This from the Institute for Government:-
Probation outsourcing is a case study in failure
The Ministry of Justice has announced that it will bring the management of all offenders back in-house, a landmark decision which reverses reforms initiated six years ago by Chris Grayling. The then Justice Secretary, ignoring warnings that his reforms wouldn’t work, outsourced the management of all medium- and low-risk offenders in England and Wales to private companies.
The failure of those reforms have led to poorer services for offenders, adding to pressures on prisons and increasing risks to the public. While it will bring its own challenges, re-nationalising services is the right decision, and this damaging episode shows why government must get crucial outsourcing decisions right.
The failure of those reforms have led to poorer services for offenders, adding to pressures on prisons and increasing risks to the public. While it will bring its own challenges, re-nationalising services is the right decision, and this damaging episode shows why government must get crucial outsourcing decisions right.
Failures gave the Ministry of Justice little choice
The Chief Inspector of Probation concluded that the outsourcing of probation was ‘irredeemably flawed’ – out of the 21 companies delivering probation services, she has found 80% to be inadequate in at least one key area, and many in several. The National Audit Office said the MoJ’s rushed approach had ‘set itself up to fail’, and there was ‘little evidence’ of promised innovations. The Public Accounts Committee found 19 companies have failed to meet targets for reducing the frequency of re-offending per offender, leading to an increase of 22% between 2011 and 2017. Between January 2015 to September 2018, the number of offenders recalled to prison for breaching their licence conditions increased by 47%.
At the heart of these problems, as the inspector said, is that ‘probation is a complex social service and it has proved well-nigh impossible to reduce probation services to a set of contractual requirements’. Working Links, which ran probation services in the South West, collapsed in February after the inspector found its leaders had focussed on avoiding financial penalties from missing contractual targets rather than improving the performance of services.
Bringing services back in-house is the right decision, but it won’t be an instant fix
David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, has said the Government will bring the management of probation services back in-house in 2021, while retaining a role for the private and voluntary sector in delivering ‘innovative’ services. As he admitted, the department has proved unable to design a contract that delivers good quality services. And the National Probation Service (NPS) has consistently been performing much better at managing high-risk offenders.
But while he is right to take responsibility by bringing services in-house, the change in approach won’t bring an instant fix. The NPS will face many of the same pressures that providers have faced, including the effects of problems in prisons such as worsening rehabilitation. And the transition creates its own difficulties which the department will need to navigate. It will involve a major reorganisation, with the responsibilities of 21 companies being converted into 11 regions which don’t naturally fit with the boundaries of other services including health, policing and local authorities. Hundreds of thousands of cases will need to be transferred. And the department will need to secure extra funding, given current levels of spending were based on many of the companies being loss-making.
Government should use probation as a case study in how not to contract out services
A flawed decision, a rushed procurement, the failure to find a model that worked, several suppliers collapsing, and ultimately, poor quality services affecting tens of thousands of offenders, their families and the public – the story of probation over the last six years is a case study of why government needs to improve the way it makes key outsourcing decisions.
Despite clear warnings from the Institute for Government, other industry experts and many suppliers, the department outsourced services with inexperienced suppliers and no evidence that they could make the contract work. As Meg Hillier, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, recently said, ‘the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the Major Projects Review Group share responsibility for these failures [for] providing insufficient challenge’.
Yet while probation is an extreme case, as new IfG research published later this summer will show, it is far from the only example of government using outsourcing poorly in areas or ways that don’t deliver benefits and bring negative outcomes. While its impact is yet to be seen, the Cabinet Office’s Outsourcing Playbook – a guidance document for officials – published in February, is an important effort to address this. It is notable that the probation reforms would fail most of the Playbook’s tests.
The decision to renationalise probation is a landmark case of government recognising that outsourcing hasn’t worked. The Ministry of Justice has said that it will ‘build on the successful elements of the current system’. Government would do better to seriously learn from all those unsuccessful elements which made that system fail on so many levels.
Tom Sasse
--oo00oo--
The voluntary sector clearly see a chance to get a bigger slice of the action:-
Earlier this morning the Justice Secretary, David Gauke, announced new plans to reform the probation service as we know it. Reforms will be made for the National Probation Service to become stronger in light of the challenges faced by the previous privatisation of low and medium risk case management.
Leading on this monumental change, Gauke is looking for “a smarter justice system that reduces repeat crime by providing robust community alternatives to ineffective short prison sentences - supporting offenders to turn away from crime for good.”
The key elements of the Probation Reform will see:
1. The National Probation Service regaining overall responsibility of all Offender Management offering one consistent service
2. Up to £280 million invested in voluntary and private sector organisations to deliver innovative rehabilitation services - £20 million per year to invest in particularly innovative approaches
3. A holistic approach to services to cut reoffending and reduce crime. This will involve bringing a whole range of providers together to address a range of issues that contribute to reoffending
4. Investment in a digital and data strategy that will better utilise technology to inform the professional judgment of probation officers
5. Probation officers subject to a statutory regulatory framework that will hold them accountable to similar professional standards faced by doctors and lawyers
Three launch events discussing the reforms in more depth held the week commencing 27th May in London, Cardiff and Manchester; this will be open to stakeholders.
What does this mean for the voluntary sector?
As a member of the voluntary sector, this is always the first question I ask when a new government initiative is launched. This Probation Reform, however, clearly spells out what this could do for community led organisations.
There is a clear desire from the MoJ to see the voluntary sector better utilised to deliver ‘holistic’ services to service users. I am hoping this will see closer collaboration amongst a range of providers including: health, housing, substance misuse, employment support, therapy, community reengagement and services that build on people’s soft skills and resilience.
The £280 million investment in the voluntary and private sector, along with making it easier for them to provide services by reducing bureaucracy, is a significant step in the right direction. I hope to see more 'grassroot' services that intuitively know the confines of the Isle of Wight or the intricacies of central Birmingham delivering relevant, appropriate and locally supported services. I believe this will see greater engagement from service users and ultimately a reduction in reoffending.
Whilst the £280 million will predominantly contribute to the day-to-day running of voluntary and private sector services in the probation service, I believe the real opportunity comes with the £20 million that has been set aside for particularly innovative and new approaches to reducing reoffending.
It is time for the voluntary sector to work together
Under current funding models, it is more common than not that voluntary sector organisations, who largely do impactful work, are competing for scraps of funding where true collaboration is not financially viable.
What if there was a model that could be adopted that enables seed/mobilisation funds to be distributed to as many eligible providers as possible, see the uniformity of success/impact measurement, and ensure the MoJ would only pay the full sum upon truly successful contract completion?
We believe there is a way
Offploy has been researching the idea of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) for some time now and, inspired by the Peterborough SIB, we are convinced this could be one of the main answers to creating a thriving, collaborating voluntary sector that offers choice to both service user and commissioner.
We think it would be a great idea to see SIBs that package a whole range of support services that meet the needs of a variety of service users. The model is such that it will have provision to deliver both the core services for the many and also the ‘call off’ services that may only be required for a handful of service users. This would offer a service appropriate to every service user ensuring it is accessible to all and will offer the greatest impact to individuals and to society.
This approach could see the MoJ form an agreed social impact methodology for measuring the reduction/frequency of reoffending and the impact these SIBs would have on society.
It could see start-up capital go towards the mobilisation of multiple providers of one or many SIBs who have secured private investment. This will enable the provider to bridge the payment gap between mobilisation and delivery and only the MoJ would only pay out to those who deliver on the agreed outcomes.
The key bit: The risk sits with the lenders as opposed to the traditional payment by results model where the risk sits with the delivery organisations.
This comes at an ideal time when social lenders are more open and eager than ever to lend to social projects that can offer a return on investment on top of a positive social impact.
Under this model, we would see:
- better funded voluntary sector providers;
- longer-term contracts potentially spanning four to seven years;
- significantly lower risk to the commissioner;
- most importantly, appropriate, local services often built in collaboration with the very service users they support.
We are keen to collaborate and we are also keen to see this happen in many locations. Whilst we will focus on as many providers as possible coming together under this model in the Yorkshire and Humber region, we would be keen to hear the thoughts of organisations or individuals with an interest or previous experience in Social Impact Bonds from all over the country and how this could be mobilised.
Further reading on Social Impact Bonds
GO Lab
GOV.UK
Big Society Capital
About Offploy Community Interest Company
Offploy is on a mission to reduce reoffending and make society safer by placing people with criminal convictions into meaningful, mentored and sustainable employment.
Our peer-led service sees people with criminal convictions peer mentored through a nine step journey, which addresses an individual's employability and pastoral needs; this will support our candidates into sustainable employment.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/how-not-to-run-a-justice-policy-as-chris-grayling-probation-reforms-halted-the-yorkshire-post-says-1-9773337
ReplyDeleteTHIS newspaper is the first to welcome the Government’s belated decision to halt the part-privatisation of probation services, a disastrous legacy of Chris Grayling’s tenureship of the Ministry of Justice.
DeleteThe reforms had already lost the confidence of the public before a “horrifying case” where an offender under the supervision of the Probation Service stole a lorry which hit – and killed – 58-year-old grandmother Jacqueline Wileman in Brierley near Barnsley.
Though an internal review will establish whether the reckless actions of David Mellor – jailed for 13 years for causing death by dangerous driving – could have been avoided, the intervention by David Gauke, the current Justice Secretary, is timely.
He is now presiding over the creation of the National Probation Service which will take over management of low and medium-risk cases that are currently handled by private providers. Bringing together expertise from the private and voluntary sectors, his intention is “a smarter justice system that reduces repeat crime by providing robust community alternatives to ineffective short prison sentences”.
It is also right that the MoJ takes full responsibility for this rather than sub-contracting its criminal justice responsibilities – and expectations – to other organisations because Mr Grayling, the current Transport Secretary, did not know better (a familiar failing).
But it would also be remiss of the Government – and Parliament – not to learn wider lessons from a failure which appears to be yet another textbook example of how not to change policy. At the very least, a select committee inquiry should examine why scrutiny was so ineffective when the policy was being drawn up, why it took the Government so long to react – and the wider cost to society through wasted money and the heartbreak suffered by victims.
If we haven't seen any "innovative" approaches to reoffending (as opposed to innovative ways of cutting staff without paying the going rate) in the last 4-5 years, isn't that a fairly good signal that there aren't really any left to discover?
ReplyDeleteImagine if this had happened in a large company, listed on the London Stock Market. A director forces through a major organisational change without a clear rationale, against all advice from experts and without testing it first. Brooking no opposition, he goes on to push the reforms through at an unrealistically fast pace, with the deliberate intention of making them harder to reverse later. The outcome for the company is exactly as predicted... the reforms don’t work, there are numerous and serious customer complaints, the company loses credibility, and a very large amount of money.
ReplyDeleteThe director responsible would almost certainly lose his job. If this didn’t happen before the next shareholder AGM, it would happen very soon after. So why are the consequences not the same in government as in business?
For me, the big story is more than simply a botched privatisation. It’s about the personalities involved and the lack of checks and balances. Surely, as UK PLC’s director responsible for the criminal justice system, Grayling’s role should have been to ask probing questions, to test assumptions, to heed advice, to operate on facts and to insist on a cautious, reversible approach. He did none of this, and so in my opinion he is not fit to hold a senior position within the government. But it looks as though he will get away without even having to explain or apologise. This is plain wrong.
Renationalisation is great, but just announcing it won't make it happen.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of things to change, and I'd suggest there's not a lot of time left until the current contracts expire to implement all that needs to be done.
I'd like to see the MoJ being pushed to make a statement on how they plan to go about renationalisation, what's the process, and what impacts there's likely to be on things like OMIC.
A botched privatisation followed by a botched renationalisation wouldn't be in anyone's interest.
'Getafix
Managing a medium sized homeless charity we would sooner p*** glass than work with the MOJ
ReplyDelete" As he admitted, the department has proved unable to design a contract that delivers good quality services"
ReplyDeleteAnd yet those who designed it all won big awards and were highly praised going on to bigger things - I think one is involved in the Brexit arrangements - but I am not sure exactly.
Presumably the awards were really for getting something done in the time span allowed - unfortuantely those involved, and not understanding the complexeties of the integrated criminal justice system (does anyone understand it all - rather than just their corner?) had no chance of knowing whether what was churned out would work but because they wanted it to work they signed it off - if only real social work based probation was as simple - rather it is by exploring possibilities and taking steps to test if the possibilities might work in any clients particular situation - but Senior Civil Servants and Ministers like Mr Grayling, Lord McNally, Mr wright and those who followed them do not understand such vagaries
Will those awards ne withdrawn?
C4 Tells it like it is ec DCEO Ian Clewlow DDC area and Ian Lawrence good piece .
ReplyDeletehttps://www.channel4.com/news/probation-service-to-be-re-nationalised-following-grayling-reforms
It's been an expensive victory: the money wasted by Grayling, and the probation culture and infrastructure torn apart. If there is a positive, it's that outsourcing has its practical limits. Privatisation can make things worse. I know all this was known at the time and anyone with knowledge and experience of the criminal justice system told Grayling he was making a big mistake – but you can't reason with ideological fundamentalists who are 'irredeemably flawed'. I hope that in the future, when the probation culture is reimagined and reconstituted, it will have more backbone than it showed in the years leading up to TR, when it was in thrall to managerialism and all that jazz. Few come out of this mess with any credit, but I would say the probation inspectorate under Glenys Stacey told the truth to power and On Probation Blog kept the flame alive.
ReplyDeleteQuite right nip where have you been. On the other front I heard the probation institute has invited grayling to join them as a fellow. So all the idiot quislings are in one club. Heard nothing from them have we.
DeleteI think you are wrong 14:13 to describe these lowlifes as being ‘idiot quislings.’ There involvement is calculated and intended to pursue their own objectives.
ReplyDeleteLet’s see in a few weeks and after an election if Grayling et al retain their positions on the board of multi- national companies whose interests they have fostered and nurtured.
Whatever you think of these companies, and I don’t think much, they will always look after those who looked after them even if it is only so they can access their address book in order to seek out other avenues for exploiting the masses, massaging the figures and feathering their own nests.
I bet Grayling is a member in good standing with a large number of these organisations and reaps the benefits of what he has sown.
Wholly agree with you Grayling has more likely feather and garnered a new fat salary within the shipping company board that no boats got an exuctive advisory role with euro tunnel and few other deals ready in hgis multi million pounds jobs for the boyts front. It is fairly clear to all of us that the activities of the tory party the party for business is to do just that. They waste public money in cash million pound settlements then take a job in that market place post parliamentary expenses on a pension. Public schoolboys and elitist groups are loaded with self belief and righteous self indulgent . BOJO for premier a racist greedy ego driven pompous need a half his age girlfriend tosser. Of course it was a fecious comment but it triggered your much better analysis that I completely agree with. Grayling is getting a letter soon come in your time is up and the 30 million at Eurotunnel the money is in the bank come and join us well pay your share now in a small officiating post and hour a week like the rest of the tory do nothings parasites.
DeleteEverything that has been going on with probation, all the unneeded stress that is unrelated to the core values of rehabilitation, and all the political crap that goes with it, is what has now lead to me resigning. No one higher up the food chain actually seems to care about the clients, I've stuck it out for long enough purely for the sake of the clients, but not, I've had enough and will be leaving my dream job behind me. I may come back, but I highly doubt it.
ReplyDeleteI for one wish you the very best. When a colleague leaves it is a great loss. Shame we have lost so many over a short period of time. Best of luck to everyone who takes the next step as this is no happy and harmonious place to work in. Regardless of where you are in the country and regardless of the recent announcement. Best of luck there is life after Probation.
DeleteCan we not loose sight of the following
ReplyDeletehttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c8f7d2bed915d07af076dc4/Miss_J_Hyland_v_The_Cheshire_and_Greater_Manchester_Community_Rehabilitation_Limited-2424492_2017-Reserved_Judgment_and_Reasons.pdf
Great JOB on the ETY listed here over 100 pages a big read but NAPO rep Mick Housen did the business by the looks and if you want to know how corruption works in CRC loaded with cronyism and nepotism read this link. Nothing short of total degradation and abuse of process against an employee shafting staff by CRC thank goodness they are to be **cked shortly tossers.
DeleteWill staff be made redundant in CRCs?
ReplyDeleteIt is too early to confirm the impact on CRC staff.
The changes we have announced today are about strengthening probation services and supporting
staff. Retaining the skills and knowledge of probation professionals within the system is a key priority
for the department. However, we are aware of skills gap within the service which we
will be
addressing in the near future.
We are in the process of gathering data on all those delivering services for or on behalf of CRCs to
make sure we fully understand the roles and remits. This will inform our future planning.
While everyone is celebrating just remember it could be tougher getting back into the new model then it was when we were all kicked out of it..... good luck to all, it's going to a very stressful time. The Staff from the CRC's aren't all going to make it, at the end of the day both NPS and CRC staff have worked hard but CRC's are the underdogs in all of this so don't open that champagne bottle yet, not until you have that contract in your hands if that is where your future lies.
My view is that HR, Admin and IT are in the trouble zone. Frontline staff are likely ok but any specialist roles you may have been promoted to are likely worth zero. The SMT will, as always, make sure they are well looked after. SPOs may find it difficult to correlate a suitable transfer.
DeleteI'm happy to be corrected if anyone has other views though.
I'm not sure even all CRC offender management staff in positions in the CRC are a done deal. NPS already has too many PSOs and not enough work for them, continues to recruit trainee POs and there is no hold on current SPO recruitment in the NPS either. It will all come down to the figures of what is needed. I suspect only a % of those CRC staff are likely to move into NPS, probably not all.
DeleteWrong the NPS will own the case loads already all crcs are well overworked understaffed so the privateers exploit more profit. The NPS is going to have the lot. Napo members have not fought this fight to be made jobless I don't you have a clear understanding of the overall situation.
Delete