Omnishambles Update 72

A few more bits and pieces to tide us over this agonising waiting period while Napo and others decide on a legal challenge to TR, and the MoJ hunker-down and tighten the screws in case there's any leak of information.    

 

It feels like we're all in trenches, and yet the propaganda says we've accepted the changes and are working hard on making the whole pile of TR shite function. Well, that's what Michael Spurr says in the latest edition of 'Getting Started' :-

Chief Executive’s message 

I’m very conscious of how hard Probation colleagues have been working over the last few months as we’ve moved to new structures, implemented new case allocation processes and moved to new working arrangements both in the NPS and in CRCs.

The change process has been intense – and whilst I recognise there are real and genuine pressures across the system the fact that the change has been managed so effectively is a tribute to the professionalism and vocational commitment of staff across Probation.

I’ve managed to visit a number of offices and courts over the last few months both in large city areas (such as Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds and Croydon) but also in towns (such as Aylesbury, Chelmsford, Bedford, Maidstone, Halifax and York) where the issues and pressures present different challenges. I use these visits to talk to colleagues at all levels to get a better understanding of how things are actually working ‘on the ground’.

As the NOMS CEO, I am responsible for making the whole Offender Management system work effectively – and I will remain responsible for the ‘whole system’ after CRCs have transitioned to new providers later this year. My focus is on how things are actually working – and what more we need to do to develop and improve our systems, processes and professional practice to better support the new structures and to deliver the best service we can for the courts, for our offenders and for the public we serve.

I know that for many colleagues the structural changes have been difficult and painful and that the new processes have been challenging and created additional work and pressure. But I have been encouraged, heartened and impressed by the way colleagues have responded, are adapting to the new arrangements, and are working collaboratively to solve problems and improve our performance.

The Solutions in Partnership Team has been set up specifically to harness this approach and bring practitioners from across the NPS and CRCs together to develop practical solutions to improve processes and to tackle and address common issues and problems.

I recognise that there has been particular pressure on court staff following the introduction of the RSR/CAS process. That’s why additional administration staff have been recruited for courts facing particular pressures and why the Solutions in Partnership Team, working with colleagues from the North West Division, have prioritised the RSR/CAS processes for early review; looking to streamline arrangements wherever we can.

IT issues continue to be a frustration whenever I talk to staff in the field. It’s important to remember that the roll out of Delius as the single national casework system was only completed last October and it then had to be adapted to run the new case allocation processes required for the TR reforms.

The reconfigured system is now generally working as planned but some ‘work-arounds’ remain and it’s slower and less ‘user friendly’ than any of us would want. We know that we need to improve overall performance and ‘user experience’ and have plans in place to do this – but these improvements cannot take place until we have delivered the final reconfiguration of the system to incorporate the changes resulting from the new Offender Management and Rehabilitation Act (OMR). I know this is hugely frustrating but IT colleagues are working hard to ensure that the OMR changes can be incorporated successfully – and we will then concentrate on significantly improving the way the system operates from a ‘user’ standpoint.

Finally, I want to say something about ‘morale’ and the future. I know that the pace of change has created anxiety and concern for many colleagues – but as we develop the new structures I’m increasingly convinced that there will be a positive and exciting future for staff in both the NPS and in CRCs.

The aim of these reforms is to reduce reoffending and to extend service provision to 50,000 offenders who currently receive no statutory support in the community. The NPS and CRCs need to adapt to meet the requirements of the Offender Management Rehabilitation Act – this is challenging but looking forward, the extension of service provision means that there will be lots of opportunities for staff to develop their careers – both within the NPS and in CRCs.

I am committed to maintaining public service values at the heart of the work we do – and providers who are bidding for CRC contracts are required to abide by public service values and demonstrate a strong ethical commitment both in their bids but also in the way they deliver their services.

I am equally committed to promoting staff professionalism and professional development. We are currently looking to refresh and retender the Professional Qualification Framework – and I am passionate about providing opportunities for staff across Probation to develop professional skills.

I was involved in establishing the PQF in 2008 and am a committed advocate of providing opportunities for PSOs and other Probation staff to develop skills and progress their careers within the Service. Time constraints mean that we are currently only recruiting graduate learners for the final cohort of the current PQF contract.

This will ensure that we will be able to fill vacancies and manage the anticipated natural turnover of staff over the next 12 months – but I want to reinforce my commitment to providing opportunities for PSOs and administrative staff to become Probation Officers in future and to professional development more generally.

This will be a key priority for the NPS. In addition we have required all prospective CRC providers to set out clearly how they will develop and maintain a professional skilled workforce to deliver the services we require from them in the future.

As I’ve said to colleagues many times on my visits – the work we do is challenging and complex – all prospective providers realise this. Their success will depend on the quality of the staff theyemploy and for that reason I have no doubt that their structures and staffing arrangements will reflect this and that this will provide genuine and exciting opportunities for colleagues in CRCs over the next few years.

Thank you again for everything you are doing and for all your hard work and commitment. Despite the pressures, we are continuing to deliver a crucial service for the public professionally and extraordinarily well and whilst that often goes unrecognised in the media it is very much appreciated.

Michael Spurr
NOMS Chief Executive Officer

I've mentioned the excellent blog 'Prison UK : An Insider's View' before and I hope the author doesn't mind me quoting this revealing excerpt from a recent post:-

When I was still a con, I once had a very lengthy and remarkably honest discussion with a deputy governor about the problems the Prison Service was facing in the Team Grayling era. This governor was, in my opinion, a very decent bloke who truly despaired of the increasing politicisation of the British penal system, as well as the imposition of ideologically-motivated punitive regulations that bore little or no relation to evidence-based prison practices – for example, the forcing of many prisoners back into prison-issue clothing, which was proving costly and causing chaos for many local nicks.

This governor mentioned that when NOMS was consulting senior prison managers on the new National Facilities List in 2012, a number of governors warned that the resulting Prison Service Instruction (PSI 30/2013 on Incentives and Earned Privileges) would prove unworkable, particularly since it removed much local discretion from governors over how they actually managed the establishments in their charge. He told me that most of these warnings were simply swept aside because decisions at a political level had already been made. 

NOMS then informed the dissident governors that no further representations to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) would be made. The die was cast and, predictably, many of the problems that experienced prison governors had foreseen have indeed come to pass. 

Of course this, in itself, raises important questions about how much autonomy Governing Governors now really have. It seems that they are largely being reduced to the role of bureaucrats who are charged with carrying out Whitehall’s diktat, even when all the evidence suggests that our prisons are deep in crisis. Just one more in the ever-lengthening list of disasters being caused by the failure of ‘Crisis’ Chris Grayling – and his sidekicks in the MOJ and NOMS – to listen to those people who actually know what they are talking about.

And here's something to ponder on raised by a recent exchange of comments:-

The Probation market has been shrinking for some years now. Lower crime rates and other types of disposals. The CRC bidders will have spotted this though and made allowances in their calculations. I think the less predictable bit is how sentencing and proposals change. If JPs lose confidence in what CRC are offering in terms of rehabilitative options they will move towards more expensive options like UPW or short custodials for complex cases, or choose fines for the low complexity cases. This is where bidders should worry because if the low risk of reoffending clients get fines instead it will really screw up any calculations they mad eon PbR as they will never be allocated many of the easier cases.

In fact the more I reflect on this, the more unpredictable and volatile I think these contracts will be. It's not like the work programme where you can be confident about the number of referrals. Magistrates could throw the contractors all sorts of curve balls, and if the CRC lose their ability to deliver sentences that satisfy them, then will choose other sentences. And so much depends on police and CPS processes. Conditional Cautioning and Neighbourhood Resolution Panels are outside the scope of TR, and anyone commissioning these services is likely to ignore the big players. Just keep thinking of what problems lie ahead for contractors and go for local agencies. Keep thinking and you will build a long and lengthening list of calculations you can't make..

*******

I understand the future powers of the Magistrates - and for that matter the Judges - differently. If - as I understand it the Offender Rehabilitation Bill 2014 is ever actually implemented it will effectively remove from Magistrates and Judges the Power to impose an Unpaid Work Order or other conditions of a Community Order, such as drug treatment conditions - under section 15. I still find this hard to believe and hope I am wrong - but time will tell.

It just occurs to me I am not sure whether the courts or CRCs and perhaps NPS will also be responsible for imposing conditions of psychiatric treatment? It is probably not worth spending any time on this at least not until we learn that the Act is actually to be introduced.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that the OR Act is to be activated pretty soon. Could someone out there tell us what they've heard and pass comment on the above? I think it's all to do with that Post Sentence Assessment that West Yorkshire dreamt up as a money-making wheeze.

I think we missed this as reported by the Law Society Gazette website:- 

Non-lawyer lord chancellor is a ‘benefit’ – Grayling

Chris Grayling told peers today that it is a ‘positive benefit’ that the lord chancellor is a non-lawyer. Grayling, who is the first non-lawyer to be in the post for 440 years, appeared before the House of Lords constitution committee, which is holding an inquiry into the role.

The Epsom MP was grilled for more than an hour on the constitutional role and whether his position as justice secretary caused a conflict in his commitment to the rule of law. Grayling told committee members that it was an advantage for a non-lawyer to be lord chancellor – particularly at a time when legal aid cuts have to be made.

‘I don’t think that the person holding my job suffers from not being a lawyer,’ he said. ‘We don’t need a health secretary who is a doctor. I don’t believe you need to be a practising lawyer and understand the minutiae of the court to protect the values of our justice system.’

He added that a non-lawyer could take a ‘dispassionate’ approach to reforms and that these may not be well received by the legal profession. He also rejected as ‘misplaced’ the idea that a lawyer would have chosen to retain legal aid as it was before the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, pointing to cuts made by his predecessor, Kenneth Clarke QC.

‘Perhaps there’s a belief that a separate lord chancellor would take different decisions on legal aid. That’s simply not the case,’ he added. Grayling, who said it would be a ‘big mistake’ to separate the roles of justice secretary and lord chancellor, revealed he had admonished one fellow minister in his time in office for public criticism of a judge.

He also stated he was ‘not comfortable’ with a senior judiciary dominated by men but insisted it was not right to artificially promote people before they are ready for the role simply because they are women.

Grayling said he was ‘satisfied’ with the legal advice available to him despite three recent defeats in the High Court on judicial reviews. ‘Sometime we are right and sometimes we are wrong – we are only human.’ But he defended his plans for reform of judicial review as ‘necessary, proportionate and dealing with an area that’s not working very well’. He says this is a matter for parliament and it would be a mistake to invite judges to comment.

In response to Grayling’s evidence, Bar Council chair Nicholas Lavender said the lord chancellor should be a ‘champion’ of the justice system as well as guardian of the constitution.‘He is entrusted with lead responsibility in government to maintain the delicate balance between, on the one hand, upholding the rule of law and protecting the independence of the judiciary and, on the other hand, respecting the interests of the executive. ‘Legal expertise is essential to fulfil such a unique role. The lord chancellor should be a very senior lawyer.’

Meanwhile the cuts to legal aid are beginning to have widespread effects amongst criminal lawyers and the service offered to our clients, as reported here in the Guardian:-

Evidence has begun to emerge of the impact of legal aid cuts on criminal law firms, with internal memos from one large business showing that lawyers are being asked to take a 4% pay cut or face losing their jobs. The effect of Ministry of Justice cutbacks and reorganisation of duty contracts covering police stations and magistrates courts could, according to leaders of the profession, lead to two-thirds of criminal solicitors losing their jobs. Poorly paid paralegals are increasingly being hired to carry out criminal defence work, critics of the government’s plans warn, prompting fears of an increase in miscarriages of justice.  

Finally, some sobering analysis of what lies ahead as discussed here in the Guardian Professional section recently:-

Over the next five years, the pain will be concentrated where it has been for the past five: local authorities, the civil service and the police. Budget projections by shire counties, city councils and London boroughs point to large-scale redundancies over the next few years. Civil servants have heard ministers making ominous promises about efficiency savings in public administration, which can only mean cuts in headcount. What justice minister Chris Grayling is doing to probation may be the template for what a reinvigorated Cameron second-term government would do in other service areas – prisons, policing, benefits administration, even parts of HMRC.