to be riskier than those at the lower end of the spectrum than we currently work with.

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  22. I may have misheard but someone told me Yvonne Lewis who used to be a bigwig in NOMS is now MD of Purple Futures. I may have got the surname wrong because the only Yvonne at NOMS I can see is an Yvonne Thomas.

    Any which way, if somebody from NOMS has now got the MD job at Purple Futures and they have coincidentally won the winning bid it does raise some interesting questions.

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    1. No doubt we'll find out very soon........

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    2. She learned her trade at BY, I believe.

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    3. Anon 18:49 - can you expand - what's BY? Have you heard of her - is it true?

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  23. I like the bit about the only people more disappointed than the bidders who lost out will be the bidders who won the contracts. They just have no idea about the complexity of what they have 'won'. They at least have a few short weeks to take a closer look at us and look for the exit doors.

    PS - a client called me today to thanks me for getting him through his licence and being so respectful. Unlike those 'Interserve shits' he said, who have given him twelve different work programme mentors in two years and done absolutely nothing for him. Very funny I thought, especially as they will soon be delivering probation services in our area. In fact he told me some real horror stories about his experience with them. Our more aggressive clients will look forward to those challenges I'm sure.

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    1. Can I tempt you to say which area you are referring to?

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    2. I forgot to mention - he got plenty of employment thanks to our Skills 4Work advisors who got him on all sorts of useful courses that Interserve couldn't because they put up a different advisor every time he went.

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    3. The right side of the Pennines!

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    4. nope think it's the wrong side myself!

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    5. Everyone that I have on the work programme run by Interserve highlight the futility of going to their appointments as they do nothing when they get there other than to tick the register of their arrival.

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    6. agreed. pure quality.

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  24. I hear ALL custodial sentences with begin with a CRC assessment. The fact that the CRC won't have ANY information available to them, especially on NPS cases, on which to base that assessment seems to have passed by the geniuses at the MoJ.

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    1. As with lots of this, what the MoJ think happens and how things are organised on the ground is very difficult. The MoJ have no idea how local partnerships work for instance (or even that they exist), or how many of these have been destroyed by TR.

      The thing is that Shelter, Addaction etc will come in expecting some of the TR pie, when actually the services they are hoping to offer are actually financed by local partnerships who will withdraw the funding. TR contractors will therefore have to find money for services which have seemingly disappeared. It's hilarious how naïve these companies are. They just have no idea of the complexities of how Probation works and how much good will we used. It is also not a service they will be able to skimp on. Just ask Atos. They're gonna need deep pockets and long arms if they're gonna avoid profit warnings to their shareholders.

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  25. Is that correct? My info is all will need a case allocation and RSR done on the day of sentence so immediate problems will be interview space in courts before they go to the prison....and the staff to do it. Once at the prison they have a custody assessment which needs info from the CA and RSR!
    Much tension between court probation and the prison over this is emerging....

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    1. Simple solution . Shove more POs in prison.

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  26. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/31/paul-mcdowell-janine-probation-alleged-conflict-of-interest

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    1. I hope NAPO are on to this. Fiona Woolf stepped down for MUCH less. Knowing the relationship I have with my wife, and the discussions I've had over cases, I find his claims that he does not discuss work issues to be....lies.

      Plus la' change....

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    2. It won't be a conflict of interest for long. NACRO will be jettisoned as soon as they are exposed as being crap and an embarrasment.

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    3. The future of the chief of the probation watchdog has been put into question as a fresh conflict of interest row hit Whitehall.

      Paul McDowell, the chief inspector of probation, is at the centre of a row following the disclosure that his wife is the deputy managing director of a private justice company that this week won the largest number of contracts to run probation services in England and Wales.

      The disclosure came shortly after Fiona Woolf stepped down as the head of an inquiry into historical child sex abuse after a conflict of interest row.

      McDowell was appointed by the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, to the crucial watchdog role last November. He is also a former chief executive of the crime reduction charity Nacro, which, in partnership with his wife Janine’s outsourcing company, Sodexo Justice Services, won six of the 21 regional probation contracts to supervise more than 200,000 offenders each year.

      The Sodexo-Nacro partnership was named as preferred bidder to supervise tens of thousands of low- to medium-risk offenders in six parts of England, including in South Yorkshire, Essex, Northumbria, Cumbria and Lancashire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire as part of a £450m-a-year privatisation of 70% of the work of the probation service.

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  27. It's great that it has hit the gaurdian . Couldn't have come at a better time

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  28. Tell staff in the voluntary sector agencies they are about to get caseloads of 90+ and see what they do. They're not used to managing more than 20 at a time.

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    1. Napo are asking for information from EVERY Probation worker NPS or CRC who is supervising more than 50 cases. It is needed to support the Judicial Review process of challenging information from MOJ and needed by 5 pm Monday!

      By Email to: - tbassett@napo.org.uk

      request is in an Email from Ian Lawrence today.

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  29. I know there is so much corruption on this the MOJ are up to there eyeballs in it. It is depressing and not surprising.

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  30. Crown court in a northern city today, the judge had just read about the preferred bidders in the local paper and asked the CDO in court whether we had been sold off to "the cooks or the cleaners" ! You couldn't make it up.

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  31. A privately-run prison in Mississippi holding “seriously mentally ill” prisoners stands accused of being dirty, dangerous and corrupt. East Mississippi Correctional Facility, operated by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), is the subject of a lawsuit brought on behalf of several prisoners at the facility.

    After widespread criticism of conditions inside the same prison the previous operator, the GEO group, discontinued its contract with the state in 2012. At the time, the GEO group said that the prison was “"financially underperforming."

    A lawsuit first filed a year ago by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center alleged that “grossly inhumane conditions have cost many prisoners their health, and their limbs, their eyesight and even their lives.”

    Photos taken as part of a tour of the prison, showed “charred door frames, broken light fixtures and toilets, exposed electrical wires, and what advocates said were infected wounds on prisoners’ arms and legs,” according to the New York Times.
    MTC are an American Company which runs private prisons in the US. They are part of the consortium which has won the bid for what was London Probation Trust. There are other horror stories on the net if you want to take a look.

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  32. Believe it or not I care” is a Management and Training Corporation (MTC) company slogan on display at Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas. But a new report by the ACLU is calling that slogan into question. Last summer, 30 prisoners at the facility were placed in isolation units “for refusing to leave the recreation yard and return to their dormitories after prison officials ignored their complaints of toilets overflowing with raw sewage,” according to the report.

    The report calls Willacy “a physical symbol of everything that is wrong with enriching the private prison industry and criminalizing immigration.” Nearly 3,000 so-called “criminal aliens” are locked up in the privately run facility, one of 13 “Criminal Alien Requirement” (CAR) prisons in the United States. Managed by private companies on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the facilities are mostly used to hold low-security non-U.S. citizens convicted of immigration offenses or drug-related crimes.

    “Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private-Prison System," the result of several years of investigation into five CAR prisons in Texas, describes overcrowded facilities, inadequate medical care and widespread use of solitary confinement.

    According to one of the report’s authors, Carl Takei, CAR prisons have “mushroomed” in recent years as a result of a massive increase in prosecutions for illegal entry or re-entry. “This is an offense that until about 10 years ago was very rarely charged and now is one of the most charged offences in the federal judicial system,” says Takei.

    While federal prisons are supposed to follow American Bar Association standards, researchers “uncovered evidence that the CAR prisons use extreme isolation in ways that are inconsistent with the ABA Standards and BOP policy.” The report alleges that prisoners were isolated in Special Housing Units (SHU) for “minor infractions or even for requesting new shoes or extra food.”

    The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on specific allegations in the ACLU report, but in response to an email from The Prison Complex, Chris Burke, a public affairs specialist at the agency, defended the use of private companies, calling the practice “an effective means of managing low-security, specialized populations.”

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