Another Day - Another Damning Report

Yet again, Dame Glenys Stacey, HMI Probation, provides us with plenty of evidence of the on-going TR omnishambles, this time in Northamptonshire:-   

Foreword

This is the first inspection of adult probation work undertaken by a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) owned by Sodexo Justice Services in partnership with Nacro. We report on probation services provided in Northamptonshire by the South East & Eastern division of the National Probation Service (NPS) and the CRC. 

The quality of NPS work was reasonably good overall, but there are nevertheless issues for leaders to address. There are notable variations in the quality of work from office to office, and an ongoing and unnecessary tension in the division’s relationship with the CRC which leaders must resolve, in the interests of service users in both the NPS and the CRC.

Sodexo has an ambitious and conceptually sound operating model for its CRCs. Designed to engage the service user fully and address their readiness to change, it adopts a strengths-based approach. It makes a great deal of sense. 

Leaders are enthusiastic about the model, but regrettably it is nowhere near fully implemented in Northamptonshire or (we understand) elsewhere. The prioritisation tool and an impressive case assessment and planning tool central to the model are not yet in place, in large part because the long-awaited, essential strategic (IT) gateway that will allow for critical case data and information to flow is still not available. 

Sodexo has implemented other aspects of the model on its understanding with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service that the gateway would be here long before now. With the benefit of hindsight, leaders may reflect on whether part-implementation has served the organisation well, albeit some changes were no doubt necessary for pressing financial reasons. Certainly it has been problematic for staff and service users. Changes to the estate have been testing, staffing levels have oscillated, available interventions are under-used, and staff are now unclear about key processes. What is more, committed but stretched local leaders do not have a good enough grasp of, and hold on the quality of work actually being delivered. 

We acknowledge that we have looked at work completed during a significant time of transformation for the CRC. We found, however, that the work of the CRC was simply not good enough. There was too little evidence of effective work to reduce reoffending and protect the public, and an increased risk that service users would not fulfil the requirements of their sentence. 

We understand the strategic (IT) gateway is at the validation stage. The sooner it is implemented and the CRC’s financial situation is stabilised and made certain, the better. Only then will we see whether Sodexo and its local leaders, managers and staff can apply this innovative operating model well, and really deliver.

Dame Glenys Stacey 

HM Chief Inspector of Probation 

April 2017

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The following are comments relating to CRC effectiveness:-

Protecting the public  

Overall, the quality of work was poor. 

The CRC was not sufficiently focused on public protection. Too many cases were assigned to staff without the skills and support needed to investigate, recognise and respond effectively to risk of harm. This undoubtedly affected the quality of information provided to, and focus of work by, partner agencies. Too little work was being delivered, for instance to reduce the likelihood of domestic abuse, and there were shortcomings in the consistency and effectiveness of joint working with the police and children’s social care services, leaving victims and their children more vulnerable than necessary. 

There was a lack of leadership, oversight and quality assurance for public protection work. Responsible officers were confused about the guidance available and how to access it, and unsure of the range of interventions available to help them manage risk of harm.

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Reducing reoffending 

Overall, the quality of work was poor. 

Responsible officers did too little to understand the key factors linked to service users’ offending behaviour. This led to limited sentence planning. There was greater focus on meeting sentence planning targets than meaningfully engaging with service users to get the plan right. Progress was slow and in many cases there were delays in delivering the interventions service users needed to support their desistance from offending.

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Abiding by the sentence  

Overall, the quality of work was unsatisfactory, although there were examples of innovative practice to encourage service users to comply with their sentences. 

Some responsible officers had an excellent rapport with service users, and were taking account of their individual needs and striving to remove barriers to engagement. Others had no relationship with them. This is quite at odds with the CRC’s operating model intentions, and in a number of cases it was uncertain whether the CRC would deliver the legal requirements of the sentence. 

The CRC’s ability to influence change was limited by, in a number of cases, the length of time between appointments and the organisation’s failure to initiate breach proceedings. As such, the court was not always aware that service users were not complying with their sentences and, therefore, was not able to take action to address this.

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The operating model in practice 

In Northamptonshire, the model is not fully implemented and is not working at all as intended. Implementation of most key tenets of the operating model had faltered: we found little progress since we inspected Bedfordshire LDU informally in February and March 2016, when piloting our inspection methodology. The main stumbling block is that the all-important planned new IT systems have not been implemented yet, and the organisation has no clear interim operating model. 

The administrative hubs were up and running, but some processes remain under development. Cases that would have been assessed as green, for management by the hub, were still being managed locally by responsible officers, keeping their caseloads high. The planned biometric technology (finger-print recognition) had not been implemented. Like others, BeNCH was still waiting for the long promised national Strategic Partner Gateway to enable the secure flow of information between HMPPS and the CRC. Without the prerequisite IT systems, the CRC was unable to realise the full benefits of having most of its case administration managed by the hub or of introducing ‘Closeness to Change’ or Justice Star, the new practice management tools on which the new case prioritisation model relied. 

On the face of it, Sodexo’s plan was a sound one. The company had anticipated implementing new IT systems by autumn 2015. Changes to the estate would follow, and a workforce redundancy programme was timed to meet the anticipated efficiency savings to be brought about by new working practices. A 12 month redundancy programme was introduced in the spring of 2015, but without new IT systems, the organisation and its staff were left in limbo with some staff uncertain about interim or longer-term processes and responsibilities. 

This is an ambitious change programme, and it is difficult to understand why Sodexo gave so little attention to contingency planning, and went ahead with large-scale redundancies, given the clear dependencies and inherent risks. What is more, interim operating arrangements are now patchy, and unclear to many staff. The CRC had held workshops to introduce the new operating model and case management tools to staff but in reality, responsible officers were unable to gauge how far the model had been implemented, and which of any available new tools they should be using. 

Managers in Northamptonshire described their focus now as crisis management and contractual targets, with little time to concentrate on the quality of practice and outcomes.

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The Hub 

BeNCH had involved staff of all levels in the design and implementation of its administrative hub, including agreeing and piloting processes with their input. Managers communicated proactively with practitioners, briefing them about changes in processes as these developed. Responsible officers, however, were still confused about processes and responsibilities in key areas such as enforcement.

There was a tension in the relationship between the hub and local practitioners, with the latter describing the hub as “the elephant in the room”. More than one local practitioner worried that “hub systems are automated and service users are not” and “the hub does not deal with the complexity of the lives of our service users”. 

Hub teams were arranged around processes, and this added work for the responsible officer and had an impact on the service user’s experience. For example, a service user who failed to attend an appointment would receive two letters, one from the enforcement team and one from the appointments team. 

Without the anticipated new IT systems, many hub processes depended on the correct use of the current case management system, nDelius. This had a substantial, negative impact on the smooth running of administrative processes. Responsible officers were improving their use of nDelius, but nevertheless there were still variations in their practice. Moreover, nDelius is unreliable, with system updates and failures making it periodically unavailable to staff. 

Regrettably, delays in implementing key aspects of the operating model had led to a perhaps avoidable disconnect and tension between the hub and the field. A number of seemingly trivial but exasperating issues were affecting practitioners, and inhibiting staff confidence in BeNCH systems. So for example, practitioners must scan completed induction packs through the IT network to the hub when they do not always have access to the necessary equipment, and the provision of evidence to accept a service user absence is presented locally but needed centrally. 

Wider stakeholder confidence in the CRC was adversely affected by difficulties in communicating with the hub. This led to frustration for Northamptonshire staff, operational partners, service users and the NPS. As a consequence, CRC responsible officers circumvented the BeNCH communications model and provided their direct contact details.

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The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s report on adult probation services in Northamptonshire, published today (Thursday 20 April).

The report states that the publicly-run National Probation Service (NPS), responsible for supervising people deemed to present a high risk of reoffending, was performing reasonably well. However, inspectors criticised the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC), which is owned by Sodexo in partnership with Nacro and tasked with managing medium- and low-risk cases. They found that the CRC was not doing enough to prevent reoffending and was not focused enough on protecting the public.

Too little work was being delivered to reduce the likelihood of domestic violence. Problems with the CRC’s work with police and children’s services left victims and their children more vulnerable than necessary. Staffing shortages made it hard for people to get on to accredited programmes, leaving some unable to fulfil the requirements of their sentences and unable to get the help they needed.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: 

“The break-up of the public probation service, with a large part of it handed to 21 private companies, was supposed to turn lives around, reduce reoffending and make us all safer. Today’s report is the latest in a series of inspections showing how this has failed, increasing the risk to the public and letting down people who are trying to change their lives. A general election is only seven weeks away, and one of the first challenges for a new government will be to sort out this mess. It is time to end the dangerous experiment of ‘community rehabilitation companies’ and return to the single, successful, probation service that we used to have.”

Among the problems identified in the report was Sodexo’s reliance on an IT interface – to be provided by Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service – that is not yet ready. Sodexo went ahead with implementing its new operational model anyway and made staff redundant.

Inspectors said that it was “difficult to understand why Sodexo gave so little attention to contingency planning, and went ahead with large-scale redundancies, given the clear dependencies and inherent risks”.