News Roundup 9

Here we have what Napo thinks of the Prisons and Courts Bill. The press release:-

Prison reform will not work with a failing Probation Service

Today the Secretary of State for Justice will outline and present the Prison and Courts Bill in the House of Commons. The main theme of the Bill is a greater focus on rehabilitation and modernising the Courts to ensure victims are at the heart of the justice system. Despite this however, there is no mention of the Probation Service which is currently in chaos and failing to provide even the basic supervision of offenders in the community. Yesterday saw the publication of yet another damning report by Her Majesty's Inspection for Probation.

Dame Glenys Stacey said: "We advise government to consider whether, with changes to probation company contracts these orders can be made to work well, or whether it is time for a more fundamental rethink.”

This comment follows the inspection of the new community intervention Rehabilitation Activity Requirements introduced by the former Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, who promised a "rehabilitation revolution". The reality according to the inspector and Napo is that these orders are not being delivered and in many cases no work at all is being done with offenders to reduce their risk of re-offending. The report yesterday supports Napo's claims that Transforming Rehabilitation has not worked and has led to a much poorer level of service.

Ian Lawrence General Secretary for Napo said: "We have persistently advised the government that their reforms are failing. These plans were not evidence based and have led to chaos in the probation service with private providers failing to deliver on the most basic community supervision. Instead of innovation we are seeing less rehabilitation work with offenders. Job cuts and staff shortages have led to unmanageable workloads for our members. The Inspector has in a number of reports said that this is a direct risk to public safety and must be urgently addressed. No reforms to the prison system will work if there is not a fully functioning and effective Probation Service to supervise those being released."

The new orders introduced by Chris Grayling in 2014 were intended to play a significant part in reducing re-offending but according to HMI Probation and Napo less than ever is being done to rehabilitate those in the community.

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Here's Rob Allen and his take on the changes announced to the Youth Justice Board:-

Youth Custody Changes : Progress or Retreat?

What’s to be made of the changes announced yesterday to the governance of youth justice in England and Wales? The stripping from the Youth Justice Board of its role in commissioning, purchasing and monitoring of detention facilities is not altogether a surprise. The YJB’s failure to prevent the deteriorating situation in Rainsbrook and Medway Secure Training Centres in 2015 may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. But the problem is more deep seated than that. The Youth Custody Improvement Board (whose report on the secure estate was also published yesterday) was “astonished” that after sixteen years at the helm, the YJB considers the current arrangements not fit for the purpose of caring for or rehabilitating children and young people. Liz Truss seems to agree so youth custody will in future be hitched to her wagon of prison reform with a Youth Custody Service set up as a distinct arm of the new HM Prison and Probation Service.

Back in 1996, Prison Inspector Sir David, now Lord Ramsbotham recommended that the Prison service should relinquish responsibility for all children under the age of 18, arguing that its priorities meant it could not be expected to provide the level of care, supervision and support required by teenagers. Instead of implementing the recommendation, the Labour government hoped the YJB could transform the way the service looked after young people. Thanks to substantial investment, particularly into education within Young Offender Institutions, there were initial improvements. The Children’s Rights Alliance for England, normally a stern critic of conditions for detained juveniles, concluded in 2002 that ‘results have been great, in some cases near miraculous’.

The improvements could not be sustained and despite substantial falls in the numbers in custody since 2008, Young Offender Institutions have struggled to provide safe decent environments let alone rehabilitative ones. Last year’s Inspectorate report on Wetherbyfound for example that “the core day was not designed to meet the needs of the population. Time out of cell was inconsistent and unpredictable, and there were frequent cancellations and regime restrictions. Exercise was limited to 30 minutes each day, weather permitting”. In truth, the levers available to the YJB have been limited and its influence over what happens in YOIs negligible compared to that of the Prison service.

So will the new Youth Custody Service fare any better in bringing about change? It’s certainly promising that a distinct cadre of specialist staff will be recruited and trained to work with young people. But they will need to be incentivised to stay in the sector. Historically, the prison service has not sufficiently recognised or rewarded work with young people despite its challenges and the skills required to do it well . There will need to be wider reforms; an agenda designed to make physical environments more suitable for teenagers and a review of the rules and procedures in YOIs most of which are primarily designed for adults. Achieving cultural change may be the hardest obstacle. When I was on the YJB, the POA objected for years to replacing traditional prison officer uniforms and were not exactly champions of a child centred approach.

Yet there were and no doubt are some excellent staff and good models of practice in the youth estate. When I left the YJB in 2006, I concluded that these could be very much more effective within an organisational ethos and structure dedicated to the secure care of young people. By that I meant a new service outside the prison system. We are not getting that, so the question is whether transformation can be driven from within it. I have my doubts.

Rob Allen

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According to this, there's trouble at Interserve:-

Interserve shares lose a third as waste project costs rise

UK support services group increases provision on business turning rubbish into biogas. Shares in Interserve fell by almost a third on Monday after the British support services and construction company revealed it had sharply underestimated costs on its business that derives energy from waste.

Interserve, which employs 80,000 staff running businesses including probation services and healthcare at home, raised the provision on its failed waste division from £70m to £160m. Most of the charge is linked to a plant in Glasgow, which is designed to turn rubbish into biogas that will provide electricity to the National Grid. Interserve had been hired by Viridor, the waste collection company, to build the £154m plant but the project was hit by substantial delays and difficulties with subcontractors. Interserve was dismissed from the job last November. 

The company said previously that it would pull out of the waste-to-energy sector. That involved quitting another six waste-to-energy contracts with revenues worth more than £400m. Interserve said on Monday that it expected “a lengthy period of litigation” over its sacking from the Glasgow plant. It also warned it could be harder and take longer than expected to get money back from third parties as its main gasification subcontractor, Energos, was in administration. Some analysts doubted the updated provision was sufficient. 

Joe Brent, analyst at Liberum, said: “We can have no confidence the provision is adequate.” He added that Interserve “faces a whole range of trading challenges”. These include the increase in the national living wage, which could push up labour costs, and its domiciliary care business, which has been hit by cuts in local authority funding.

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Finally, it looks like the Probation Institute is at last popping it's head above the parapet with something to say on at least one element of the TR omnishambles:-