Sodexo Special

Cumbria and Lancashire CRC having let Sodexo's cat out of the bag on Friday, the others had to act quickly yesterday, but have started getting sneaky in order to try and stop leaks on the blog:-

"CEO of Northumbria changed his email settings so that the email couldn't be forwarded, printed or copied! Sodexo in 'discussion' with MoJ to seek clarification on EVR. Glad to see its getting some headlines in the media, though not sure it will make any difference to their plans."

Greater London Napo came out with a press release on Sunday:-

Probation Staff to be replaced by machines Sodexo who now own probation services in 6 out of 21 areas are to make Probation Staff Redundant and Replace them with Call Centres and Biometric Reporting Kiosks

Sodexo, one of the owners of 6 of the 21 newly formed Community Rehabilitation Companies, have announced redundancies in Cumbria and Lancashire representing a 36% cut to essential full time staff. This will have a devastating effect on the capacity to tackle offending in this area and place the public at increased risk. This is likely to be replicated across England and Wales. 

According to Sodexo some of the work of those being made redundant is likely to be carried out via call centres and Biometric Reporting Kiosks. These have been piloted in a very limited way in London since 2012. 

Biometric Reporting Kiosks were introduced in one area in London in 2012. Of the three kiosks purchased for the pilot only two have ever functioned and only one has worked consistently with a very low take up rate. The original plan was that service user’s fingerprints would be enrolled on the machine and they would then report to it answering standard questions without the need to report to their probation officer. After reporting they would get a receipt to say that they had reported and when their next appointment would be.

In practice the machines were too unreliable and the system full of glitches and staff only resorted to using them to cover themselves for leave. Had the system worked it would have been rolled out across London. However, the fact is that it never worked as intended and many promised functions, such as sharing real time information with police, have never been implemented.

An internal evaluation report of the London pilot scheme in December 2012 concluded that there would be savings of only £49K across London, mainly from probation officer time, but the cost would be £0.5m for equipment and infrastructure making its wider use commercially untenable. However, if probation staff are made redundant and riskier service users only report to machines then this system starts to become more commercially attractive though the risk to the public is likely to increase. The report warned about the potential risks of targeting inappropriate service users that is likely to happen if plans go ahead. 

Serco were given a contract to run Community Payback (CP) in 2012. The contract was awarded on the basis that Serco would run CP much more efficiently than the public sector using new technology to cut costs – so called ‘techno-solutions’. Soon after they took over a third of the staff were made redundant and the rest issued with smartphones and gadgets. In February this year Serco relinquished the contract. It is now part of the London CRC which is owned by MTCnovo. We are becoming increasingly aware that promised improvements were never delivered.

Following further press releases from Napo HQ, the story was picked up by the Guardian:-

Probation officers face redundancy in plan to replace them with machines

The largest UK private probation operator plans to allow offenders to report in at ATM-style electronic kiosks as part of cost-cutting plans that will involve large-scale redundancies. Sodexo justice services, which runs six of the 21 newly privatised community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) in England and Wales, intends to introduce the kiosks so offenders can report in without having to see a probation officer.

Staff have also been warned to expect jobs cuts of more than 30% – at least 700 posts – in the next six to 12 months. The company’s “new operating model” makes clear it intends to introduce “biometric reporting” using cash machine-style kiosks.

The machines, which use fingerprint recognition technology to check identities, allow an offender to report in, to give and receive information, and to request a face-to-face meeting with a probation officer. Offenders are to be allowed to report into probation using the kiosks as a reward for good compliance with the early stages of their supervision order or prison release licence.

The company also plans to set up one centralised administrative hub supporting operational staff in face-to-face contact with offenders. The probation union Napo says this will mean some low-risk offenders being supervised via a call centre despite the majority of serious further offences being committed by offenders categorised as low-to-medium risk.

Martin Graham, the chief executive of the Sodexo CRC covering Norfolk and Suffolk, told his staff to expect a 34% staffing reduction, in an email on Friday: “I’m sure many of you will be shocked by such a figure but you need to remember that this figure is dependent on being able to deliver all the efficiency savings.

“Whatever the final agreed figures, however, it is clear that we will need to make significant staff reductions over the next weeks and months. Some of these will probably have to be compulsory redundancies.”

Napo says similar emails have gone out from Sodexo chief executives in South Yorkshire (36% job losses), Cumbria and Lancashire (30%), Northumbria (30%) and the CRC covering Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire (30%). A similar figure is expected in the remaining Sodexo company covering Essex. The job losses are expected to exceed 700 in total.

A contributor remarked on this yesterday :- 

"Earlier this month, Sodexo made what it described as a “public service pledge” at a Westminster reception addressed by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude. The group wanted to play down fears about the outsourcing industry."

Here it is:-

Our UK Public Service Pledge is an ethical manifesto for our contracts, for our wider conduct, for how we serve citizens, and for how we contribute to our communities. Our pledge identifies key public service areas and initiatives which we promise to commit to, measure, and report on at least annually. These commitments stand in addition to those already laid out in our contracts, and in addition to our corporate responsibility programme. Together they highlight our conviction that a business involved in running public services signs a commercial but also a social contract, and must commit to a public service ethos. We are therefore an organisation with firm principles. But without actions principles are only aspirations. That is why we are launching a Public Service Pledge to bring these principles to life through a series of tangible commitments.

From other recent contributors:-

Jan 2015 - "The existing director of HMP Forest Bank Trevor Shortt will join the Sodexo Justice Services executive team in the new role of director of operations – community. He will take responsibility for the six community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) to be run by Sodexo Justice Services under the Ministry of Justice Transforming Rehabilitation programme, which includes Northumbria CRC...“We welcome Trevor Shortt to the Sodexo Justice Service executive team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Trevor for leading HMP Forest Bank to great success, including level 4 in the prison rating system, one of the highest security audit scores outside of the high security estate."

Previously at Forest Bank (2011 press report)...

"Tony Purslow was part of an escort taking criminal Michael O’Donnell to hospital after (O'Donnell) mutilated his own ear. After a “terrifying” attack by a gang of bat-wielding masked men, O’Donnell, awaiting sentence for conspiracy to rob and burgle, was sprung by the gang. He spent nearly a month at large... Mr Purslow – who worked at privately-run Forest Bank jail in Salford – was hauled before a disciplinary committee and demoted to senior custody officer, cutting his salary by £10,000 a year. Three prison officers were sacked after the incident on May 2 last year... Mr Purslow, 50, was found dead at his home in Leigh, Greater Manchester, last week. He wore a suit and had a picture of his family in his top pocket. The dad of two, who made sure he was not found by his family, left a note: “In the end I lost every­thing, including my self-respect, so there is nothing left to live for.”

Ex-wife Sarah Purslow said: “Tony always insisted he never did anything wrong. He was so dedicated but had been completely humiliated.”

Trevor Shortt, director of Forest Bank prison, said: “Tony was a valuable member of staff and his contribution to Forest Bank will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with his family.”

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Oh, bloody marvellous! Another prison governor in charge of community rehabilitation. When will these outsourcers learn that they trying to replace vets with zookeepers.

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I don't know anything about a Sodexo-Nacro fall out? What's the story?

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Well, apparently once upon a time there was an agreement between Sodexo & Nacro that they'd jointly run some probation work because there was a load of money to be made but Sodexo had to be the primary bidder because Nacro couldn't put up £Millions of collateral and so a deal was done, but then there was an embarassing disclosure about two people who were related and one of them became a lot more powerful than the other but no-one seems to know what happened and then the Sodexo side said they wanted to get rid of loads of expensive probation staff and replace them with cheaper staff because that's how they make their money, just like they did at HMP Northumberland, but then it is alleged in private places that Nacro got a belated conscience because, whilst it was far too late, they eventually realised that they were only involved as a siege ladder for Sodexo, so once Sodexo were over the wall they would ditch the ladders outside the walls or pull them up later to chop them up & use them for firewood, so it is now alleged that Nacro are unhappy at ending up as kindling - or was that just a weird dream I had?

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I have met a number of Sodexo people. I am deeply concerned at their naïveté around the challenges of this client group. They all want to wear their offender facing credentials like a badge of honour but present as self interested and duplicitous.

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Harsh realities - when Sodexo took over HMP Northumberland the staff reductions were around 30% so I guess we could all see what was coming. This does appear to be the base line reduction so I assume the MoJ/NOMS were always fully aware when bids were submitted that this would happen. I guess we can expect to see this figure replicated now with more announcements due. We all should be aware that those who demand our loyalty now to see this through are the very architects of our pain and the demise of our service and careers. Do they deserve our loyalty? They have known that is what the excess EVR fund that was not used to date was intended for all along. But they needed us this far and now 30% of us are dispensable because they are were they needed to be and yes, we did it for them. So do the maths if you want to know how many of us will go - it is whatever numbers match the figures left in the EVR fund. It has been there hidden in plain sight.

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I was just going to comment on Sodexo's involvement with HMP Northumberland because I think it's important to remember what happened. Not understanding the complex nature of the job, they cut too deep too quickly, and left the prison almost unable to function. They received much critisism too. With that in mind, and the speed at which they have now moved to cut staffing levels in probation, I don't think that just providing numbers should be enough. They should also now be forced to publish details as to why they've reached those numbers, and what the operational model will be for the staffing levels that remain. Only then can they demonstrate that they have some understanding of the nature of probation work and its complexities. They need to be made to evidence that they've learned from their mistakes from HMP Northumberland, and NAPO need to be the forerunners in demanding that evidence.

Stop Press - That email sent at 4.15pm yesterday:- 

Good afternoon everyone,

Following on from my email last week and also our managers forum held earlier today I promised to send you an update.

You will recall that at our recent staff briefings Sodexo, working in partnership with ourselves, committed to providing you with information on staffing numbers by the end of March. Like so many complex programmes of change, maintaining timescales has proved to be very difficult and even at this point I am unable to confirm a definitive position. Reconciling Sodexo’s understanding of our current staffing numbers, roles and responsibilities with our own has been a challenging process to say the least and there is still ongoing work being undertaken to refine this.

As such the figures I am presenting at this stage are still subject to confirmation:

As of March 2015 we currently employ c. 273 FTE staff. By October I expect the number of staff employed to go down to c.181 FTE staff. At a point to be determined afterwards there will be a further reduction of up to c. 26 FTE staff. This second smaller reduction takes account of additional staff who will initially need to be retained in the structure as a result of delays in introducing the new offender management system (OMS) which I’m assuming will be well into 2016. This morning I provided a more detailed breakdown for managers and agreed that they could share that detail with you direct. Following our meeting with the trade unions tomorrow I intend to share further detail with you.

I’m sure these figures will appear very stark, but you will need to remember that they are dependent on being able to deliver all the efficiency savings set out in the list below:

• The establishment of a centralised administrative hub
• The freeing up of operational staff from administrative tasks
• Transfer of some corporate support activities into a national shared services centre
• The rationalisation and prioritisation of how resources are allocated to different types of service users, using new assessment tools such as ‘closeness to change’
• The implementation of the new Rehabilitation Activity requirement which should be much clearer about the work to be done with specific individuals
• The delivery of rehabilitation services through the ‘supply chain’ of voluntary sector providers
• The implementation of new IT systems using primarily wireless technology and internet based case management system
• The reconfiguration of our entire estate

Taking account of the above, Sodexo has developed a comprehensive Activity Based Costing (ABC) model in order to work out how many staff, at what grades and in what function would need to deliver each CRC’s business. However, their ABC model was only as good as the information they were allowed to have access to in the bidding process. This is why we have been spending a lot of time trying to understand the staffing details they thought we had compared to what we actually have and also to work out what would be needed to deliver the CRC’s business once all the changes in relation to HR, IT, Estates, etc. have taken place.

As I said earlier these figures are stark, as much to me as they will be to you. We will continue to work with Sodexo to refine and, where appropriate, provide a business case for additional resources which we feel have either been miscalculated/ underestimated or have been missed entirely in the bid model.

Whatever the final agreed figures, however, it is clear that we will need to make significant staff reductions over the next few months. Whilst we aim to effect as many reductions as we can through voluntary means, some may have to be compulsory redundancies. Under the National Agreement on Staff Transfer and Protections such redundancies cannot take place until at least 7 months after share sale (i.e. September 2015) This level of reduction means that all grade of staff are likely to be at risk to a greater or lesser extent. We are still working out the specific details of this before we consult more widely with you but I hope that we will be able to provide greater clarity very soon. Formal consultation will start with our trade union representatives tomorrow.

The process for how we achieve this level of staff reductions has yet to be agreed with Sodexo and our local trade unions. Many of you have been asking whether any departures will be paid on the same terms as the EVR scheme which was in place until the end of March. At this stage all I can update you on I that Sodexo does not think it is required to offer the enhanced payments after that date, however, they are in discussion with MoJ in order to seek clarification on this important matter. Sodexo recognise that such a position will not be well received by staff and is therefore currently considering and costing out other potential voluntary departure arrangements which could carry some level of enhancement, albeit not as generous as the EVR scheme.

Both this and the staffing numbers continue to be the subject of ongoing discussions between myself, the other Chief Executives of the CRC’s and Sodexo’s senior management team.

As this stage these discussions are ongoing, none of the above is finalised and may well still change.

I realise that the information above will be very disappointing and worrying for you all. At the managers forum this morning we agreed that my suggestion of a series of visits to meet staff was the right way forward but that in order to get the best out of these sessions we should time them for mid April. This is to avoid a clash with the Easter holidays and also hopefully provides a further opportunity to clarify matters.

Finally can I take this opportunity to reiterate that I really do recognise that this has been, and remains, a very difficult period for you all. If you feel you would welcome more personal support please remember that you can access the Employee Assistance Programme (details are available on the intranet).

Thanks,

Nick