Monday 21 December 2015

Re-nationalisation?

At least we can rely on Mark Leftly of the Independent to pick up on what's happening:- 

Probation Services in South Yorkshire could be renationalised after firm fails Ministry of Justice audit

A privatised part of the Probation Service could be brought back into public hands after the French catering firm chosen to run it in a significant English region failed a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) audit.

The South Yorkshire region comes under one of six Community Rehabilitation Companies [CRCs] that Sodexo, previously best known in the UK for feeding school pupils and the military, was chosen to run last December.

A document detailing Sodexo’s failures in South Yorkshire has been passed toThe Independent and reinforces fears that privatisation could pose a risk to the public because offenders are not being properly monitored. The document noted “a lack of contact with offenders, ineffective enforcement and little or no evidence of any offence- or risk-focused work”.

It also found “serious gaps in obtaining domestic-abuse and safeguarding information at the start and throughout the sentence”. There were “shortcomings” in recording information, incorrectly recorded appointment dates, “no proactive and systematic quality assurance”, and “an absence of regular supervision and team meetings”.

The shadow Justice Secretary, Lord Falconer, said the decision to appoint Sodexo showed that former justice secretary Chris Grayling had been too keen to push through his privatisation programme.

Lord Falconer said: “The Tories went too far when they privatised the Probation Service. This decision was incompetent and shows just how misplaced their priorities are. Labour warned from the start of the risks to public safety of the Tories’ rushed and reckless sell-off of the Probation Service and sadly many of our fears are already being confirmed.”

Sodexo has been asked to draw up a remedial action plan, a draft of which was submitted to the MoJ earlier this month. A second audit will take place in February but the document warns “failure to achieve remedial action-plan targets within agreed timescale [is] likely to result in contract termination”.

Mr Grayling was determined to introduce commercial nous into probation under his Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) programme to save costs, even though the service won the British Quality Foundation’s Gold Medal for Excellence only four years ago.

He privatised about 70 per cent of the service through CRCs, with only the highest-risk offenders overseen by the state despite warnings about the firms’ lack of experience in probation. Sodexo has already been criticised for making hundreds of redundancies across its CRCs.

Probation officers have also been infuriated by Sodexo’s insistence on consolidating the probation estates in the CRCs. One officer complained of having no internet or landline telephones a week after moving into new premises, while meetings with offenders were taking place in a church and in a property next to a pub. Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence said: “This confirms that our predictions and concerns since the outset of TR are in fact a reality.

“More concerning is that Sodexo are still going ahead with massive job cuts. We urge the government to review all the CRCs as a matter of urgency with a view to taking them back into public ownership before the public are put at any more risk.”

A spokesman for Sodexo said: “We are disappointed with the results of the recent audit at South Yorkshire Community Rehabilitation Company. We take this very seriously and have implemented an action plan to address the concerns raised.”

A spokeswoman for the MoJ said: “We hold providers rigorously to account for their performance and take action wherever they are falling short. Following an audit by the MoJ, South Yorkshire CRC has now developed an improvement plan. We will continue to monitor the CRC’s performance closely.”


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Also Voices from the Independent:-

Privatising probation services was a foreseeable mistake – and now we all stand to pay the price

When the Government flogged off 70 per cent of the probation service to the private sector earlier this year, the then Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, who was the driving force behind this change, insisted it was “great news”. The public, he said, would “finally benefit from the best of the private and voluntary sectors, working together with the public sector, to cut reoffending”.

That assertion was widely contested, and with good reason. There is no sign of reoffending rates falling; the prisons minister, Andrew Selous, makes only the modest claim that the reforms are still “bedding in”. Meanwhile, as we report, part of the service may be taken back into state hands after Sodexo, the French firm running the South Yorkshire region, flunked a justice ministry audit. The report is a catalogue of shortcomings on Sodexo’s part, noting gaps in terms of safeguarding information, recording appointments, supervising offenders and more. It gave Sodexo until February to up its game, warning that its contract may be terminated.

It would be easy to focus on the tragi-comic absurdity of choosing a company best known for supplying catering services to run a probation service but this would be to miss the point. The real problem with Mr Grayling’s changes is not which companies were chosen to run the probation service but the fact that it was privatised at all – without good reason, without pilot schemes and in the teeth of opposition not just from the unions but from almost every expert in the field. All the evidence points to this being privatisation of the worst type – driven by an obsession with free market principles and the belief that every department of national life can be turned into a money-spinner.

The sell-off might have been justified had the old probation service been a vastly expensive system of Byzantine complexity, but it was not. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice rated all 35 probation trusts in England and Wales as good or excellent. The old trusts also had the virtue of simplicity and clear lines of accountability, all of which have become blurred since Mr Grayling pressed on with divvying them up, handing 70 per cent to 21 private community rehabilitation companies, or CRCs, while keeping 30 per cent in state hands as the National Probation Service, the NPS.

From the start there were concerns that the private contractors would be unprepared for the task. Even supporters of privatisation, such as the former prisons minister, Crispin Blunt, said Mr Grayling was “moving too fast” with a national rollout. The arbitrary 70-30 per cent division of assets has created a muddle, establishing two services delivering similar services where there had been one. CRC staff have complained that they are not able to see the files of offenders allocated to the NPS. Morale in the CRCs is dismal. No surprise there. One of Sodexo’s first announcements on getting the job in South Yorkshire was that it intended to axe hundreds of jobs. Union surveys show more than half of those working for CRCs are looking for new employment.

The shadow Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, recently said Labour should renationalise the probation service by getting out of the contracts “as quickly as we financially and legally can”. This would be hard to do because Mr Grayling agreed lengthy contracts with the contractors that would be very costly to scrap.

Almost everyone can see the damage that was done to the railways by privatisation. Because the work of the probation service affects only a minority of the population, there is far less interest in what has happened to it. This is unfortunate because if the probation service does not work we are all at risk in terms of rising crime. The current Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, is making a name for himself as a determined reformer of our broken prison system. He would do well to try to undo at least some of the damage that his predecessor inflicted on the probation service.

25 comments:

  1. This was indicated early last week in this blog, Tweeted to three Labour MPs, one of whom Retweeted it,yet still Parliament recessed without it apparently being raised in parliament and so far we are only aware of one news organisation reporting it.

    My worst fears are coming to fruition, I commiserate with all who are affected by this completely avoidable failure of Cameron & Clegg's government, in which every member of parliament is implicated.

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    1. Probation Officer21 December 2015 at 10:55

      All who voted for it are responsible, as are all that were silent. This includes MP's, Probation Chiefs and managers, and all at the Ministry of Justice. Probation 'worked' until the Tories sold it to Sodexo and friends. Now rehabilitation, risk management and public safety is a bigger concern than it ever was, and all thanks to the Rt Honorable Chris Grayling.

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    2. Probation could not have been split and sold so quickly unless Labour had legislated to allow it in 2007 and Liberal Democrat Ministers & MPs actively encouraged it in 2013 & 14.

      I know Labour now says they did not intend it be sold in the way the Conservatives & Liberal Democrats went about it, BUT their poor legislating permitted that to happen instead of preventing it.

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    3. Whilst I admire your tenacity in trying to remind everyone of the Lib Dem's culpability in this, Andrew, perhaps it's time to give it a rest? A basic principle of rehabilitation is that if you keep punishing someone for something without giving them the opportunity for them to atone, it makes it so much more difficult for them to repair the harm. Let TR remain one of Grayling's many follies, and it will be easier to undo. We would not have seen such quick change around the book ban and the courts charge if they were seen as more than Grayling's pet projects.

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    4. The right wingers Blair & Brown had been paving the way for years, they just hadn't been honest enough to admit where they were taking us. Straw pushed the button for the 2007 legislation, re-defining himself as Justice Minister, presumably expecting a new term in 2010 when he would have been "untouchable" - and no doubt just as barmy as Grayling proved himself to be. He now seems to spend all of his time desperately re-writing history in a bid to avoid being seen as complicit in illegal extraordinary renditions, etc, etc.

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    5. I do not think it helps understand how we got to where we are and thenceforth changing direction Anon at 11.52 by ignoring reality.

      I was shocked that Sir Bob Russell voted to allow probation to be split but he and other Lib Dem MPs, most I think, apart from the bloke for Cambridge City, actually did. Jim Brown, himself I am almost certain implied that he had information that some in the LD hierarchy were enthusiastic, believing that it was a way to fund the under 12 month ex prisoner highly illiberal unjust supervision.

      The ex prison governor LD MP, now in Hs of Lords, was certainly an enthusiast in the ORB Bill Committee, by which time at least some Labourites seemed to have realised they made a terrible mistake with their 2007 Act that permitted it. There are eight LD MPs left. Probation is surely important enough for them to start using Parliament to acknowledge their mistake and get some improvements now?

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    6. Quite frankly I doubt those 8 Lib Dems are particularly interested in listening to people who keep antagonistically pointing the finger at them for enabling the dastardly Tories during the Coalition government.

      Yes, TR (and a whole host of other things) may not have passed into law without Lib Dem support. The situation is different now as the Lib Dems are in opposition. It's not "ignoring reality" to say let's try bringing them in on our side now.

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    7. "Lib Dems......let's try bringing them in on our side now" - they can piss right off. They let us down when we needed them.

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  2. Probation Officer21 December 2015 at 10:49

    Fantastic, the truth is out. I'm sure there are many headless chickens running around this morning at South Yorks CRC, Sodexo HQ and the Ministry of Justice.

    Between now and the audit in Feb 2016 Sodexo will be trying its best to fudge the statistics and hide the bad data. Probation staff in Sodexo areas will be inundated with instructions to change and amend records. They'll be told to get the 'missing' offenders in and given wording to add to case records of supervision sessions, and to backdate records, risk assessments and supervision plans. Where not already implemented, the Sodexo plans for redundancies, office moves, working out of the car, downgrading risk levels, telephone reporting and subcontracting supervision to outside agencies will be put on hold until Feb. The problem for Sodexo is that they've already showed their hand and probation staff will not lie and deceive to get them through the audit.

    Now is more a time than ever to work our hours, keep to our contracted roles and to work in proportion to the resources, instructions and workload. Don't let management force you into working outside of this due to fear or goodwill. Don't try to fix the Sodexo shortcomings as when it's fixed it'll be back to redundancies. This is for staff in ALL Sodexo areas and ALL CRC's !!

    Well done to Napo as it's spoken publicly against South Yorkshire CRC earlier this year, and hasn't let up about the Sodexo concerns. It's time for Napo to rack it up a gear with a revitalised public campaign - probation re-nationalisation is a good headline if ever I heard one. Even better would be 'work to rule' and industrial action. It's an opportunity for Napo to regain a bit of ground, but where's that Napo press officer (Tanya Basset?)? Let's hear from South Yorks CEO's Jan Hannant and Amanda Cullen too?!

    And finally, will the Probation Institute (PI) shed its MoJ chains and make a statement that Sodexo/CRC's are not representing probation practice, and call for probation re-nationalisation. If not, then probation staff and Napo would be wise to distance from the PI.

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    1. Regarding the final paragraph above there is no chance. I work for Working Links in the DDC area. John Wiseman the current Director has recently been made a fellow of the PI. Why - who knows. As CEO of Dorset Probation he sold us down the river and did as he was told. As current Director of DDC and BGSW CRC he is doing just the same. He is no more than an expensive messenger boy for the Working Links CEO.

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  3. I wholeheartedly agree with both articles in all but one respect - the line in the final paragraph of the editorial which reads "Because the work of the probation service affects only a minority of the population, there is far less interest in what has happened to it."

    This, to me, seems to be the key to the whole sorry debacle. The concept of TR was sold to the privateers on the basis that they were "providing services to offenders". Put like that, it seems a relatively simple concept: if you fix the problems in someone's life, they stop offending, so all you need to do is find the right inputs. Companies like Sodexo, with no experience in the field, would look at this and think "Ok, there's room for economies of scale here - we just buy X amount of accommodation support, Y volume of ETE appointments and Z number of drug and alcohol treatment sessions, and spread them around. There's an organisation called the NPS that will tell us what is needed in each case - this seems pretty easy." During the TR process they were prevented from going into offices to speak to staff and management about what the work actually involved, so they had no idea about all the other aspects of work including safeguarding, multi-agency work and so on. So they come in with their Fordist production line principles and cut, cut, cut - with the results we see in South Yorkshire.

    In reality, probation work should be seen as providing a service to the community, both directly in the sense that supporting someone who has committed an offence to make positive changes in his or her life should reduce the chances of further harm; and also in recognising that our clients are part of those communities themselves. As such probation work affects everyone, and this is why it should be restored to public control immediately.

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    1. Very important point you raise. We were NEVER the "hidden arm of the CJS" they said we were, nor do we "provide services to offenders", and offenders are NOT "service users". What we do is rehabilitation, public protection and reduce reoffending, and failure to do this properly does affect everyone. The quicker everyone starts to refer to the probation service as providing a vital service to the public and community the better.

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  4. Thank you for keeping on this story, Mark Leftly. It isn't Watergate but it IS an important story. And thank you JB for keeping the information flowing via this blog.

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  5. South Yorkshire CRC is not the only one that needs a good coat of looking at in fact despite what CRC managers are about to say there are risks throughout the whole Sodexo case management model which places staff at some risk and these issues have yet to be addressed so more power to the journalists that have raised these as issues however this is only what NAPO has been saying from day one.....time for whistleblowers to start telling the outside world just how dangerous these reforms are.....

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  6. Good work Tanya

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  7. 10:49 & 11:00 excellent points made.

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  8. So, the slow train crash quickly picking up speed, has the final destination buffers within sight. What happens until the the station is wrecked is immaterial, unless the already half wrecked station is given attention anyway, then more. Offender managers have no regular updates on arrests, no court results, or even data on who has attended unpaid work. If any were sent, that might not arrive anyway, because nobody knows anyone's email adresses any more. It takes weeks to get a breach hearing listed at court, so why would you bother trying to finish your court order towards the end, if you knew there would be no enforcement possible? You couldn't do that offending behaviour programme either anyway, because none are running. And once you get your warning for not attending anything, it's way after your next appointment anyway, because no case administrators are left to send letters, and offender managers can't print and send letters themselves, or anything, of any ilk, because they have no recourse to printers. And nobody can anyway, because nobody has paid the franking machine bill anyway, so no letters can be dispatched. And the wifi bill hasn't been paid either, so no offender managers can log on to their wifi geared laptops anyway, to check anything at all of what actually is going on, and if they do, they'll know Apple has been trying to contact them, and little else. And if they can, it takes an age anyway to go through the log in procedure, which takes longer than an average unpaid work shift would, anyway. And so, the whole world is not sort of, but totally Donald Ducked.

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    1. Yep this is not an isolated situaion but the norm now and when something happens the, "We must learn lessons brigade" will stand on the steps of their shiny new HQ and decry some poor individual who is trying to make this work ...surely the ex SOS is now guilty of misconduct in public office by being so reckless with what was once a proud service..

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  9. I don't think Sodexo will be able stop the South Yorks crash. They had envisaged that their new model of working would be running smoothly in October. The CRC hastily dismantled the old system of probation in preparation for their new operating model. Even a large catering company will not be able to cook the books for February.

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  10. Maybe, the MOJ will advise, assist and befriend their wayward company in South Yorkshire. After all G4S and Serco are still going strong. All the catering company needs is to find that right recipe. Surley, the likes of Chris Grayling will not abandon their rich friends at such an early stage.

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  11. I'm in the nps. After an e3 briefing last week it's clear nps are trying also to cut crc blood supply. They advised us to shop around for vol agencies and will consider taking on work from elsewhere if cheaper rather than buying in from crc. Also looking at running group progs ourselves. The crc in west Yorkshire are set to implode also.

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  12. Ditto Wales NPS

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  13. First and foremost I worry about my colleagues in South Yorkshire, they are, in the main, dedicated and professional and they are suffering, suffering ill health in many instances because of the shambles they are faced with. Truly a disgraceful affair.

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  14. West Yorkshire CRC been fudging assessments since Day 1. They will be found out quite soon I understand.

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  15. Anyone above pls contact me on an off-the record basis (anonymity protected). M.leftly@independent.co.uk Back in the office Tuesday.

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