Plan A, B or C?

Without a doubt 'probation' finds itself at a crossroads once more and on the verge of yet another major upheaval. Speculation abounds and anxiety levels are raised, but all those who have probation in their blood and care deeply for its future know the current omnishambles simply can't continue and the government must act to repair the damage brought about by its split in half. The question is, how?

In the absence of other forums, Facebook is rapidly becoming a platform for considered and insightful debate by practitioners and some feel it deserves to be brought to a wider audience. In this vein David Raho, one of Napo's Vice Chairs, has agreed to my sharing contributions he made back on 4th May and which I believe help explain the current situation:-   

In his comment on the Public Accounts Committees report Bob Neill says:

"The Ministry needs to sort this mess by setting out a new, clear strategy for the future of probation services, which is rigorously tested and not rushed through, when it announces plans for the next generation of Community Rehabilitation Companies due soon."

This is an unprecedented message showing a high degree of agreement and similar observation across government committees, the National Audit Office and inspectorate. Surely Gauke cannot simply carry on regardless against the deluge of criticism and calls for a rethink of proposed plans. So, do Bobs comments indicate that MoJ Plan A is still in play or is he hedging his bets or alternatively is he being deliberately ambiguous as he knows the responsible minister has gone and this now risks delays?

May appears to be having difficulty finding someone to take on the job (anyone would think she was distracted by something) and the longer this key post remains unfilled by someone who appears competent the more chaotic and desperate her government will seem on every front. Will the appointment of a new minister scupper any hope of reconsideration of Plan A (TR2) or work on Plan B (Trust+) and as for Plan C (full return to public sector)?

Surely the MoJ would not be keeping the Justice Committee Chair in the dark regarding the future shape of probation or maybe nobody really knows?

David Raho

Chair's comments

Commenting on the Public Accounts Committee report, Transforming rehabilitation: progress review, Chair of the Justice Committee, Bob Neill MP, said:

“This damning report from the Public Accounts Committee backs up the findings of our own inquiry that it is doubtful the Government’s disastrous reforms can ever deliver an effective or viable probation service. As well as laying bare the eyewatering cost of terminating contracts which should never have been entered into in the first place, the report also highlights the failure to improve support or reduce reoffending. This has a real human impact: more victims of crime and more wasted lives as offenders ricochet in and out of custody.

We are also seriously concerned about the decline in judge and magistrate confidence in community sentences - even though these sentences generally lead to better outcomes.
We said back in June last year that the Government should review into the long-term future and sustainability of delivering probation services, including how TR might compare to an alternative system. They didn’t start such a review and ten months later we are still waiting for a full response to our report.

The Ministry needs to sort this mess by setting out a new, clear strategy for the future of probation services, which is rigorously tested and not rushed through, when it announces plans for the next generation of Community Rehabilitation Companies due soon. We sincerely hope that the change in responsible Minister will not delay things any further.”

--oo00oo--

LET'S GET THE PROBATION REFORM PARTY STARTED

The heightened media interest in probation recently is no coincidence. Many of those who have an interest in probation and keep an eye on developments can read the tea leaves and know that there has definitely been something brewing deep within the bowels of the MoJ. But be warned that trying to visualise what is fermenting in that dark place will ultimately suck out your soul. One has only to observe the ragged groups of glassy-eyed MoJ employees clustered around the doors of Petty France desperately chain smoking and drinking multiple cups of coffee before dashing back into the teleportation tubes to the 9th floor. It's grim but that's what happens when you are asked to keep working on Plan A and then asked to come up with a workable Plan B and even the previously unthinkable Plan C. The atmosphere is like the NASA control room when Apollo 13 was in trouble (Where is Tom Hanks when you need him? Can we achieve a reunified functioning probation service relatively free of government interference?)

Increased recent media coverage of probation is also no doubt catalysed by the public interest piqued by the continuing saga of Graylings failures and the mystery of his continued employment as a minister. Grayling is the journalist's gift that keeps on giving. What fresh failure will occur? What will be the scale of the disaster? Is there anything he hasn't ruined destroyed or is in the process of cocking up big time? If I was an editor with one story short I'd send the new appointee out with the brief 'Find Grayling, find out what he is doing, write about how it is bound to fail, draft a follow-up saying how it was a dead cert for failure and how we saw it coming given the long list of previous disasters'. What we do know is that if May goes Grayling will probably go too but that is what should happen in ‘normal’ times. Times are far from normal.......

Then there are all the recent reports confirming what we already know to be the case about the TR omnishambles. But thanks to the inspectorate, NAO, Howard League, CCJS, PAC, Justice Select Committee etc, however, what we now have is evidence from a variety of reliable sources. Evidence confirms that a divided part-privatised probation service doesn’t work well and was and is a very bad idea indeed and needs sorting out properly rather than just continuing with a failed model albeit expanded with the same players. Stop. Pause. Think again!!! A colleague who was once seconded to NOMS recently described to me how the MoJ continues to make the same mistakes over and over. 'They start out looking at a regular teapot. Somehow decided that a chocolate teapot would save money and that they have somehow decided is the best solution. They then ask the private sector to make more tea using fewer tea leaves expecting them to use a smaller flashy looking streamlined teapot and then wonder why they land up with a sticky mess and everyone is blaming each other'.

What some of us have long been engaging in is an attack on the false narrative that Grayling generated that the probation service had failed to supervise and address reoffending in the case of those serving prison sentences of 12 months and less and was somehow a failing service. The fact was that probation services were not failing before Grayling and his cronies started TR and were aware of those they had not been authorised and/or directed to supervise and were perfectly willing to this work so as long as the government were prepared to fund the increase in resources required – as you would expect. 

Regarding the supervision of those serving prison sentences under 12 months. After putting the legislation on the statute books New Labour looked at the figures and decided that they were not going to implement Custody Plus as they rightly estimated that though desireable the cost/benefit analysis didn’t add up. Better to put the money into other services. The Select Committee on Justice 5th report (published 2008) made clear governments failures -not probations - to tackle short sentences. It makes interesting reading. It is obvious that Grayling and those who supported him chose to completely ignore this report. It is also obvious that he lied when he placed the blame for failing to work with those concerned on Probation Trusts.

During TR, when lack of supervision of those serving under 12 months was repeatedly used as an overwhelming justification for privatisation, Probation Trusts offered to do the work in-house despite their reducing budgets. Grayling rejected this option. Quite how this would have been achieved, given the cost, was not explained in detail however compared with what happened (the through the gates debacle) it would probably have been preferable to have bitten that particular bullet if it had meant remaining as devolved and locally connected Probation Trusts. 

However, as we know to our cost we were not dealing with rational persons back then but instead with those who saw fit to ignore experts, practitioners, their own risk registers and evidence relevant to the way probation had worked for over 100 years as slightly removed from central government with strong local links. Grayling had looked around the MoJ for soft targets to privatise and found probation – lawyers were a tougher target. 

Grayling and others like him, let us remember he started his political life as a Liberal, no doubt he saw probation not as successful collection of joined-up Trust organisations with a reasonable amount of confidence from the public and sentencers contributing with others to a criminal justice system that was ultimately reducing crime, albeit slowly and steadily, but rather as a failure in addressing reoffending quickly due to public sector sluggishness and inefficiency. He saw public sector probation plodding along doggedly resisting some of the sweeping changes that had beset many other professions and those delivering public services and needed a shake-up. He had advisors and Tory think tanks all bending his ear saying that the probation service could be made more efficient if only pressure was brought to bear upon them to perform better or they used more innovation etc. The solution he chose was to privatise as much as he thought possible by creating an artificial market and using PBR. 'Let market forces bear down upon them and the private sector knock them into shape.' It all sounded so good to his Tory friends around the dinner table (no experts welcome) who roundly supported him and praised him for his audacity not appreciating that he was, in reality, a serial loser of stupendous proportions.

The idea of private providers all doing their own thing with freedom to develop their own solutions was, of course, deliberate as what was meant to happen was for certain players to act as disruptors to the status quo and win the competition by finding the magic bullet that had so long eluded the probation profession who were portrayed as failures and incompetents. The new providers were to act as new brooms with fresh ideas and perform as well if not better than the public sector had done for reduced cost a win-win. We know the result. We also know how he contrived to tie the NPS so tightly in bureaucratic knots that they would start to believe the delusion that they were indeed some kind of elite civil service organisation - ripe to be privatised down the line. 

So pause for thought now. All the reports and all those experts who know a thing or two and are not in the pay of the Tory party are more or less in agreement regarding what should ideally happen to probation. The question is now whether the government has the courage to grasp the nettle and do what is required rather than pander to pressure from their pals.

1) A reduction in private sector involvement in delivering core probation services with a view to private probation service providers moving to commissioned services under the public probation banner (much like electronic monitoring services are in more enlightened jurisdictions).

2) A reunited service that is not simply an expanded NPS (the NPS is a very dysfunctional model) but rather a return to public sector status with a little distance from central government. This might mean a return to Trust status and for those in the NPS to give up their pseudo civil servant status (probation officers should never be civil servants).

3) A more locally accountable probation service. Although PCCs and Mayors have been mentioned as becoming de facto probation bosses this does not have to be the case. Probation was previously 80% Home Office and 20% local authority run which in most cases worked very well. Let us not forget that there has been a movement away from the probation service being as locally accountable as it used to be without it becoming too parochial.

4) Bigger probation areas with powers to commission local services that are as far as practicable co-terminus with police areas. I have previously used the term Trust+ when talking about what probation might look like. 

If the government do find the courage then I’d like to see a new national probation service as being potentially bigger, better, faster, stronger and more connected and coordinated than the previous Trusts working with our service users as we should. It is what the public expects and deserves. Despite everything, some (not a lot but some) innovation has been achieved by private probation providers and millions and millions of taxpayers money spent during the TR debacle. This should not be wasted. The MoJ needs to buy all the good stuff up and then roll the best of it out as already tested in the new Trust+ system and get everyone back working in the same way together in an even more effective way than previously. It's an opportunity and a challenge that we might actually relish for a change. It is possible and can be done but not necessarily by the lot currently in the driving seat. This would be the chance to rebuild our profession the way we know it will work best and work in ways we know from experience work and are in the public interest and will benefit all our communities.

Trust+ would see all staff on the pay system developed for the NPS, using easier to use IT systems such as MTCs OMNIA and smartphone apps better hardware. We could all be classified as local government officers (payroll and other HR and support services provided by the local government). I have always regarded myself as an LGO and we tend to fit that definition better than a civil servant which is essentially a government lackey (look up and compare the definitions and choose how you would prefer to be labelled). The key characteristic of a true civil servant is that they can transfer between government departments retaining terms and conditions of employment. Anyone know anybody who has managed to do this? Most people in the NPS would have trouble transferring between LDUs.

If I had the time I could probably work out most of the operational detail and funding for the MoJ (who would spend a million on finding the best way to make a cup of tea and still forget the milk!) and it would probably not mean large amounts of additional expenditure. Why on earth wouldn't you want to do this now whilst some of the expertise is still around that can make it happen? A large number of potentially motivated probation staff are currently dormant, like sleeping giants, awaiting activation. It's up to you MoJ. Your move.

David Raho

(published with author's permission)

In response to a question:- 

‘Bigger, better, faster..’ Sorry, I agree with pretty much all of what you say but please, this language...it makes my heart sink. We work with humans. And we are humans too. It’s complex. It takes time. And small can be beautiful.

David Raho explains:-

I meant to contrast what we have become with what we could be if given the resources. It’s a reference to 70s Sci-fi TV show The Six Million Dollar Man whose opening credits featured the main character in a major experimental aircraft crash as a voiceover went on to say ‘We can rebuild you. We have the technology....’ make you better than before etc which I think should be our aim to progress but retain probation's identity. As opposed to the present services that are too lean to function, poorly performing and so resource starved in parts that it is now too slow to respond to meet service user needs. I’m old school social work probation trained and very human orientated but it doesn’t matter how you are as a practitioner you can’t realistically provide a quality service when you only have half a team, constant change, and huge caseloads. There are a lot of people who will flock back to probation if it is reunited and properly back on track. We need to reject a lot of the current nonsense and return to basics.