The Politics of Inspection

We are all familiar with a series of recent negative inspection reports of CRCs confirming what we all knew to be true, namely that TR is proving to be a complete disaster. It's all been getting a bit embarrassing for the MoJ and the question thus begged is, what is the government going to do about it?   

As we know, Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, recently announced a 'Consultation on standards and ratings for inspecting probation services', with a deadline for responses by 8 December. An important contribution to the discussion sees the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies today publish a briefing paper by probation insider and former Inspector Joe Kuipers 'Enable and Ensure: The role of inspection in probation'. The introduction is provided by Richard Garside, Director:-

Foreword

Probation in England and Wales is in crisis. Since the ill-conceived privatisation of most probation functions under the ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ programme in early 2015, the various parts of a now fragmented system have declined alarmingly. 

This decline has been chronicled in a series of reports from the probation inspectorate over the past few years. The Chief Inspector of Probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, has also made a number of critical interventions. In a speech in September this year, cited at the start of this briefing, Dame Glenys stated that the private probation companies were ‘not generally producing good quality work’ and that ‘the benefits that Transforming Rehabilitation promised’ were yet to be realised. 

The private companies, she also noted, were ‘financially stretched’. The government sought to allay these financial pressures earlier this year, with a financial bail-out to the struggling companies. Dame Glenys was publicly supportive of these moves. Others are less sure. As Joe Kuipers asks in this briefing, ‘how bad does a transformation have to get before those with power and influence actually advise that the plug needs to be pulled’. 

In contrast to these big policy issues, the question of the appropriate standards and ratings for probation work will strike some as rather narrow, possibly arcane. But as Joe Kuipers shows in this briefing, effective inspection is essential to ‘enable improvement and to ensure that what a service is expected to achieve is indeed being achieved’. Setting the bar too low risks offering an overly generous picture of a service facing systemic problems. With the Ministry of Justice wishing to reduce its own oversight function, the role of independent and robust probation inspection is that much more important. 

Effective inspection also has a political dimension. The proposal, highlighted in this briefing, to conduct separate inspections of the National Probation Service and the private probation companies could risk consolidating the fractured and disjointed service that many consider to be at the heart of the current problems with probation. 

The future of probation inspection, as this briefing makes clear, is key to the broader debate about the future direction of probation delivery.

Richard Garside, Director

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The Probation Inspectorate (HMIP) Consultation on standards and ratings for inspecting probation services – launched on 8 November, with a deadline for responses by 8 December – is comprehensive, necessarily quite complex, and well referenced. It has already been subject to detailed discussions, meaning that this consultation exercise is quite limited. It appears that much has been decided. Responses are focused on nine questions; question nine does open the way for more general comments. The formatted response document is described as needing just 15 – 20 minutes to complete, quite a challenge if serious and detailed commentary is being sought. The consultation document itself is 44 pages long. 

This briefing addresses some key background information and then asks questions of the consultation document, and tries to provide some ideas for improving the proposed HMIP approach. In many respects I cover all nine questions, but maybe not as neatly as HMIP might like. I make no apologies for this. HMIP is asking about complex issues.

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The briefing paper is obviously worth reading in full, but this seems to be absolutely key:-

Probation oversight 

Paragraphs 1.5 – 1.8 set out the HMIP role in probation oversight. The focus will be on inputs and activities, in some way separated from outputs, outcomes and impact. This raises two questions: 

Dame Glenys has been critical of standards that she describes as ‘processy’. Surely looking at inputs and activities requires a degree of specificity? As a general critique of the standards, many of the prompts leave far too much unspecified and do not state clearly exactly what is required of providers. Many of the qualitative questions in relation to offender assessment are excellent and remind me of those asked when we undertook the work on pre-sentence reports (PSRs) and offender assessment inspections some years ago, but there is no specificity about by when such an assessment should be completed. It seems unwise to leave this wholly open-ended, especially in terms of risk assessment and planning, most concerning with the more regular absence of good PSRs. Quite properly in the section on implementation the issue of timely commencement of the sentence requirements is acknowledged, but what is meant by ‘promptly’ or ‘at an appropriate time’? 

Inspectors’ interpretations will be open to challenge when, with managerial consent, either commencement or assessment may be delayed beyond a specified period. And, should HMIP not establish some minimum requirements concerning levels of contact, which again can be varied with managerial agreement? What constitutes prompt allocation of a PSR? What is a timely resettlement plan? What is acceptable in terms of failed appointments? I could go on, and my concerns relate to lack of clarity for providers, inspector and inspection variability of approach, and most crucially failing to provide key stakeholders (sentencers) with grounds to be confident in probation service delivery. Discretion is a wonderful thing, but it also poses great dangers for individual staff facing a serious further offence investigation. Some stakes in the ground would at least enable inspectors to ask why supervision falls outside the perimeter. And, the ‘liberation’ from national standards after TR has no doubt contributed to the very variable and generally very poor inspection findings. 

Secondly, how will HMIP marry up inspection findings to outputs, outcomes and impact? Further clarity on this aspect would be helpful. I presume if a sentence plan refers to accommodation or employment needs then their achievement might be recorded and should be measurable elements of inspection?

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Conclusion

As stated at the outset, there is much to commend in the HMIP proposals. Not least of all, it has produced a very comprehensive document for consultation. However, I have raised a number of questions and suggested various remedies that would enable HMIP to achieve the impact it is seeking. It will not achieve any impact if an overgenerous system is put in place, a system that potentially satisfies the MoJ and providers but one that fails to properly highlight that which is just not acceptable. Dame Glenys refers to inspectors being able to see the wet paint in terms of how services prepare for inspection. I sincerely hope that HMIP does not apply more gloss. 

Dame Glenys asked if probation services can deliver what we all want and expect. Her affirmative answer was predicated on the right conditions, amongst other factors. Regrettably I do not share her optimism. Despite what will be the best efforts of HMIP, and the best possible methodologies, those conditions will not exist whilst probation remains fractured and disjointed.

Joe Kuipers

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To help put this into political context, thanks go to the recent contributor for locating the following from official Parliamentary sources. (I've left in the contributors comments and they appear in italics.)

Excerpt from Lords' Hansard for 31/10/17:

The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, we undertook an internal review of the probation system and, as a result, made changes to ​community rehabilitation company contracts in the summer. Details of these changes were contained in a Written Ministerial Statement from Minister Gyimah on 19 July. We are continuing to explore further improvements that could be made to the delivery of probation services and will set out at a later stage any changes that are made as a result of this work.

Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Clearly, all is not well with probation. Following a whole series of disappointingly and devastatingly bad reports by the chief inspector, the Justice Select Committee launched an inquiry. Following the bad contracting, during the summer the Ministry of Justice had to bail out community rehabilitation companies to the tune of £277 million, which it can ill afford. Many of the warnings in the official impact assessment that the rushed Transforming Rehabilitation agenda had a higher than average risk of failure have been proved correct. Can the Minister tell the House what the Government are going to do about probation? Will they make time for a debate on the subject before the end of the year?

Lord Keen of Elie
On that last point, I cannot say that the Government will be able to make time for a debate on the subject before the end of the year. On the suggestion of bad contracting, I would point out that contracts were entered into with 21 CRCs, and that those contracts encountered some financial difficulty for one particular reason—namely, it was originally anticipated that some 80% of those undertaking probation would be referred to the 21 community rehabilitation companies. In the event, only about 60% of those subject to probation supervision were referred to the companies, and that impacted directly upon their financial model as determined under the original contracts. For that reason, interim arrangements were made with the CRCs in the year 2016-17, and in the current year. However, the figure of £277 million referred to by the noble Lord is not a fixed figure: it may have to be met, depending on the performance of the CRCs.

Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, morale in Northumbria’s probation service and CRC is at a low level because of understaffing, with 50% of officers leaving the service, excessive workloads, less supervision and the need to concentrate on high-risk cases at the expense of other cases. This is exemplified by case loads of 40, including four to five high-risk cases, now being replaced by much higher case loads, with a greater proportion of high-risk cases and problems with escalating cases from the CRCs to the National Probation Service. What do the Government regard as a satisfactory case load for officers to manage in terms of overall numbers and the balance between high-risk and other cases?

Lord Keen of Elie
There is no fixed proportion as between officers and the number of persons being supervised. That will depend upon the particular CRC and the circumstances in which it is engaged with the individual. The National Probation Service is in the course of recruiting 1,400 additional staff. In addition, the CRC contracts require providers to ensure that they have sufficient adequately trained staff in place. ​Indeed, results tend to bear that out. Nearly two-thirds of CRCs have reduced the number of people reoffending in the past year, according to statistics up to June 2017.

Clearly probation is not a pressing issue & all is well. *HMI Probation reports were manna to Lidington (post to follow)*

Commons Hansard, 31 Oct 2017:

Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
But is it not the case that according to the Ministry of Justice’s own figures, there is a direct correlation between the length of a prison sentence and the likelihood of an offender reoffending? In other words, the longer that somebody spends in prison, the less likely it is that they are going to reoffend.

Mr Lidington
It is true that short-term sentences appear to have the least effect in reduced reoffending, but the comparison with them is with alternative community sentences, which are available for that similar type of crime. Those community sentences work best when they link up with services such as drug and alcohol treatment programmes sometimes provided by other authorities in the community.

Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I think the whole House will agree that community sentences function only when magistrates have trust in the people supervising them. Last year, thousands of community sentences were served in London alone. Will the Secretary of State therefore commit today to an urgent independent review of the performance of the London company responsible for supervising many of these community sentences in London, following the revelations in last week’s “Panorama” investigation that the London CRC—community rehabilitation company—had failed to act on 15,000 missed appointments over 16 months?

Mr Lidington
Of course, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the company responsible has denied some of the claims that were made in the “Panorama” programme. None the less, it is quite clear that missed appointments are a serious matter. We expect the London CRC, like other CRCs, to take appropriate action. I believe that in the independent inspectorate of probation we have precisely ​the kind of independent body that he has called for. It is currently looking again at London and we look forward to its next report.

Richard Burgon
I hear the Secretary of State’s reassurances about the delivery of community sentences by the so-called CRCs, but for us to be absolutely sure about this, I argue that we need to know the advice that the Minister has had about the failure of the CRCs. The “Panorama” documentary revealed an in-house MOJ paper warning of the risks of handing much of the supervision of community sentences to the private sector through the privatisation of probation. Will the Secretary of State make that memo public so that we and the House can ensure that those flaws are being tackled?

Mr Lidington
I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to a document that was produced some years ago. It is important now that in addressing the underperformance of some areas of the probation service, we act on the recommendations from the independent probation inspectorate and seek, through the contractual mechanism, to drive up standards to where the public would expect them to be.

So Dame Glenys is Lidington's escape route - and her insistence on increasing funding for the CRCs completes the feedback loop. And Sam Gyimah doesn't shy away from using Dame Glenys either; this from Written Answers:

Richard Burgon:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the criticism of the use of booths in probation work contained in the HM Inspectorate of Probation report, The effectiveness of probation work in Cumbria, published in October 2017. 

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the settings used by community rehabilitation companies to meet service users; and if he will make a statement. 

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on public safety of the use of booths by probation services; and if he will make a statement.

Sam Gyimah The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
In her report, the Chief Inspector of Probation found that the work of probation services in Cumbria was good, with exceptional practice at the CRC, and that the work of the CRC was the best they had seen since the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms.

We recognise that it is important that offenders and probation staff can meet in an environment appropriate for their specific needs, and that public safety also forms part of those considerations. I expect the CRC to take note of, and act on the Chief Inspector’s recommendations. Our contract management teams will continue to monitor and robustly manage providers closely to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments to maintain service delivery, reduce reoffending, protect the public and provide value for money to the taxpayer.

Again Dame Glenys is being used to justify CRCs, but her glowing words are presented without context. I think we ought to know who are these mysterious, robust 'contract management teams', & what do they actually do? Cos there aint no sign of any robust contract management yet... unless it's handing over untold £millions of public money when the CRCs plead poverty?