Thursday 16 June 2016

Probation System Review

In the wake of the recent damning reports into the on-going TR omnishambles, there's an urgent request for information from Napo:-

BR 39/2016
IL/AV

14th June 2016

To: Branch Chairs, Vice Chairs, Secretaries & Convenors
Family Court SEC / Northern Ireland (For info)
NEC Co-Reps
Cc: Probation Negotiating Committee
Napo Officers and Officials

Dear Colleague

Probation System Review – urgent request for information

This memo alerts Napo Branches to the launch of an important review by NOMS.

Branches are urged to assist us by working with your NPS Link Officer or CRC Link Official in gathering key information about the state of the NPS and probation landscape. This will be included in a Napo submission to NOMS. Ideally this information should reach Chivalry Road by 30th June.

Background to the review

Last week NOMS announced an important review into the probation system. This follows critical findings from independent reports published by the National Audit Office, the Cabinet Office and the new HM Inspector of Probation, Dame Glenys Stacey.

Napo is using the findings in these reports to press our agenda with politicians and senior NOMS management – for example, asking Secretary of State, Michael Gove to instigate a full post-implementation review of Transforming Rehabilitation on the back of last year’s HMIP reports. That was previously turned down on the basis that the Minister wanted to see the outcome of the NAO and HMIP reports and consider what actions, if any, he needed to take. Consequently, whilst we continue to await a meeting with the Minister, it’s encouraging to hear that the NOMS Contracted Services Directorate are to conduct a Probation System Review.

An opportunity for Napo

Napo are asking Branch Officers and Representatives to work with our Officers and Officials in pulling together some empirical evidence about the realities of life in the NPS and CRCs.

Obviously, the current pressures faced by our members mean we do not expect you to spend huge amounts of time compiling evidence, but below are a number of key questions that we believe should help form the focus of a Napo submission to the review.

As always there’s an urgency to get information together quickly but our aim is to ensure we are able to validate the issues that Napo has been bringing to the attention of NOMS/ MoJ, politicians and the media – namely, that despite the improvements noted by the NAO and HMIP, the TR reforms are not delivering against the objectives (see below) and urgent remedial action should be put in place.

Government’s Stated TR Objectives:

  • Opening up the market to a diverse range of rehabilitation providers including Mutuals;
  • Incentivise providers to innovate through payment by results linked to a reduction of reoffending;
  • Extending rehabilitation in the community to an estimated extra 45,000 short sentence clients; and 
  • Re-organising the prison estate to provide a ‘through the gate’ service to give continuous support from custody into the community.
What’s being looked at?

We have been advised that the Probation System Review will assess what adjustments, if any, can be made to the CRC contracts and wider probation system to support the achievement of the original TR objectives as summarised above.

In seeking to address the observations and recommendations within the National Audit Office, HMIP and Cabinet Office reports, the review will focus on six particular areas:
  • Allocation of cases 
  • Payment mechanism
  • TTG
  • Performance mechanism
  • Financial and commercial health and
  • Contract management
Finally, it will also take into account other wider initiatives within the MoJ, such as prison and courts reform, and the NPS E3 project and how they impact on the CRC contracts and delivery thereof.

Next steps

It would therefore be appreciated if Branches and NEC members could compile information using the questionnaire below so that Napo is able to offer the review an accurate, real time contribution about our members experiences.

We are hugely grateful for the work that you are able to put into this exercise. Branch Chairs are asked to contact your Link Officer or Link Official in the first instance if you require more information.

Yours sincerely

Ian Lawrence             Chris Winters & Yvonne Pattison
General Secretary      National Co-Chairs

38 comments:

  1. Adjustments? How can something fundamentally broken and corrupted be "adjusted"? Halt this chaotic farce and re-unite the services. The cost of not doing so is immesurable.

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  2. Today could be life-changing for me. After contemplating leaving on several occasions since June 2014 and sift into CRC, I have recently started applying for jobs outside Probation. Have reached a point where I'm at the end of my tether and due to the nature of my role (not operational) am feeling increasingly isolated and confused about job role. Actively seeking other employment now and who knows, may be able resign after today!

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    1. Good luck.It can be fine!

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  3. I agree I want to know why I am working in a crap organisation, feeling like a second class citizen and new psos are able to hold higher risk cases than I can. No doubt I will soon have an unqualified pso rejecting my breach reports. Does this sound bitter I am.

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  4. I can save them shitloads of time & money. Here's the Review:

    "TR was an ideological hors d'oerve for the wholesale privatisation of public services. The timing wasn't ideal, it had to be rushed through pre-election; but it was aided & abetted through the fortunate combination of the vainglorious Grayling's pomposity & Labour's careless wording the 2007 Act.

    The TR project was financially underwritten by the Treasury to expedite the process with a limited number of cautious bidders who we knew were waiting to cash-in. The financial losses have been suitably disguised & the unions involved are too timid & small to be of any concern, but we have to be mindful of keeping the CRCs afloat.

    In rushing TR through the statute books we had to make empty promises to NOMS to keep them on message. Consequently we miscalculated the likely impact on the retained NPS so are now trying plug all the holes with E3 and agency staff.

    All in all it has been okay; no major PR gaffes, no major law suits, Grayling's been shuffled out of the way and we thought Gove would be our man."

    But it seems that when Dave publicly humiliated Gove by sacking him from Education, Gove wouldn't let it lie. So are now they worried what's next from the rogue minister post-EU Referendum. Will he explode the TR myth & expose the suspected corruption, nepotism & possible outright profiteering at the public's expense? The constructive dismissal of hundreds of staff, opening the door to a massive class action?"

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  5. There is a major problem with the whole breach process. I am no longer a napo member as i burnt my papers post split when i had a nervous breakdown and ptsd from 20 years working with lifers and sex offenders. However i am now back with a new attitude called dgaf in terms of useless directives. Just get on with it and if they dont like it i am ready to be sacked and have all my evidence to take legal action. In the mean time i will tell you that the crc breach process is a farce! We are told to try and avoid at all costs and if wr do ask for order to continue to avoid failing targets. Then nps who have entirely different targets say, no you have to ask for revoke resentence! Breaches and applications to amend constantly rejected. Crc adking for orders to be extended because crc have failed to get people through bbr in time before order expires and in goes an app. Approved by crc spo only for nps pso to say you cant do that and it has to be revoked and re sentenced . So we are damned if we do and dammed if we dont and crc/ nps are at each othets throats. Certainly not working together as they should be but constant friction. Pass this to napo. They didn't support me then but maybe they will support someone now.

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  6. 08.05. Best of luck. There is a big world out there. Go for it. You deserve better. More will follow.

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    1. Thank you - they want a CV and follow up meeting next month.

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  7. Probation Officer16 June 2016 at 08:46

    In my office the NPS works. In most offices which had public protection teams the work and service is the same. It's E3 that's set to make things worse and NOMS wants to portray the NPS as failing so it can hand it to Police and Crime Commissioners who will then sell it off to private companies.

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  8. Probation Officer16 June 2016 at 08:47

    And they need to stop lumping NPS and CRC in the same sentence. We are now very different organisations. NPS does probation work. CRC pretends to do probation work.

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    1. Hey, we don't even pretend anymore. Contracts are signed and guaranteed for 8 years. After that they will be handed back, profit taken out of and the public purse used to patch things back up. If ANYONE thinks the CRC's are in it for anything other than profit then they are deluded! NAPO might be better served by asking to see how much money the likes of Sodexo have made so far and their estimated income over the next five years! THAT will paint a much better picture of TR than people moaning about breaches and TTG!!!

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    2. Bit harsh. As former colleagues you should know we are doing are best with hand we have been dealt which admittedly is not great. Don't be so sure that your hand cannot be trumped. We need to all focus on pursuing a unified Probation Service again, sum of our parts greater that way.

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    3. Probation Officer16 June 2016 at 16:02

      That wasn't directed at the probation staff. It's the CRC managers and owners that are pretending. Some that have no idea about probation work and others that do, all working together to fudge the figures and maximise the profits. The NPS will go the same way if the Tory civil servants continue to have free reign over justice.

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    4. @Probation Officer: it was pretty poorly phrased, and insulting to CRC staff, even if that wasn't your intention. And I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the NPS aren't already fudging the figures.

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    5. I also felt insulted by your remarks. As stated in my previous post I already feel like a second class citizen. Former colleagues who I previously worked with also look down on the crc without a thought about how we have been treated. To all those people looking down on us, you will probably be joining us soon. Still bitter.

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    6. Sad to hear you feel this way it certainly isn't how it is in SY we are all still united in our disgust at what's been done to us and doing the best we can I haven't heard any comments which suggest one side is better than the other except that the CRC is much worse for colleagues at the moment But E3 is about to change all that and we in NPS are braced for the next big shafting ! I understand we are to have meetings to see how far we can be shafted !!

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  9. Can anyone put figures on it? Rates of payment for CRCs must surely be the same in all 21 areas so can't possibly be commercially sensitive. How much per completed Order? How much per completed target? We know they've already pocketed the Modernisation Fund sweetener plus the pay rise for staff who left under voluntary severance in 2015, and no doubt cashed in any assets.

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    1. I'm not sure that the rates of payment for the CRCs will necessarily be the same in all areas, given that there was a competitive tender process.

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    2. I seem to recall that the figure for SY CRC was to be around 15 million and around 8 million for NPS in first year As for cashing in assets they seem to just trash all the newly bought furniture when CRC moved out of the office. It was disgusting to see such waste of public money !

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    3. Interesting. Could it be that the cost of a community penalty varies across the country? In which case it becomes a postcode lottery as to what sentence you receive based upon local economics & what deal your CRC negotiated rather than on the basis of sentencing guidelines & the law?

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  10. What everyone appears to be ignoring is that the powers that be cannot afford to put it back together. There is a clause in the contracts that states that the CRC's will be paid the full contract amount even if it is taken back. So essentially its cheaper for them to carry on running things. The cost of amalgamation would far exceed any savings and the bill would still have to be paid

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    1. But what if it was found a)not profitable for CRCs due to MoJ getting the figures wrong or b)contractors were found to be in breach of said contracts? Maybe there are other ways that the contracts might end early.

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    2. The contracts definitely have break clauses for poor performance. It would also not be surprising if one or more contracts failed to run the distance because of a poor rate of return for the owners, although I expect some (especially Sodexo) see it as a loss leader for more lucrative prison contracts. But both situations could arise at the same time, with a contract taken back in one area, whilst another is handed back elsewhere.

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    3. Jim, I have a feeling that the contracts will end when one of the CPA's hand back the contract, having milked the very life out of it. Make no mistake, these companies will not hold on to anything which impact on profits or indeed fails to make them. These companies will then be offered further contracts for running (down) other services. It's happened too many times now, and we all know the best predictor of future behaviour.

      I give it three years, once the Fee for Service drops down and the Payment by Results for the basis for profit. Not enough has been done, profits have been stripped, staff laid off and a general sense on ennui prevails. Not one of these is conducive to effecting rehabilitation. I've had people on Orders for lesser crimes than our overlords have committed!

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    4. Programmes is where the money is. Why else would they be making sure that all licences have a programme as a licence condition. Even if they don't actually manage to do the programme.

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    5. The contracts wont end or be handed back. Falling wavs arw most likely to be remedied by giving CRCs a larger proportion of the client group by pushing up the rsr threahold or giving them mappa.

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    6. You may well be right - but it kinda depends on what the person at the helm at the MoJ wants does it not - big stick or some carrots?

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  11. I can confirm there will be no handing ok keys. The privateers simply used TR as a springboard to bigger and better contracts. YOU ALL need to get over tHat our profession in just a means to an ends of privateers lining their pockets

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  12. Using public spaces to interview offenders in crc is dangerous to public and goes against our duty to protect the public! How would you feel if you were sat in a library knowing that there was someone coming in possibly carrying a knife? Ok, anyone could do that but the fact is we are playing russian roulette as at some point member of the public could have bag nicked or worse, be assauled and then where will we stand?

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  13. I went to uni so i could get a decent job with a decent employer. Ive ended up working for Sodexo :/

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    1. There is a game being played out here, a face saving game. Government, NOMS, Sodexo et al, Contracts, Audit, Profit, reputations and regrettably at all our expense. Sodexo not necessarily the issue, they are what they are, just as am I and you. Shambolic, truly shambolic.

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    2. Could have been worse kiddo, you might have ended up as a Civil Serpant!

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  14. Agreed that the contractors are using this as a springboard. What many want is secure accommodation. Again you don:t give the keys back as a provider. You sell the contract on to another provider. When its sold on the terms and conditions are then renegotiated. So instead of a pay mech you may choose to use what is known as a fee for service with a management fee. This then guarantee's a profit and the other saves face.

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  15. I saw a commnet suggesting NPS do proper probation work. Look, we all manage risk and protect the public. CRC staff have to find the ticking time bombs and be adept at recognising escalation in risk. The NPS supervise those who have already gone boom and have to recognise/prevent them going boom again.

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  16. Exactly 23.38 and this is why 5 of my cases risk escalated in a year and one to recall this morning following arrest yesterday. Working with DV is complex work. On a seperate note i would suggest noms and moj and also napo urgently assess standards for crc staff safety now that we are moved into unsecure public buildings etc. Without the usual protection we have been afforded in the past.

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  17. NAPO - stable doors and horses come to mind......

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  18. We were told by a MP that none of the CRC have been paid yet as they haven't hit their targets. Also five out of six Sodexo areas failing! Didn't take long. Wonder what the MOJ will do?

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  19. 08.47 it is that kind of divisive talk that has created a divide. CRCs do not pretend anything. People work as hard as anybody in the NPS

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