The situation has been compounded by the typical civil service command and control ethos having been enthusiastically and disgracefully embraced by many pre-TR probation managers and enforced by repeated threats of disciplinary action for even daring to think of speaking out. Despite all the anodyne and inconsequential guff on numerous NPS management Twitter feeds, there are growing signs of unrest in the ranks:-
"Not a word, not a peep from NPS senior managers about the crisis in the service, re-unification, supporting staff, ensuring the smooth running of services etc. I realise that this is a private company which has gone to the wall but it has implications for the entire service and those who call themselves leaders should make their voices heard. Who said the emperor has got no clothes?"
Despite having successfully purged many experienced staff, I'm still aware from a variety of sources that all is definitely not well within NPS, a state of affairs being highlighted especially by new recruits via the PQiP route I gather. Although the following relates to NPS North East (and thanks to the reader for sending me details), I'm pretty sure that matters alluded to darkly here are rife within much of NPS - a Service that will be running the whole of probation if the Napo reunification campaign succeeds:-
For the attention of all staff in Xxxxxxxxxx LDUC
Over the past few months, a number of issues have been brought to my attention in relation to behaviours in the Xxxxxxxxxx LDUC - far more than I am comfortable leaving to be dealt with locally.
As you know, we are committed to creating an environment built on mutual respect, inclusion, a willingness to learn, and one that is free from discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Therefore, whilst I acknowledge that these issues may not have affected you personally, I thought it important to reassure you all that I am taking these concerns seriously, and I am currently working with colleagues to put in place some measures to help explore matters further. I am anticipating that everyone in the LDUC will have an opportunity to contribute their views in due course.
Lynda
Lynda Marginson CBE
Director - National Probation Service (NE)
Director - National Probation Service (NE)
I have reason to understand that, having been suitably mesmerised by seductive postings on social media such as Facebook, significant numbers of newcomers are accusing HMPPS of serious 'misselling' of probation. I gather many are particularly disappointed to find little opportunity of spending time with clients and instead are faced with endless requirements for data entry and head-banging OASys. Apparently they are not taking kindly to a pervasive air of bullying and intimidation either and retention is becoming an issue. Of course it's difficult to know anything for sure since the civil service wall of secrecy so successfully descended on that part of the probation family.
*According to Wikipedia, 'misselling' is the deliberate, reckless, or negligent sale of products or services in circumstances where the contract is either misrepresented, or the product or service is unsuitable for the customer's needs.
Well done Lynda I say
ReplyDeleteAnyone who comes into contact with our service – and our people – can expect to be treated with fairness. What’s more, we’re working towards ensuring that our people reflect the communities we serve. And that our services meet our offenders’ needs. Some of the ways we’re improving diversity include:
Deleteacting robustly to challenge and eliminate harassment, bullying or prejudice
training our people in equality, human rights and diversity issues
providing assistive technology to people with specific needs
supporting recognised trade unions and staff associations
http://www.traintobeaprobationofficer.com/
"Simply looking at reconviction fails to take into account the complex journey, often with reverses, that it takes to lead someone to desistance from crime," he said. "There is a real danger that voluntary sector providers will be addressing the issues in people’s lives but this won’t be recognised in the payment-by-results system."
ReplyDeleteHe said the probation reforms seemed to be replicating a Work Programme model, with large private sector primes "hoovering up charities in their wake" and that mistakes made here could be repeated.
"Given there is no additional public money to expand the offender supervision, there is a huge danger that the voluntary sector emphasis on quality of work will be bulldozed by the private sector’s need to cut corners while still finding a profit for their shareholders," he said.
https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/probation-reforms-allow-charities-bid-payment-by-results-contracts/policy-and-politics/article/1181758
From 09 May 2013.
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/04/charities-social-enterprises-bids-for-primary-public-service-contracts
ReplyDeletePart of the problem was the sheer stamina needed to survive 13 months of formal procurement. Most problematic, though, was the MoJ’s insistence on a “parent company guarantee”, which ranged from £13m to £74m per contract area. This is similar to a parent guaranteeing the mortgage debt of their child so that if they miss a repayment the parent covers it. Here, what the “parent” is covering is service failure.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/probation-bailout-private-companies-170m-contracts-scrapped-a8465556.html
Until the current agreements end in 2020, CRCs will be given another £170m to cover huge losses, following a previous cash injection of £342m amid warnings they could collapse.
The boost is made up of £115m in waived penalties for failed reoffending targets, a £46m investment for offenders leaving prison and £9m in payments to “correct underpayments”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/probation-privatisation-contracting-disaster-transforming-rehabilitation-public-accounts-committee-a8265701.html
Public Accounts Committee demands assurances on companies' financial solvency following Carillion collapse
The Government’s part-privatisation of probation services are becoming a “contracting catastrophe” that could put both offenders and the public at risk, MPs have warned.
The Public Accounts Committee found that the £3.7bn Transforming Rehabilitation programme had not achieved the stated aims to improve how criminals are supervised and help them turn around their lives.
“The so-called ‘rehabilitation revolution’ is showing worrying signs of becoming a contracting catastrophe,” said Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the committee.
The firms were only intended to supervise low or medium-risk offenders, while the public sector NPS was charged with dangerous criminals, but a recent inspection found that overstretched CRCs were letting criminals commit violent offences while supposedly under their supervision.
HM Inspectorate of Probation revealed that thousands of offenders living in the community were being managed by a brief phone call every few weeks.
The Public Accounts Committee found that CRCs were performing “woefully” against their contracts, achieving only eight out of 24 targets on average.
Almost all have failed to meet targets for reducing rates of reoffending and the number of convicts being recalled to prison has spiked.
“These disappointing results raise questions about whether the current arrangements will be able to deliver the promised benefits before the contracts expire in 2021/22,” the report concluded.
Q151 Chair: What have you learned, in terms of setting and running a contract?
ReplyDeleteMichael Spurr: What we have learned are the more general points. We have to be commercially astute and forensic when we look at how we manage the contracts. We must have clear access to data to ensure that we have open transparency about how things are operating—you were talking about that earlier. In terms of our contracts, we have taken the NAO framework and we are forensically going through how we will apply it to contract management in the future. That is part of the work that we are doing as part of the wider MOJ response to improving and strengthening contract management across the Department.
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/7395
If we hadn't needed enough warning signs, the fact that the most senior civil servant in the Ministry of Justice doesn't know what the word "forensic" means should have been a massive red flag in itself
DeleteDrawing Blood From A Stone - the Reluctance of Civil Servants is Beyond Parody:
ReplyDeleteQ123 Mr Bacon: To come back to something that you mentioned right at the beginning, you spoke about having the shadow bid by an external assurer, and also said that there was another group that looked at, externally, what the external assurer had done. I take it that these external people are consultants.
Antonia Romeo: Perhaps I can clarify. Early on in the programme, we brought in a company to look at a shadow bid to ensure that what we were proposing to do in the early parts of the design would be workable. They did that shadow bid. Later on, before we went to ITN—
Dame Ursula Brennan: That is the invitation to negotiate.
Antonia Romeo: Sorry, before we went to the invitation to negotiate phase, we brought in an organisation that has helped us, and helped me as SRO, to ensure that the work that we have been producing within the Department has been of sufficient quality, and from the market’s point of view as well.
Q124 Mr Bacon: Who are these two organisations?
Antonia Romeo: The first was Ernst and Young, and the second was KPMG.
Q125 Mr Bacon: And how many consultants have you had working on the project so far?
Antonia Romeo: Do you mean in terms of numbers or in terms of firms?
Q126 Mr Bacon: I mean in terms of numbers, in terms of firms and in terms of cost.
Antonia Romeo: We talked earlier about having equality of arms, and there are people I have within the programme who have a lot of commercial expertise. One thing that I am quite clear on is that getting the contracts right is essential. I have also learned lessons from other Government projects, and elsewhere about insufficient assurance, perhaps, of the work that is coming up.
Q127 Mr Bacon: We looked specifically at assurance for major projects on this Committee. The NAO had a Report of that title, so it is not a surprise that there should be a line item of assurance; in fact, it is rather encouraging. I am just interested in how many consultants, how many firms and how much money?
Antonia Romeo: I do not know what the number of consultants is. We have used different types of consultants for different types of things.
Q128 Chair: How much have you spent? Can you tell us that? How much have you spent on consultants? I do not think that is commercially confidential.
Stephen Barclay: It is not commercially confidential if it is not limited to one firm, because the nature of paying a number of firms takes it away from commercial confidentiality.
Q129 Chair: How much have you spent so far on consultants?
Dame Ursula Brennan: The only reason why we are hesitating about this is that, as we have said from the start, you are catching us in flight in this process.
Q130 Chair: How much have you spent so far?
Dame Ursula Brennan: We have spent money on different types of things. In terms of things where we have actually paid consultants to do work in the way that Antonia has described and we have supplemented our own staff, which is not consultants but more—
Q131 Chair: How much have you spent so far, Dame Ursula? Across the piece, how much have you spent so far?
Antonia Romeo: So far, in the last numbers that I signed off, we had spent £9 million.
Q132 Mr Bacon: £9 million so far?
Antonia Romeo: Yes.
Mr Bacon: That is a moving figure, because we are catching you in flight.
Antonia Romeo: One number that is already in the public domain is that we had spent £3 million on legal advice
Q133 Mr Bacon: Is that separate from the £9 million?
Antonia Romeo: No, within the £9 million, because obviously in designing these contracts we need a lot of detailed, expert professional legal help. One other part of the provision would be for the people transitioning service, which is a group we brought in deliberately to support trusts in making the transition.
Q134 Mr Bacon: Is that part of the £9 million, or is that separate?
Antonia Romeo: Everything I am talking about is part of the £9 million.
Q109 Stephen Barclay: Could I ask how you, as SRO, are accountable once the project goes live, given that governance is transferred to the agency?
ReplyDeleteAntonia Romeo: Well, I think I am accountable for delivery of the benefits of the programme...
... Like many programmes, the programme started with a lot of policy development around Ministers’ objectives and there was policy development work. It quite quickly got into contractual, transition and implementation issues so the way we have been running the programme is to have the SRO, who has been with it from the beginning, and the chief executive of NOMS, who will be responsible for delivering the service once it goes live, as an integral part of the programme and responsible for the implementation board.
There will be a transition director, who again, is working with the programme so that we have transition joined into the programme as we design it, so that there is a seamless transfer once we have completed the share sale for NOMS to be able to take over something with which they have been embedded for many months as part of the programme. NOMS will be able to take over the programme and keep it running thereafter. Once it goes live, it is Michael Spurr’s responsibility as the chief executive of NOMS to manage the national probation service and to own the contracts with the community rehabilitation companies.
Q119 Stephen Barclay: Can we have a note to the Committee when we have some clarity, because the crux of this—and particularly the lessons of past projects—is how well you manage the contracts, particularly in a complex mechanism.
Antonia Romeo: This is a cross-MOJ programme, so Michael is on the board because he provides essential assurance on current business, business as usual and whether the programme will be deliverable and operable within NOMS. You would expect me to have legal advice, HR analysis, finance, all at director level on the programme, at a senior level. I make sure that people show up and speak for their responsibility.
We also have membership from the Treasury and from the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority to ensure that they have close scrutiny of what we are doing, of the detail and all aspects of the programme. There are also two non-executives on the board, one of whom is also a non-executive in NOMS, and is a former probation trust chief, and the other is a commercial adviser.
They're all excellent at looking after their own interests, beefing up their own CVs, inventing new phrases to exclude those not-in-the-club, creating jobs for themselves & their chums, but...
Delete... they're bleedin' incompetent at actually doing 'the job'.