Time to get back to TR2 folks. It was widely predicted that the voluntary sector would be used as 'bid candy' during TR, and it duly came to pass with those that were seduced subsequently shafted by the privateers. They've collectively cried foul ever since and now feel the time is right to exert some pressure. This from Clinks:-
Since the Ministry of Justice announced its decision to end current probation contracts early and consider a new model for probation from 2020 onwards, Clinks has been working to ensure that learning from our trackTR research is utilised and the voluntary sector has a central place in the future model.
In this blog, Jess Mullen, Clinks’ Head of Policy and Communications argues that in light of eight Community Rehabilitation Companies effected by collapse and administration and recent reports from HM Chief Inspector of Probation and the National Audit Office, the changes currently proposed for the future of probation do not go far enough. She outlines Clinks’ five recommendations to ensure the voluntary sector’s future role.
The current model – ‘irredeemably flawed’?
In her 2019 annual report, HM Chief Inspector of Probation states that the current probation model is irredeemably flawed. In recent weeks we have also seen eight Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) affected by collapse and administration, a number of CRCs rated by the inspectorate as under-performing, and the National Audit Office warns that the review programme risks repeating the mistakes of Transforming Rehabilitation.
Our response to the government’s consultation last summer recognised that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) remained committed to a split probation service in England, with supervision for low-medium risk offenders put to the market, alongside a proposal for an integrated service in Wales, where only accredited programmes and unpaid work would be contracted out.
We put forward recommendations on how to best enable the voluntary sector's role in both these models. Since the consultation closed we have worked closely with the MoJ and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to feedback on their developing proposals. Recent developments have led Clinks to agree with HM Chief Inspector of Probation; the current model needs a fundamental rethink and the changes currently proposed for the future do not go far enough.
Our TrackTR research highlighted the negative impact that the current model has had on the voluntary sector. In recent months we’ve seen even more clearly that this model has led to unacceptable levels of financial risk being passed to voluntary sector organisations in the supply chain.
Organisations are subsidising services, in part, as a result of the lack of sufficient resources for the model. And worse of all voluntary sector organisations have been left in hugely vulnerable situations when the operating model has failed. Nor have they been treated as an equal partner in planning for and mitigating against the collapse and failure of the model.
Organisations have also told us that they believe the model has had a negative impact on their service users and we have seen no improvement in outcomes for people with protected characteristics. In fact Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) has had a negative impact on specialist services for these groups. Our research shows that women-centred services, which are widely recognised as best meeting the needs of women in the justice system had worse experiences of TR and we have not been able to identify any specialist black, Asian and minority ethnic services engaged in CRC supply chains.
5 recommendations for the future
MoJ and HMPPS must seize the opportunity to put in place a model that will fully address the flaws in the current system and bring the sector with them in the delivery of a future model. If they don’t there is a danger that voluntary organisations will decide that getting involved in the delivery of future probation services presents too great a risk. As a result statutory services will lose the support of the sector’s 200 year legacy, experience and knowledge of working with people under probation supervision.
To ensure voluntary sector involvement the future probation model must:
1. Simplify the system and reconsider the commitment to contracting out
The enormity of resource involved in designing the currently proposed split model for England, delivering the competition and procurement, managing the contracts and monitoring service delivery could be better used in direct service delivery by a public sector probation service as is being proposed in Wales. Under this model only accredited programmes and unpaid work would continue to be contracted out.
2. Provide grant funding
Grant funding for the voluntary sector should be properly utilised to ensure the least possible risk for those least able to bear it. Effective use of grant making would reduce complex and expensive commissioning processes, sustain vital effective services and provide flexibility to give charities the space to innovate and find the best solutions for service users.
Commissioning strategies should make a proportion of budgets available as grant funding alongside other funding mechanisms. This would support a diverse voluntary sector providing the right mix of funding for a range of different sized organisations.
3. Tackle inequality
In her annual review, HM Chief Inspector of Probation stated that “it has proved well nigh impossible to reduce probation services to a set of contractual requirements”. This is particularly pertinent in considering the kind of flexible, individualised and holistic services needed to secure outcomes for people with protected characteristics. Further, contracting out probation services results in a blurring of responsibility and accountability for equalities outcomes. The current proposed ten contract package areas risks fragmentation of these services as well as disadvantaging small local and specialist organisations with knowledge and expertise to meet the needs of vulnerable cohorts.
Responsibility for equalities duties must be clear and supported by adequate grant funding for services to meet the needs of people with protected characteristics. Any contracted out services must have clearly specified requirements for meeting the needs of people with protected characteristics with a pass/fail criteria attached.
4. Ensure a local response
The majority of voluntary sector organisations working in criminal justice are small and locally based. The proposed move to ten co-terminus National Probation Service (NPS) and contracted provider areas could have a negative impact on these organisations. Commissioning strategies must ensure that the needs of the varied, diverse and specific localities within each probation area are met and must support and nurture further the existing eco system of voluntary sector organisations in each locality.
It must be recognised that only a handful of voluntary sector organisations would be in a position to consider bidding as prime contractors for probation services as currently proposed. The larger the contract package areas the more challenging this will be, limiting the potential overall share of the market that voluntary sector organisations are able to achieve. This will likely have the additional impact that contracts will not go to locally based organisations with existing relationships and track records in those areas.
5. Provide opportunities
The voluntary sector provides a wide range of services that support, and are often distinct from, the statutory probation supervision currently delivered by CRCs and the NPS. These services provide wrap around support and respond to changing need so that individuals are able to serve their sentence and go on to desist from crime and live fulfilling lives into the future.
Current Offender Management proposals see a role for the voluntary sector in the design and delivery of Rehabilitation Activity Requirements and Through the Gate (TTG) Services. To gain the confidence of the courts, Rehabilitation Activity Requirements will need to be specified and defined interventions and will bring voluntary organisations closer to an enforcement role than some have previously been in or will be comfortable with.
Through the gate services will be delivered in line with the current enhanced specification, which came into effect on 1st April, until year three of the new contracts, at which point the Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) model will be more fully embedded in prisons offering an opportunity to review TTG and better integrate with OMiC. However, voluntary sector involvement in the delivery of the enhanced specification is currently limited and it is disappointing that any significant changes to address the shortfalls of the current model will not be implemented until year three of the new contracts. It is also currently unclear what role is foreseen for the sector beyond year three of the contracts.
There must be opportunities and sufficient resource within and beyond Rehabilitation Activity Requirements for the voluntary sector to design and deliver what they do best - truly flexible, holistic and responsive desistance based services.
Clinks’ Head of Policy and Communications
Charity sector let ok on and weep. The privateer greed machine and exploitation agenda will not see any monies passed across. They will set targets for you to fail and keep or drag profit in kind for works. The contract will not specify a percentage to partners like trusts had to although they cheated the rules it sort of left room. Good luck but all should opt out let them sink.
ReplyDeleteI see no real difference between the third sector and the big outsourcing companies. They're all after a peice of the cake. The real concerns are not about how to provide good services, but how best to get a bigger slice of the cake on offer.
DeleteI have little sympathy for how the privateers treated the third sector with TR, particularly as they refused to listen to the warnings whilst still reeling from the damage caused by their involvement in the work programme.
It's all about the money.
Nacro for example bid for a TR contract in conjunction with Sodexo. But Nacro also won independently in 2016 a contract worth £25m to run bail hostels and provide housing for ex offenders.
Personally I feel that £25m should count as part of the overall cost of TR, and I'm suspicious of,
a. Just how much housing Nacro has provided?
b. How much of that housing has come from the £25m independent bid?
c. How much housing has come from their combined TR bid with Sodexo?
Truth is its all so incestuous and wrapped up with corporate confidentiality it would probably be impossible to determine.
There's a vast amount of third sector organisations working with offenders. They range from large national organisations that are little different then the outsources, to much smaller localised ones where the CEOs and organisers extract too big a wage and benefits to leave much money for the work that needs to be done.
Not all third sector organisations are bad, and there's brilliant and committed people working within them. But the third sector as a whole has become a capitalist endeavour today, where the focus is on obtaining money and funding rather then what could be achieved.
It's all about how big a slice of cake you can get, and it's sad.
'Getafix
Is Clinks too busy with its begging bowl to come up with anything other than a Probation Trust model. Voluntary and charity services are not really that when they run after huge grants and contracts to pay their directors huge sums. “Wrap around support” is the new buzzword which usually doesn’t amount to much. TTG is a failure, whether “enhanced” or not. Im out !
ReplyDeletehttps://theconversation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/theconversation.com/amp/charities-left-out-of-pocket-by-probation-scheme-for-ex-offenders-95836?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fcharities-left-out-of-pocket-by-probation-scheme-for-ex-offenders-95836
DeleteGovernments generally like charities and voluntary organisations. Time and again ministers say they want to harness the voluntary sector to improve public services. In 2014, the British government said the sector would be “at the forefront of a new fight against reoffending”. But the reality is sharply different, according to our new research.
DeleteWe’ve found that the voluntary sector has been sidelined and under resourced in the government’s new system for managing offenders once they leave prison – yet it’s propping that very system up at the same time. As a result, there’s a risk charities may decide to withdraw or boycott these public service schemes in the future.
Recent high-profile scandals have put charities and voluntary organisations under the spotlight. But the voluntary sector is still frequently praised for its work and encouraged to get more involved in turning around the lives of society’s most vulnerable people.
A prime example is the Transforming Rehabilitation programme, started by the Conservative-led coalition government, to change the way offenders are supervised before and after they leave prison. In 2015, the existing system of probation was dismantled, and the bulk of the work was transferred through 21 contracts across England and Wales to new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs).
The government told the voluntary sector that its involvement in the new system would be part of a “revolution” in working with offenders, such as in programmes to extend mentoring schemes for prisoners nearing release. The CRCs are now paid for the results they achieve in reducing reoffending.
The programme was heavily criticised when it was introduced and has continued to come under fire as the system has settled down. MPs on the Justice Select Committee are currently holding an inquiry into the Transforming Rehabilitation programme.
Meanwhile, performance in reducing reoffending rates has been underwhelming. Yet the government has continued to pump more money into the CRCs to support the work.
Charities on the margins
DeleteOver the last three years we’ve carried out surveys tracking the role and experience of voluntary organisations in the new rehabilitation system as part of a project called TrackTR, in association with Clinks, the umbrella body for voluntary organisations working with offenders and their families, and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.
Despite the government’s official rhetoric, the voluntary sector finds itself at the margins of the new system. When it comes to the organisations which have led winning bids for CRC contracts, private companies dominate. Very large voluntary organisations appear to have found a role in these contracts as junior partners or sub-contractors, but smaller organisations are largely overlooked. And many of the partnerships with voluntary sector organisations appear unsustainable.
Half of the sub-contracted voluntary organisations say their contracts are unsustainable, 37% say they’ve had to subsidise service delivery with other funding sources, and 35% have used their own reserves to support services.
Voluntary organisations told us they face increasing pressure to provide low-cost, short-term services, and think the quality of services has suffered as a result. The volume of offenders dealt with in the new system appears to have become more important than making a lasting difference. As a research participant from a voluntary organisation involved in the programme told us:
Our focus has shifted from client facing one-to-one support to delivering workshops and surgeries so that we can generate the volumes required.
The system appears to rely on voluntary organisations donating their own time and resources to support ex-offenders, whether they receive funding for this or not. Two thirds of voluntary organisations receive referrals of clients from CRCs without payment – this is simply not sustainable. The net effect is that the voluntary sector has ended up subsidising a core public service run largely by private organisations.
Outsourcing obstacles
The voluntary sector’s experience in this area begs questions about the bigger picture for public services. Transforming Rehabilitation continues a near 30-year process of public service reform – across governments of different shades – where ministers claim the voluntary sector should and will be centrally involved.
Politicians have chosen to think and talk about reforming public services along “market” lines, where new providers from the private and voluntary sectors are brought in to compete for service contracts, to shake things up a bit and drive costs down. But this whole approach is under greater critical scrutiny in the light of the recent collapse of commercial outsourcing firm Carillion and reported financial difficulties at others. A change in thinking may be in the air, which could see future governments reconsider the strategy of contracting out central and local government services.
The voluntary sector has tried to play a part in these “open” public services, using its voice and expertise to shape and deliver new services, yet with mixed results in different services and localities. Many organisations seem to fare rather badly, and face a bruising experience. They may wonder whether it is worth staying involved or withdrawing altogether.
The government should seriously reconsider how public services are organised, and voluntary organisations can help lead the debate about new ways of delivering services.
I find this very strange.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/sex-offender-jailed-after-probation-2757104
Whilst accepting its a newspaper account, I believe this is yet another example of the INTENDED consequence of NPS becoming Civil Servants, i.e. they must do the government's bidding and they are screened, vetted & appointed on that basis. In the current climate that means NPS are explicitly risk averse & overtly punitive, carrying out the government's policies of implementing a hostile environment for anyone they deem 'unsuitable', 'unworthy' or 'unwanted'. Equally the CRCs are ensnared by those policies as their funding is dependent upon meeting government targets.
DeleteWhilst this ongoing saga prevails spare a thought for the Prison Officer who has had his throat cut in HMP Nottingham. Lets hope they are OK and something more is done about safety of all staff, regardless of what bit of Prison/Probation they come from.
ReplyDelete