Justice and Home Affairs Committee 16th July 2025:-
"As things stand, HMPPS remains a top-heavy, inflexible, and overly bureaucratic organisation. It is failing to show the change leadership, flexibility, and innovation that is desperately required. Whether it is fit for purpose is open to question and remains to be proven."(Paragraph 83)
This was recently published and helps set the scene as Napo ballots members regarding pay. Even the Prison Governor's Association gave evidence that Probation should be a seperate service, but their Lordships irritatingly disagree and feel we should remain saddled with an utterly failing HMPPS management structure. I think we can see why the Permanent Secretary did a runner! Oh, how we miss the presence of Lord Ramsbotham.....
Prisons need to have reducing reoffending as their core purpose, says Lords committee
The Justice and Home Affairs Committee today publishes its report Better prisons: less crime. The report examines the purpose, leadership, and oversight of prisons in England and Wales, as well as looking at staffing issues and barriers to providing purposeful activity to prisoners.
Report: Better prisons: less crime (HTML)
Report: Better prisons: less crime (PDF)
Shorthand story: Our prisons are in a state of crisis
Inquiry: Prison culture: governance, leadership and staffing
Justice and Home Affairs Committee
The Committee concludes that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) should set out a clear and consistent statement of the purpose of prison, with reducing reoffending as central. This should be communicated within the system, across government and to the wider public to build greater support for evidence-based approaches to reducing reoffending. The MoJ should also strike a better balance between governor autonomy and centralised control, ensuring that prison governors have the necessary authority to lead effectively.
The report
We have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe and it is only increasing. There are over 87,000 people in prison in England and Wales. This is almost double the prison population in 1993. The prison population is expected to exceed 100,000 by 2029.
There is an urgent need for wider prison reform, as prisons are currently operating in a state of crisis. They are overcrowded, often in bad and unsanitary condition, and face issues such as a shortage of funds, gangs operating with impunity, drones undermining security, an alarming availability of drugs and over-stretched, demoralised staff.
In its report, Better prisons: less crime which focuses on the leadership, governance and staffing of prisons, the Committee finds:
- A lack of clarity about the purpose of prisons;
- A lack of public understanding about prisons;
- Limited autonomy for prison governors;
- Wholly inadequate arrangements for the recruitment, assessment and training of prison staff;
- Siloed working, with a lack of effective cross-agency collaboration within His Majesty’s Prison and probation Service (HMPPS) and with external partners;
- Insufficient purposeful activity designed to reduce re-offending;
- A sense of complacency and inadequate accountability arrangements throughout the prison service;
- Reviewed in totality, HMPPS is inflexible, and overly bureaucratic.
Chair's comments
Lord Foster of Bath, Chair of the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee said:
“During our inquiry we heard from many people involved in all aspects of prison life—prison governors, officers, charities, campaign groups, chaplains, Ministry of Justice officials, politicians and the Minister for Prisons himself. We spoke to prisoners in two prisons we visited, and we received letters from many others.
“Everyone knows that the prison system in England and Wales is nearly at breaking point. The Government is already taking steps to address the capacity crisis, and there are reforms to the wider criminal justice system which are being considered.
“But the situation will not improve without clarity of purpose. We agree with the Minister that reducing reoffending is central to the purpose of prisons, but this goal needs to be embedded at every level within the Service.
“Prison Governors must be given the freedom to run their prisons as they see fit. They are ultimately responsible for what goes on in their prisons, and they should have a greater say on who works in them.
“A career in the prison service is a noble thing, but it is not for everyone. The recruitment process currently gives candidates little idea of what working in a prison is like, and that needs to change. We were horrified to learn about the lack of a proper appraisal process for staff within the Prison Service.
“Providing purposeful activity for prisoners is key to ensuring that prisoners are prepared for life outside the prison. That means providing education and training that is relevant for them, and it should be tailored towards securing employment after release.
“We are not yet persuaded that HMPPS is fit for purpose, but we believe that joined-up working between the Prison Service and Probation Service is essential if the aim of reducing reoffending is to be achieved. That’s why we say there should be an Inspectorate or standards office with enhanced powers. This body should cover all aspects of HMPPS and it should be able to make recommendations about its policies and its structures.
“It is essential and possible to build a better prison system that protects the public and helps reduce re-offending; other countries have done so. It is about time that England and Wales did the same.”
Lord Foster of Bath, Chair of the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee said:
“During our inquiry we heard from many people involved in all aspects of prison life—prison governors, officers, charities, campaign groups, chaplains, Ministry of Justice officials, politicians and the Minister for Prisons himself. We spoke to prisoners in two prisons we visited, and we received letters from many others.
“Everyone knows that the prison system in England and Wales is nearly at breaking point. The Government is already taking steps to address the capacity crisis, and there are reforms to the wider criminal justice system which are being considered.
“But the situation will not improve without clarity of purpose. We agree with the Minister that reducing reoffending is central to the purpose of prisons, but this goal needs to be embedded at every level within the Service.
“Prison Governors must be given the freedom to run their prisons as they see fit. They are ultimately responsible for what goes on in their prisons, and they should have a greater say on who works in them.
“A career in the prison service is a noble thing, but it is not for everyone. The recruitment process currently gives candidates little idea of what working in a prison is like, and that needs to change. We were horrified to learn about the lack of a proper appraisal process for staff within the Prison Service.
“Providing purposeful activity for prisoners is key to ensuring that prisoners are prepared for life outside the prison. That means providing education and training that is relevant for them, and it should be tailored towards securing employment after release.
“We are not yet persuaded that HMPPS is fit for purpose, but we believe that joined-up working between the Prison Service and Probation Service is essential if the aim of reducing reoffending is to be achieved. That’s why we say there should be an Inspectorate or standards office with enhanced powers. This body should cover all aspects of HMPPS and it should be able to make recommendations about its policies and its structures.
“It is essential and possible to build a better prison system that protects the public and helps reduce re-offending; other countries have done so. It is about time that England and Wales did the same.”
“People with targets and jobs depending on meeting them will probably meet the targets – even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.” - W. Edwards Deming (1900 – 1993)
ReplyDeleteAnd so the machinery of bureaucract grinds on... (from the committee's report):
"... we find it concerning that the Chief Inspector’s recommendations are often disregarded ..
... In the case of HMPPS, the Chief Inspector of Prisons provides vital scrutiny for His Majesty’s Prison Service and HM Chief Inspector of Probation provides an equivalent scrutiny of the Probation Service... we believe there would be merit in both Inspectorates working more closely together—perhaps in a combined Inspectorate—reflecting the wider combined role of HMPPS. This body should also involve the Independent Monitoring Boards.
An enhanced Inspectorate should have powers to oversee performance, enforce the implementation of inspection recommendations, and promote the systematic adoption of effective practice across the prison system. It should also have power to comment on the policies and structure of HMPPS, and to make recommendations as necessary, for example where it believes that they are impinging on the freedom of prison governors to provide good leadership. The Inspectorates working together should focus on the development of the One HMPPS strategy, and measure its effectiveness."
Some thoughts from:
https://paulitaylor.com/2025/01/03/our-productivity-problem-is-linked-to-meaningless-measurement/
* My idea for 2025 is to go to war on meaningless measurement.
* V. F. Ridgway, 1956: “What gets measured gets managed—even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so”
* the act of measuring becomes as important, or more important, than the organisational purpose.
* our working worlds seem to be obsessed with measurement, to the detriment of getting on with doing obvious things.
* Goodhart’s Law states: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
* The Tyranny of Metrics Jerry Z. Muller: “Anything that can be measured and rewarded will be gamed”.
* When the work becomes a metric, the metrics become the work.
* Just because you can measure something, doesn’t mean you should.
* "By the time it can be captured in numbers, it's too late" (Peter Drucker)
See also
https://squiretothegiants.com/2024/12/13/an-obsession-with-measurement/
Nothing in the uk seems "fit for purpose" EXCEPT when the 'purpose' is to protect the system & those who expedite the system's wishes:
ReplyDeleteOrgreave papers destroyed by police thought to include report on notorious truncheon beating... A Northumbria police spokesperson said last month that the documents had been “disposed of … in line with force policy and the Data Protection Act 2018”.
"Documents destroyed by police relating to operations at Orgreave during the miners’ strike in 1984 are believed to include a report on a notorious incident in which an officer beat a man over the head with a truncheon.
In the ITV News at 10 report on the violent scenes at Orgreave, the officer, PC Martin of Northumbria police, was seen hitting the miner, Russell Broomhead, several times with his truncheon.
Northumbria police have been widely criticised since confirming that in April last year they destroyed two boxes of documents relating to the strike and the Orgreave operation. That was just months before a general election that the Labour party, which had a longstanding pledge to hold an inquiry into what happened at Orgreave, was expected to win.
In 2016 Northumbria’s then chief constable, Steve Ashman, wrote to Yvette Cooper, then the chair of the home affairs select committee, explaining that the superintendent’s report detailed an incident involving a police constable.
Broomhead told the Guardian: “I would still like truth and accountability for what happened. If something is wrong, it stays wrong. I never knew in all these years that a superintendent had written a report on the incident that involved me. It’s unbelievable that the police can throw that document away, without asking me and people it affects.” "
I recently read a paper on the journey of reintegration, probation, and community supervision. What stood out was how clearly it framed probation as something that comes after prison, not as an extension or part of prison. That distinction is fundamental to any meaningful concept of rehabilitation. Until our own probation leaders are willing to challenge the prevailing mindset that sees probation as punitive or custodial, arguing to detach probation from the prisons, police and courts for that matter, the the service will remain sidelined on the policy scrap heap rather than at the heart of reform.
ReplyDeletehttps://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec3ce97a1716758c54691b7/t/6750a9114999f31ec637217e/1733339412507/Probation+and+Community+Supervision+-+A+%E2%80%98Magic%E2%80%99+Journey.pdf
Delete
ReplyDeleteRehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending
Meanwhile this Inquiry (Commons Select Justice Committee) is ongoing:
"The Justice Committee has launched its inquiry into Resettlement and Rehabilitation, which is centred around investigating the cycle of reoffending.
The Committee has decided to investigate the journey of an offender through the criminal justice system and examine what offer of rehabilitation and resettlement the offender has the ability to engage with, to prevent future reoffending.
The inquiry will also look at what support is available for ex-offenders’ post-release, and whether there is sufficient join up, data sharing and capacity of these services to deliver effective resettlement services. The inquiry will also consider alternatives to custody, and what impact licence recall conditions have on promoting resettlement, and the role of community sentencing."
The Cobbler gave evidence on 8 July:
Chair: Tagging contracts are important if the public are to have confidence in the monitoring of prisoners who will be in the community where they would previously have been in prison... You are responsible for those contracts; what is your view of them, and how can they be improved?
Timpson: The contracts were inherited and, having come from the commercial world, I have taken a great interest in understanding where public money is spent, and I am very aware of how expensive the contracts are. When it comes to tagging and Serco, it was clear a year ago that the performance was way off where we wanted it to be ... and why the leaders of Serco have been in my office a number of times
Chair: Whether it is a private contractor or not, that is a service that is part of your Department... this is a Ministry of Justice contract, does it worry you that Serco was subject to a deferred prosecution agreement?
Timpson: I do not know the details of all the rules of procurement in Government. I have been looking in detail at it and I still do not really understand why it is so complex
Chair: You mentioned the operation system that will be introduced under the sentencing Bill
Timpson: Standard determinate sentences in the Gauke review suggest that the first third is in prison, the second third is in what I term heavy probation and then in lighter probation.
Pam Cox: You have been the Prisons Minister for a year, as we have discussed. You mentioned your red-alert list; what is still on that list?
Timpson: I am interested in leadership in prisons and probation and the stability of that leadership.
This may be something that you think is a small thing, but it is a big thing for me: I am also interested in succession planning. I am sure Richard and Matt will bore everyone rigid with how important it is to have a strong line of great governors and probation leaders coming through who can grow into those roles.
Pam Cox: We have been conducting a rehabilitation and resettlement inquiry... What is happening around the moment of release
Timpson: The system we inherited with the early release scheme—ECSL—was chaotic. Far too many prisoners were released from prison in an uncontrolled way. Unsurprisingly many of them were recalled, often pretty quickly, because they did not have housing in place, they did not have the soft landing that was required
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/24754/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
Yes how we miss Lord David Ramsbotham. The “folly of NOMS” He called it, and that “people are not things”.
ReplyDelete“There’s nobody probation trained who is in any of the senior positions in NOMS to advise ministers; they’re now not called Chief Officers for Probation, they’re called Chief Executives of Probation Trusts. I mean the whole thrust has gone from it and I think that until it is restored and the old relationship between probation, courts and police which was a daily relationship is restored, I’m afraid you’re going to have nonsense’s like that with nobody responsible and accountable for seeing that they are rectified.”
https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/People%20are%20not%20things%2C%20May%202019.pdf
DeletePrison by and large the worst starting point for any rehabilitation. Sometimes necessary of course and the goal should always be rehabilitation. So you need the accommodation to be satisfactory, the diet to be healthy, purposeful activity and exercise, access to good health and mental health provision. Drugs and alcohol services. And accommodation on release. These are just the basics and need to be in place in advance of any fancy interventions. As these basics are not available to a good chunk of the law abiding in the community, its a tough call to argue for them in custody
ReplyDeleteAnon 09:40 "As these basics are not available to a good chunk of the law abiding in the community, its a tough call to argue for them in custody." An astonishing statement surely when the state is in control of virtually all aspects of a prisoner's life and has a legal duty of care!
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:40 and Jim, but isn’t this exactly what the justice committee inquiry is meant to be looking at.
ReplyDeleteThere is a wealth of evidence and generally all (apart from Lord Cobbler & Co) are all saying the same thing. Prison doesn’t work as a rehabilitative arm and the central control of government on both prisons and probation is detrimental at best, with better legislation needed to incorporate community services.
It is here - The Justice Committee has launched its inquiry into Resettlement and Rehabilitation, which is centred around investigating the cycle of reoffending.
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8678/rehabilitation-and-resettlement-ending-the-cycle-of-reoffending/publications/
Inquiry
DeleteThe Justice Committee has launched its inquiry into Resettlement and Rehabilitation, which is centred around investigating the cycle of reoffending.
HM Prison and Probation Service aims to reduce reoffending by rehabilitating the people in its care through education and employment. However, reoffending in England and Wales remains high. For the year ending December 2023, 78% of all offenders cautioned or convicted for an indictable offence in 2023 had at least one prior caution or conviction.
The Committee has decided to investigate the journey of an offender through the criminal justice system and examine what offer of rehabilitation and resettlement the offender has the ability to engage with, to prevent future reoffending.
The inquiry sets out to look at what the regime offer is in different prisons and for different prisoner cohorts. It will also look at services in prison and whether they encompass principles of desistance and purposeful activity. The inquiry will also investigate governance in prisons, including staffing and contracting, and to what extent it impacts the ability to deliver rehabilitative services in prison.
The inquiry will also look at what support is available for ex-offenders’ post-release, and whether there is sufficient join up, data sharing and capacity of these services to deliver effective resettlement services. The inquiry will also consider alternatives to custody, and what impact licence recall conditions have on promoting resettlement, and the role of community sentencing.
I can't seem to see any evidence submitted by Napo. However I note our essay winner Jamal Hylton SPO found time to do so.
DeleteSome snippets from the written evidence and yet again, we’re hearing the same messages we’ve heard for nearly two decades under NOMS and now HMPPS. The problems are well-known, but we’re still stuck in the same conversations.
ReplyDeleteHM Inspectorate of Probation: Probation remains over capacity and under-resourced.
Prison and Probation Ombudsman: Being released into homelessness significantly increases the risk of reoffending.
Probation Institute: Even if probation had the capacity to support people, it would still struggle without proper investment in and priority access to wider public services.
Ministry of Justice: “Our prisons create better criminals, not better citizens.” Yet the headline solution remains recruitment — we’re constantly told 1,000 new probation officers are on the way.
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8678/rehabilitation-and-resettlement-ending-the-cycle-of-reoffending/publications/written-evidence/
1000 new probation officers. That old chestnut!
Delete2025: 1,300 new probation officers to be recruited next year
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/probation-service-to-cut-crime-by-focusing-on-dangerous-offenders
2024: Prisons crisis: Probation Service to get 1,000 extra trainee officers
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article/prisons-crisis-probation-service-to-get-1000-extra-trainee-officers
2023: We have hired a record 4,000 probation officers since 2021
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66431061.amp
2022: 1,500 new probation officers to protect the public
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/1-500-new-probation-officers-to-protect-the-public
2021: One thousand probation officers recruited to protect the public
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-thousand-probation-officers-recruited-to-protect-the-public
2020: Public safety boosted with 1,000 new probation officers
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/public-safety-boosted-with-1-000-new-probation-officers