Productivity is the Answer!

We all know that whatever the question, the answer is "£700million and 1,300 extra staff" but actually the real answer appears to be 'automation and productivity'. This from an NAO report published last week:-

Productivity improvement: The Justice Transcribe AI‑enabled transcription tool

This case study focuses on one example of a productivity improvement to automate and improve processes, where the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) sought to improve productivity within the Probation Service by introducing a transcription tool, Justice Transcribe, for probation officers to use in meetings. MoJ and HMPPS expect that this tool will lead to productivity improvements by reducing the amount of time needed to write up meeting notes; improving the quality of those notes; and improving the quality of the interactions probation officers have in the meetings, because they are not focused on note writing. By reducing the time probation officers spend writing up supervision meetings they have with people on probation, Justice Transcribe makes more time available for activities that directly contribute to public protection and rehabilitation. The case study sets out how the tool was identified, developed, tested, scaled and embedded into operational practice by MoJ and HMPPS. It also highlights key lessons from each stage of implementation. 

The case study is intended as a practical example for civil servants and public sector leaders considering similar productivity initiatives, providing insights into the decisions, governance arrangements, testing approaches, implementation activities and evaluation methods that supported delivery. This publication is the first of a series of case studies we plan to publish highlighting practical steps public bodies have taken to improve their productivity and the lessons others can learn from them.

The capacity challenge in the Probation Service 

1 The Probation Service has been under significant strain from staffing shortfalls and increasing demand. In our report Building an effective and resilient Probation Service, we found that, in July 2025, in 10 out of 12 probation regions, Probation Officers were working at above 100% capacity on average. Data from April 2024 indicated that the service had been operating with only around half of the staff needed to run sentence management as intended. In January 2026, the Sentencing Act was passed which introduced measures intended to increase the use of community-based sentences, placing further demands on the service. At the end of June 2026, only 74% of Probation Officer grade posts were filled. 

2 In February 2025 HMPPS established its ‘Our Future Probation Service’ (OFPS) programme. Its purpose is to improve performance, increase retention and reduce staff sickness absence. The programme aims to free up operational capacity by 25% by April 2027. Justice Transcribe, a transcription and summarisation tool enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), has been developed to reduce the amount of time probation officers spend writing up notes of the meetings they have with people on probation, improve the quality of the meeting notes and improve engagement in meetings. This case study sets out how MoJ and HMPPS developed and rolled out Justice Transcribe, and some key lessons for other organisations interested in a similar tool.

Identifying opportunities for productivity improvement 

3 Probation officers conduct approximately 3.7 million supervision meetings annually.3 An accurate record of the key points of these meetings is important for managing risks to the public and tracking progress with sentencing requirements. Writing up meeting notes and recording them in the case management system was time‑consuming and created a risk of poor quality and inaccurate records. 

4 The idea for Justice Transcribe came from front-line probation teams, who had identified the potential for AI-enabled transcription and summarisation to help them manage their workload and were exploring commercial tools on the market. HMPPS assessed the idea alongside wider organisational priorities and considered several factors, including the following.

Productivity improvement 

15 HMPPS expects productivity benefits from Justice Transcribe to include both time savings and quality improvements. It forecasts that Justice Transcribe will save around 450,000 hours per year for front-line probation officers. This estimate is based on an assumed time saving of 10 minutes per meeting on average and that the tool is used for 70% of the 3.7 million meetings a year. HMPPS also expects additional savings for support and other staff. As at April 2026, HMPPS estimated it had a capacity gap of 3,500 FTE probation staff. It expects Justice Transcribe will release time savings equivalent to 470 FTE probation officers, support and other staff, helping it to reduce this capacity gap. These estimates are based on modelling assumptions, and HMPPS told us it is planning further evaluation work to validate time savings in practice and collect more robust evidence of how the tool has changed the delivery of face-to-face supervision. 

16 HMPPS does not have actual time saved data to monitor how far estimated time savings have been achieved. However, it does have data on the number of meetings for which the tool has been used. Between 7 October 2025 and 14 September 2026, over 1,600,000 meetings were summarised using Justice Transcribe. HMPPS estimates that using Justice Transcribe has saved probation officers around 266,667 hours over this period.

17 HMPPS also holds feedback data from staff. Between launch and 2 June 2026, staff using the tool reported high satisfaction rates, with an average of 4.7 stars out of 5 across 63,000 in-app reviews. Probation officers we spoke to told us that Justice Transcribe saved significant amounts of time and improved the quality of meeting summaries as well as interactions in supervision meetings: 

“What it has allowed us to do is... have more meaningful conversations with the people we’re managing… being more active listeners, … rather than having our attention diverted elsewhere.” (Probation Officer) 

HMPPS also holds data on staff retention and sickness absence, so it could use this information to track whether uptake of Justice Transcribe is associated with benefits such as lower sickness absence or improved staff retention.

Further evaluation 

18 MoJ and HMPPS started an internal evaluation of the national rollout of the tool in 2026. This will include evaluation of how the tool is used in practice, how errors are identified and corrected, and an assessment of the quality of the final records. This national evaluation is an opportunity to build on the insights from the pilot and determine the full impacts of the tool, including the extent of time savings and quality improvements. It is also an opportunity to assess evidence of the benefits including, for example, improved retention rates or reductions in sickness absence.

Quality assurance of case management records

20 The pilot evaluation identified that there was a risk that meeting summaries were not adequately reviewed by probation officers. It recommended regular quality assurance audits and training on how to undertake a meaningful human review. Training and guidance materials emphasise the importance of reviewing the AI notes and the app included reminders for staff to do this at the point of use. For individual meetings, probation officers are expected to review the outputs from the tool before they add them to the national case management system.

21 MoJ and HMPPS are developing their quality assurance procedures. The Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government recommends that public bodies establish performance metrics for AI systems that measure the accuracy of model outputs.The national evaluation will include a linked case audit which will compare a sample of transcripts, AI-generated summaries and final case records to establish whether practitioners identify and correct errors or omissions and add relevant context and professional judgement. HMPPS also plans for regional Performance, Assurance and Risk teams to carry out case audits to look at the quality of the case records, alongside ongoing supervision by Senior Probation Officers that will include review of case management records. At present, however, there is no quality assurance mechanism to monitor the accuracy of the original transcript. This makes it difficult for MoJ and HMPPS to monitor the technical quality of the tool or the risk of probation officers becoming over-reliant on AI-generated summaries and not checking them. This could be addressed, for example, through periodic reviews of a sample of audio recordings, transcripts, summaries and final case records.

HMPPS Is Not Working

The content of the recent damning National Audit Office report on resettlement will come as no great surprise, but I wonder how much longer the politicians will need before concluding HMPPS is 'unfit for purpose' and probation must be set free. The NAO press release:-   

Improving resettlement support for prison leavers to reduce reoffending

The government is not consistently supporting prison leavers in resettling into the community and the quality of services has declined in recent years, a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.

The NAO report, Improving resettlement support for prison leavers to reduce reoffending, also found that HM Inspectorate of Prisons did not rate any prisons as ‘good’ for rehabilitation and release planning in 2022-23, compared to 3% in the previous year and 30% in 2019-20.

The Ministry of Justice estimated in 2019 that the cost to society of reoffending by all adult offenders identified in 2016 was £16.7 billion (in 2017-18 prices). Official figures included in the report show that 38% of prisoners released from custody between April 2020 and March 2021 reoffended in the following 12 months.

A severe shortage of probation officers, combined with high caseloads means that HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) is not completing all the resettlement work it recognises is essential. For example, between April 2022 and January 2023, key handover meetings between prison and probation staff and prisoners did not happen as intended in around half of cases.

In December 2022, 29% of probation officer roles were vacant while 92% of probation sub-regions were operating at or above full caseload capacity in August 2022 This follows the NAO’s report on probation services in 2019, which found that severe shortages and high workloads in the former National Probation Service were hampering its effectiveness. Today’s report also sets out the challenges caused by HMPPS’s reorganisation of probation services and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prisons and probation services.

The NAO found that important resettlement outcomes for prison leavers have been mixed. From April 2022 to January 2023, accommodation outcomes have remained stable, with 76% of prison leavers in settled accommodation after three months. Employment outcomes have improved in this period, with more than a quarter of prison leavers in work after six months, up from 17% in the previous year. However, substance misuse treatment outcomes have remained poor, with just 37% of prison leavers with a substance misuse treatment referral engaged in community-based treatment in 2021-22.

HMPPS does not know why different groups of prison leavers have very different resettlement outcomes. NAO analysis found that, in 2021-22, 8% of female prison leavers were employed after six months compared with 18% of male prison leavers, while 11% of black or black British prison leavers were in work compared with 18% of white prison leavers. HMPPS has not performed analysis to identify the causes of this variation.

The NAO identified several strengths or recent improvements in the service and welcomed steps that HMPPS has taken to address unmet need such as launching a new accommodation service in July 2021 for offenders at risk of homelessness. In interviews with staff, we observed a strong commitment among prison and probation staff to turning prison leavers’ lives around. HMPPS has also made good progress recruiting people to help prison leavers find a job. By March 2023 it introduced employment leads in 92 eligible prisons to support prison leavers into work, although it is too early to determine their impact.

With the prison population forecast to increase by as much as 25% between March 2023 and March 2027 – mainly due to an increase in police officers and longer sentences for serious offenders – the NAO urges HMPPS to plan how it will manage higher demand for resettlement services. The Probation Service may need to supervise around 5,900 more prison leavers by March 2025, an increase of around 10% compared with caseloads in September 2022.

Among its recommendations the NAO urged government bodies on the Cross Government Reducing Reoffending Board to publish a report in 2024 defining clear roles and responsibilities in the resettlement system. Better data is also required: HMPPS cannot currently demonstrate whether its Commissioned Rehabilitative Services contracts are making a positive difference to offenders, while its baseline audits of these contracts showed poor performance.

“One of the core purposes of prisons and probation services is to prepare prisoners for release effectively and ensure their smooth resettlement into the community. However, HMPPS and its partners across government do not do so consistently.

“While HMPPS has made some progress in recent years around issues such as accommodation it must ensure the basics are in place, including defining clear roles and responsibilities in the resettlement system.”

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO

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Background to the report

Prisons and probation services have two core purposes: to carry out the sentences given by the courts; and to rehabilitate people in their care and supervision to help them lead law-abiding and useful lives and to protect the public. In 2021-22, there were 58,915 releases from prison in total (including some people released more than once, see paragraph 1.2). Between April 2020 and March 2021, 38% of adults released from prison reoffended in the 12 months following their release (four percentage points lower than the previous year).

Reoffending has significant costs to society. This includes direct financial losses to victims and the costs that the criminal justice system must meet, from running police investigations and court hearings, to holding offenders in prisons and ensuring their effective supervision in the community. In 2019 the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) estimated that reoffending across all adult offenders identified in 2016 had cost society £16.7 billion (in 2017-18 prices).

Prison leavers are more likely to reoffend if they are not resettled into the community, for example if they have nowhere to live, no job or other income, and have poor continuity of healthcare. HMPPS and its partners aim to minimise the risk of this through their resettlement work.

While in custody, staff should regularly assess prisoners to understand their needs and risks throughout their sentences. Before someone leaves prison, there should be handovers between prison- and community-based staff. During and following a prisoner’s release, support should be available to help them address known barriers to successful resettlement.

Scope of the report

This report examines:

• government’s effectiveness in resettling prison leavers
• the factors affecting service performance
• what needs to be addressed to improve resettlement services in the future

Our report examines resettlement arrangements for adult prison leavers in England and Wales with a focus on services relating to prison leavers’ accommodation, employment and substance misuse treatment outcomes. We did not examine the resettlement of children and young people and did not review support for offenders sentenced in the community in detail.

While we examine how HMPPS managed the transition of resettlement services to its new arrangements, we did not audit its overall approach to unifying probation services in detail. This report refers to both prison leavers and offenders as some of government’s services and initiatives are available to all offenders, including those sentenced in the community. Where data are not captured for prison leavers specifically, we have used data across all offender types.

Conclusions

One of the core purposes of prisons and probation services is to prepare prisoners for release effectively and ensure their smooth resettlement into the community. However, HMPPS and its partners across government do not do so consistently.

Within prisons, HMPPS does not provide sufficient activities to prepare prison leavers and those it does provide are not at the required standard. The Inspectorates have reported a significant deterioration in the quality of release planning and rehabilitation services in recent years. Moreover, HMPPS does not have good enough data on its CRS contracts to know whether they are making a positive difference.

We observed a strong commitment among prison and probation staff to turning prison leavers’ lives around, but performance has been hampered by staff shortages and high workloads. Accountability arrangements and dependencies between departments’ work are unclear. In addition, data collection and information-sharing on prisoners’ needs and outcomes, particularly on substance misuse treatment, is fragmented.

Probation Needs Funding Restored

Here we have HM Probation Inspectorate pointing out the utter folly of underfunding probation and making representations to HM Treasury as to why it should and must be reversed. Lets hope the plea doesn't fall on deaf ears.  

Comprehensive Spending Review representation 

HM Inspectorate of Probation submitted this representation to HM Treasury on 18 September 2020: 

This representation relates to two priorities for the Comprehensive Spending Review: 

• improving outcomes in public services, including taking steps to cut crime 

• improving the management and delivery of government commitments, to ensure that all departments have the appropriate structures and processes in place to deliver their outcomes and commitments on time and within budget. 

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services in England and Wales. HM Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell heads up the Inspectorate. 

Probation services play a vital role in the rehabilitation of nearly a quarter of a million offenders and in protecting the public from risks of serious harm. The government has announced its intention to unify probation services from June 2021. This will mark a new chapter for the sector and will see nearly 130,000 cases transfer from 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) to the publicly-funded National Probation Service (NPS). Probation services must be funded properly to cope with this transition and to ensure high-quality services in the future. 

Probation services have been underfunded for years. The National Audit Office’s Transforming Rehabilitation progress review (March 2019) found that CRCs were forecast to lose £294 million if the contracts continued as planned, compared with £269 million forecasted profit at the bid stage. The scope of probation budgets has changed over the past two decades, so it is difficult to make direct year-on-year comparisons. However, we estimate that real-term spending per person under probation supervision has fallen almost 40 per cent from around £5,900 in 2003-2004 to around £3,550 in 2018-2019 (figures adjusted for inflation using 2020 real terms base) and spending on CRC cases is significantly less than this. Our inspections in 2019-2020 have shown that a number of CRC providers have had to cut their budgets still further, with damaging effects on the quality of supervision that they deliver. 

Staff and training 

The impact of underfunding is clear to see. Our summary report of 2018-2019 inspections (October 2019) found probation services under severe strain. Probation staff are struggling to manage high numbers of offenders – 86 per cent of staff in CRCs and 33 per cent in NPS divisions are responsible for more than 40 cases. In our opinion, it is difficult for even experienced practitioners to deal with 60, 70, 80 or more cases properly. Financial pressures have also led to some CRC providers replacing qualified probation officers with less experienced staff who are still training towards a qualification. 

Unsurprisingly, the combination of high caseloads and more inexperienced staff has had a negative impact on the quality of work. This was particularly stark in CRCs – in nearly half (45 per cent) of inspected cases, probation staff did not assess risks sufficiently. Not enough home visits or domestic abuse checks are being conducted. We also found frequent lapses in information-sharing with other agencies such as the police and children’s social services. 

The unification of probation services presents a unique opportunity to raise the standard of risk management and information-sharing between agencies, which should lead to better protection of the public. Funding is needed to tackle gaps in staffing and bring caseloads down to manageable levels. Stubborn and high vacancies need to be filled, particularly in London and the South East. Extra resources are needed to provide robust and ongoing training for new and existing probation practitioners. 

Probation services must also be funded to cope with the impact of wider government initiatives. For example, the campaign to recruit 20,000 more police officers will lead to many more people coming before our courts. This will, in turn, increase pressure on the NPS to provide information and advice to courts to support sentencing, and to supervise individuals serving community sentences and on release from prison. 

Reducing reoffending 

More funding is needed to support (ex)offenders in the community. The Ministry of Justice’s own figures show 11,435 people were released from prison into homelessness in 2018-2019, including more than 3,700 higher-risk individuals. Our inspection of the accommodation and support for adult offenders in the community and on release from prison (July 2020) noted the lack of a cross-government approach to tackling homelessness. Approved premises, which support the resettlement of higher-risk offenders on release from prison, are unable to meet demand and more places are needed. Our review of the case of Joseph McCann (June 2020) found probation staff were unable to find beds for him on two occasions, despite his status as a higher-risk and dangerous criminal. McCann ended up in unsuitable housing that did not allow close monitoring and management by probation services. The Ministry of Justice recently announced 200 more beds in Approved Premises – while this is positive, it fails to meet demand for places. There is also a pressing need for more funding to speed up repairs/maintenance in Approved Premises, as beds are frequently and frustratingly lost because of damage/poor upkeep. 

Many (ex)offenders have complex needs and these can contribute towards offending behaviour. Our inspections in 2018-2019 found that probation services delivered sufficient services in just 41 per cent of cases involving alcohol misuse and 45 per cent of cases involving substance misuse. The rise in levels of Class A drug use is a driver for crime and cannot be ignored. Dame Carol Black’s independent review of drugs for the Department for Health and Social Care and the Home Office (2019-2020) found that while drug-related deaths are now at record levels, funding for treatment has reduced – by up to 40 per cent in some local authorities. There needs to be adequate and sustained funding for alcohol and substance misuse treatment in the community; it is impossible to address other aspects of offending behaviour without getting this right. 

Conclusion 

According to the Ministry of Justice’s figures (2019), the estimated economic and social cost of reoffending was £18.1 billion over a 12-month period. 

The unification of probation services in June 2021 presents a unique opportunity for the government to “re-set” the service and ensure it is funded properly to fulfil its statutory role. We urge HM Treasury not to miss this chance. 

If probation services continue to be underfunded, this will lead to poorer outcomes for society – more people at risk, more victims, and more communities blighted by crime. Prioritising funding for probation services and associated services in the community will help to cut the cycle of reoffending and support individuals to move towards crime-free lives.

The Power of Discussion and Debate

Blimey, yet another official report highlighting in some shocking detail the terrible state of our prisons and the very poor management by HMPPS, this time from the National Audit Office:- 

Improving the prison estate

This report examines the condition and capacity of HM Prison and Probation Service's prison estate.

Background to the report

Since 2015, against a backdrop of worsening living conditions for prisoners, HMPPS (Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service) has changed the way in which it maintains prisons and launched a programme to improve the condition and suitability of prison accommodation. It opted to contract out facilities management, create 10,000 new-for-old prison places and change its estate to better meet the needs of prisoners.

Content and scope of the report

This report examines how HMPPS handled these changes and what it achieved. It:

• sets out the condition of the estate and the capacity within prisons to accommodate the prison population;
• examines HMPPS’s approach to managing the maintenance of its prisons; and
• assesses HMPPS’s performance in transforming its estate by building new prisons, selling unsuitable prisons and reorganising prison places.

Report Conclusions

HMPPS has committed to providing a safe, secure and decent prison estate, but its plans to achieve this are failing. It has not been able to provide enough prison places, in the right type of prisons, and at the right time, to meet demand. The Prison Estate Transformation Programme’s plans to create up to 10,000 new prison places to replace ageing, ineffective prisons proved undeliverable and outsourcing prison facilities management has not delivered expected efficiencies. If successful, these initiatives could have made a difference, but as it stands the prison estate is not meeting the needs of prisoners or those working in the prison system. It represents poor value for money.

HMPPS is taking welcome steps to improve its understanding of the condition of the prison estate, and now better understands the significant gap between its ambitions and the available resources. Learning lessons from its experience in delivering the programme will be crucial as it responds to the government’s new commitment to create 10,000 new prison places. But HMPPS must resist a reactive approach and put its long-term plans on a secure footing. Achieving value for money will ultimately depend on HMPPS working with the Ministry and HM Treasury to develop a long-term, deliverable strategy that will provide a prison estate that is fit for purpose.

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This from the Guardian:-

Two in five prisons in poor condition, watchdog finds

Report says a backlog of major repairs will cost £916m as safety breaches reach a record high

The government is failing in its efforts to improve prison conditions, with record levels of safety breaches and “huge” backlogs in repairs, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found. The National Audit Office said plans to “provide and maintain safe, secure and decent prisons” had not been carried out.

A report released on Friday found that safety in two out of every five inspected prisons were rated as poor or “not sufficiently good”, with recorded problems at an all-time high. Over the last decade, the Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has taken 1,730 cells permanently out of use and it expects to lose another 500 places every year because of the poor conditions of the remaining estate, the NAO said.

In the next three years, 41% of prisons need major repair or replacement work. There is currently a backlog of repairs that will cost £916m to fix, according to the report. The prison population in December was around 82,300, equating to 98% of its capacity.

The report comes as ministers aim to pass emergency legislation to block the automatic early release of convicted terror offenders, which is likely to put further pressure on the prison system. The move follows three attacks in recent months by men convicted of terror offences, including the stabbing on Sunday of two people in Streatham, south London.

Responding to the report, Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, said the ministry had failed once more to oversee outsourcing firms or get to grips with management of a crumbling estate.

“As with probation reforms, the ministry has not got outsourcing right. Provider performance has been poor and planned savings failed to materialise. The ministry is on course to deliver just a third of previously promised places. The government say they want people to serve more time, but soon the prison population could exceed capacity. As the Streatham attack highlighted, the Prison and Probation Service urgently needs a long-term plan to improve our prisons and will need the funding to do this.”

In 2015, HMPPS outsourced management of prison facilities to Amey and Carillion, expecting to achieve savings of £79m, but had an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of the condition of the assets, the report said. “Due diligence was not sufficiently robust and HMPPS severely underestimated the demand for reactive maintenance work arising from vandalism and failing assets.” HMPPS expected to pay providers £17.7m for variable costs by 2018-19 – the fourth year of the contracts – but has paid £160.4m, according to the latest findings.

The government has “struggled to create new prison places”, with only 206 built and 3,360 under construction out of 10,000 new for old places it committed to create in 2016. “The main reason behind these failures was the delays in agreeing and receiving funding to build new prisons. This meant construction work began later than planned,” the report said.

It recommended that HMPPS develop a long-term strategy on condition standards and minimum levels of investment. Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The government has recently committed to creating 10,000 new prison places and needs to learn lessons from its recent experiences.”

The Ministry of Justice said it “recognised” the need to invest in maintenance and safety and pledged to spend £256m more to carry out improvements over the coming year. A spokeswoman said: “We will always have enough prison places to keep offenders behind bars, and the government’s £2.5bn investment will create 10,000 modern places, on top of the two new jails already being built.”

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National Audit Office report on improving the prison estate

Commenting on the findings of today’s (7 February) National Audit Office report on improving the prison estate, Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“This startlingly frank report says that the government is failing to provide safe, secure and decent prisons. It describes in forensic detail how a succession of plans have disintegrated almost as soon as they have been announced, resulting in a failure to build new prisons, or close old ones, or maintain the current prison estate in a useable condition. To cap it all, there is no plan in place for the future.

“Scarcely a week passes without another high profile announcement of longer sentences or delayed release dates, despite the absence of any evidence that more imprisonment does anything to deter or reduce crime. This report exposes the recklessness of that approach, sending people to a prison system that shames us as a country, and all too often serves only to entrench the behaviour it is supposed to change.”

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From BBC website:-

Meanwhile the National Audit Office has found the government has so far only increased prison places by 200, despite a pledge in 2016 to deliver 10,000 places over four years. The NAO's report said the building programme was delayed because of disagreements about funding. It found 3,000 places were still under construction.

There are currently more than 83,000 people locked up - and the number is forecast to increase. The report said analysis by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) showed that from October 2022, demand for prison places could begin to outstrip supply, as an increase in police officer numbers potentially leads to more offenders being caught. Further pressures are expected because of sentencing reforms, with the most serious offenders spending longer periods behind bars. The NAO report also criticised prison conditions, with poor safety reaching "record levels" and "huge maintenance backlogs".

Ministers have announced a new £2.5bn prison building programme but the NAO said no timetable has been set and the 10,000 places which they have again promised may not be enough to keep up with the expected rise in the prison population. The Ministry of Justice said it recognised the need to invest in maintenance and safety and pledged to spend an additional £256m to carry out improvements over the coming year.

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So, yet more confirmation of a pretty grim picture of very poor management by HMPPS, of which probation is of course part and regular readers will be aware I'm strongly of the opinion that if this vital public service is to survive and be useful, it must break free of the dead hand of civil service control and return to being independently run. 

I want to end this post by making an important point and it concerns the degree of traction that probation practitioners can still exert despite official attempts to stifle discussion and debate within NPS. The following is from an email I received yesterday from the NAO and I hope they will not mind my quoting from it:- 

"Dear Mr Brown, 

The National Audit Office has today published a report on Improving the Prison Estate which we hope will be of interest to your subscribers. You can find a link to our report here: https://www.nao.org.uk/report/improving-the-prison-estate/

We have found your blog to be an excellent source of information on developments in probation and prisons sectors, particularly in terms of canvassing a broad range of perspectives from practitioners on the ground.

You may be interested to know that previous discussion threads on your blog helped to inform our approach to data collection and fieldwork for our value for money study on Transforming Rehabilitation: Progress Review which we published in March last year. This, combined with insights from our focus groups with probation officers, culminated in Figure 4 of the report which examined workload rates across different National Probation Service sub-regions."

Readers will recall it was that NAO report that put the final nail in the coffin marked TR and as discussed here. 

Cold Feet on Shorter Sentences?

By a strange twist of timing, the day before the Liverpool post mortem on TR, and in the middle of the Brexit shenanigans, David Gauke was giving evidence to the Justice Committee, principally on the subject of Legal Aid, but other important matters cropped up, including him meeting CRC CEO's the following day! For Sunday reading, it's worth paying close attention to his answers, especially in view of our discussions in a wet Liverpool last week:-  

Q18 Chair: We have been talking a bit about legal aid, and we are going to come back to that. Sometimes, it is suggested to us that the problem in your Department is the way it is set up, in the sense that, essentially, the bulk of the spend goes on prisons and probation, and courts and legal aid are tagged on and are potentially poor relations. 

David Gauke: That argument is made sometimes. When we were going through the allocations decisions last year, we had to make a number of difficult decisions. In truth, a number of difficult decisions had to be made on the prisons side as well, and probably, in that case, prisons bore the greater burden. It is a question of making a judgment as to what is right and what is necessary across the piece. 

I am not sure that, if one looked at spending across the different parts of MOJ, one would necessarily conclude that things have been skewed in the direction of the Prison Service, for example, versus anything else. On the courts side of things, it is a process where we work very closely with the judiciary. I work very closely with the Lord Chief Justice in determining where spending should be. The truth is—it is no secret—that the Ministry of Justice has had to make a number of difficult spending decisions over recent years. Every part of the Ministry of Justice has had to find savings and efficiencies. 

Q19 Chair: You make the point that you have to work with the judiciary. You have a unique role among Cabinet Ministers because of the judicial oath you take as Lord Chancellor. David Gauke: Indeed. 

Q20 Chair: You made it very clear when you took office that you regarded that as central to your function. What do you think is necessary to give you the resource to continue to achieve that objective? 

David Gauke: You are right. There is a duty on me to ensure that our justice system gets the resources it needs. In our approach to resources, I hope that the relationship with the Treasury over the last 15 months or so has been strengthened, building on very good work by my predecessors, to ensure that we spend public money wisely and efficiently, and that, if we need to go to the Treasury and say we need additional resources, we do so on the basis of evidence having been built up and a record demonstrating that we spend public money sensibly. 

You will be conscious that we made a fairly significant reserve claim for 2018-19. We are engaging very constructively with the Treasury for the future. I hope that will become clearer in future, but it is on the basis of demonstrating that we spend money wisely. To use a terrible phrase, it is not a question of shroud-waving; it is about making a strong case as to what we need to deliver a satisfactory justice system for the 21st century. 

Chair: A key part of that is prison spending. 

Q21 Victoria Prentis: We are not expecting you, particularly after the day you had yesterday, formally to have digested our marvellous report. 

David Gauke: I confess I have not read every page. 

Q22 Victoria Prentis: But we wondered whether you had had a little look at it and what your initial impression was. 

David Gauke: I have. If I may, I will make a couple of comments. It will come as no surprise to anybody on this Committee that I share the Committee’s desire to ensure that we have a justice system that delivers rehabilitation effectively and adequately. In my view, it is important that we ensure that our prison system is decent, humane and safe. We have faced very high levels of violence in recent years, and we need to make sure that we address that, because it is very hard to put in place adequate levels of rehabilitation when people are worried about being beaten up and drugs are overly prevalent. 

It is right that we get the basics right, and I strongly believe that that is necessary for safety and decency, but we also need to deliver on rehabilitation. We are making progress on that. Just this week, we have new education contracts in place. The education and employment strategy is very much a focus of mine; it is something I place great emphasis on. I want to deliver, as I know this Committee does, a justice system where people’s lives are turned around, because that is the way we can reduce crime. Reduce reoffending, and you will reduce crime. 

Q23 Victoria Prentis: In your speech on 18 February, you said there was a strong case for reducing shorter sentences. That is a major feature of our report and is the feature that was picked up this morning by the press, in so far as any of it has been yet. Do you think the Government would consider introducing legislation to that effect? 

David Gauke: Yes, we are considering our options. No decisions have been made as yet, but I worry about the impact short sentences can have and the poor rehabilitation record of those who have been sentenced to short sentences. This is a complex matter and it will be necessary to look at particular offences, as to whether the arguments are as strong on rehabilitation, and whether there are perhaps different arguments on deterrence or public protection that come into play. 

Q24 Victoria Prentis: The difficulty is that actual funding will have to be spent on robust alternatives, and real work will have to be done to make sure that there are good alternatives to prison. 

David Gauke: I very much agree. It is important not to think that addressing the issue of short sentences is, for example, a huge moneysaving opportunity. In the long term it might be, if it helps to reduce reoffending, but I completely agree with you that reducing short sentences needs to be viewed in the context of improving the alternatives. Community sentences that are robust and properly enforced are very important. It needs to be looked at as a package. I do not think one can overnight get rid of short sentences and then hope for the best. It needs to be viewed in that context. 

Q25 Victoria Prentis: We feel very strongly about that, as you will see from the report. I think the Committee would press you for a timeframe. Do you have any ideas? 

David Gauke: It depends on the particular routes one goes down. I stress that no decisions have been made, but if we were looking at a legislative route, given the approach I like to take, which is to be led by evidence, it would not happen overnight. Equally, going back to my earlier point, one needs to look at it at the same time as looking at alternative, community, sentences. We need to make sure that they are in place and robust. 

I do not think it can be sorted by the end of the year; it will take some time, but I am very keen to use that time to continue to make the argument and, I hope, build a consensus, which is sustainable and long term, that the approach we take to our justice system should be led by the evidence and focused on reducing reoffending. If we can do that, there is a significant prize for society. 

Q26 Victoria Prentis: You will certainly have the support of this Committee in that.

IPP prisoners remain, for this Committee, a very worrying part of our prison population. The numbers continue to fall, but two particular points worry us. First, we are left with a rump, if you like, that seems to be very difficult to deal with or to release. What steps are you taking to ensure that those cases can be looked at properly? 

The second thing we are worried about is the very high number of recalls in that population. I think it is nearly 1,000, which is astonishing given the size of the population. Those are our two areas of concern about IPPs. 

David Gauke: I do not want to depress the Committee further, but there is a distinct risk that the number of IPP prisoners will cease to fall because the level of recalls will exceed those being released. The difficulty, and a real challenge for the Parole Board, is that, as we get down to the hard core of those prisoners, they have to make an assessment as to public protection. The Parole Board will not release prisoners when they think there is significant risk to the public. They have to make those decisions on a case-by-case basis. 

Q27 Victoria Prentis: Have they been given all the resources and ability to make those decisions as quickly as they are able to? 

David Gauke: Yes, I think they have. For example, additional resources became available at the time of the autumn Budget for the Parole Board, so I think they have the resources they need. The Parole Board has a very difficult job and they need to make decisions on the basis of the evidence in front of them. That is what they are doing, but if their judgment—it is a very difficult judgment to make—is that an IPP prisoner would present a risk to society, I am not going to be critical of them for refusing to release such a prisoner. 

Q28 Victoria Prentis: Do you think sufficient resources are available to support IPP prisoners after release? That might in itself reassure the Parole Board but would also, one would hope, reduce the number of recalls. 

David Gauke: That is something we constantly have to look at to see whether more can be done in that area, but I am not particularly aware that it is the constraint in this case. At one point, I asked for some anonymised examples of the type of people who are not being released. It is very much not my decision, but when those anonymised examples are presented, you can see why the Parole Board was reluctant to release some of those individuals, even though they might have been significantly beyond tariff. 

Q29 Chair: Isn’t the real answer to grasp the nettle, as Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice, suggested, and change the law, and re-sentence all the current IPP prisoners to determinate sentences in accordance with what would be the normal practice now, rather than having this hangover in the system? 

David Gauke: There is certainly a respectable argument for that. Let’s see what progress we can continue to make. We all have to face the fact that many if not all of these cases are difficult, and there is a significant risk to the public. Much though my approach is very much focused on rehabilitation and so on, I also place significant store on protecting the public. 

Q30 Chair: Absolutely. Many of us might say that determinate sentences might be quite substantial, but they might be a more open and honest way of dealing with the matter than the half-life of the IPP. 

David Gauke: I can see that argument. I do not think anyone can be terribly comfortable with where we are. I accept that. 

Q31 David Hanson: The Minister of State, Rory Stewart, sent us a very helpful letter on 1 April regarding Birmingham Prison. He indicated in that letter that the cost settlement from G4S was £9.9 million. Is that the total cost to the Ministry? 

David Gauke: That is our assessment of the fair cost to us in stepping in at Birmingham. We believe we are being properly compensated for stepping in with regard to Birmingham. 

Q32 David Hanson: The £9.9 million covers the entire cost to the Ministry for the failure of Birmingham Prison and taking it over. 

David Gauke: It covers the cost of our stepping in with regard to Birmingham. I think the answer is yes. Obviously, we now take up some costs in running Birmingham, but that is the step-in cost. 

Q33 Chair: While we are dealing with this side of the Department’s work, can I put one other point to you? You said you wanted to work on the basis of evidence. The evidence is that Transforming Rehabilitation has been a complete failure, hasn’t it? 

David Gauke: Clearly, it has not delivered in the way we wanted. Last summer, I set out that I was going to make changes and bring those contracts to an end early. There was additional funding, for example, on the through the gate processes. We set out our proposal and consulted on it, and we have been looking very closely at the responses. We have also been looking very closely at what the NAO and Dame Glenys Stacey have said. Tomorrow, I am meeting the chief executives of the CRCs to discuss this further. I am reflecting very carefully on the balance between the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector in delivering probation services. 

Q34 David Hanson: Following up my first question, I want to deal with the cost of Working Links and Interserve collapsing, the cost of taking over those projects, plus the costs of repairing the damage that the chief inspector of probation and the National Audit Office referred to. What is your total estimate of those costs to the Ministry of Justice? 

David Gauke: The first point is that, as you have just heard, I am willing to acknowledge that there are things in the current probation set-up that are not satisfactory and adequate, and we will have to make changes. In terms of the criticism that this is costing the Exchequer lots more money than was anticipated, I do not think that is right at all. We are spending considerably less on probation and the CRCs than was anticipated. That is not to say that everything is all fine with the system; it is not. 

Q35 David Hanson: That is because there are fewer people being referred to CRCs, so the cost was not transferred and spent accordingly. 

David Gauke: It is also because the CRCs were paid by results and they have not delivered the results we wanted, but the expenditure on CRCs is less than we had anticipated. What has in truth been happening is that the shareholders of the CRCs have been subsidising the probation service, so it is not good for them, but the system is not good for us. 

Q36 David Hanson: Is it possible to supply the Committee with a balance sheet of costs incurred by the MOJ and payments made to CRCs, and your costs and estimates of what the Transforming Rehabilitation repair work will be? 

David Gauke: We can certainly provide you with as much detail as we possibly can, but we would also want to compare that with the anticipated costs of the CRC system. What we will find is that we are spending significantly less than we had anticipated when Transforming Rehabilitation was introduced. 

Q37 David Hanson: Is it possible to wrap that up with the response to the Justice Committee’s report of June last year that you promised to provide by October last year? As I recall, it is now April this year. 

David Gauke: I want to respond to that report when we have determined how we are going to respond to the consultation to the reforms I set out last summer, and how we want to take that forward. It would be sensible for me to respond to the Select Committee, and it is not my usual custom to delay a response, but, given that we are looking carefully at our options, it is right that we reach a conclusion before we respond to the Select Committee. 

Q38 David Hanson: The cynic in me would ask why you promised to deliver it in January this year—in October—when obviously there had been major changes and some consideration by the MOJ. Surely, it is now time to produce the Government’s response to the recommendations in the report we produced. 

David Gauke: The right thing for me to do is to take into account the evidence that has been presented to us as to the way forward and reach a conclusion on that. Once I have reached a conclusion, I can give a more helpful response to the Select Committee. Were I to provide a response at this point, I would be very limited in what I think I could say. 

Q39 David Hanson: Just between us, when is that likely to be? 

David Gauke: Just between us, I hope we will be able to say something in the not too distant future. 

Q40 Chair: Well, that’s faster than in due course, isn’t it? 

David Gauke: It is faster than in due course. It will be much earlier than in due course. 

Chair: We come back to the balance you have to have in the Department between the prison and probation side and the justice issues in the broader sense. You have been keen to ensure that there is proper access to justice, and some of our earlier questions were about how you make that a reality, rather than its being, in the famous phrase, like the Ritz hotel. We are now going to ask questions about the way people can access the system, some of the changes to eligibility and so on. 

The Surreal World of TR

The things I do for this blog now include getting utterly drenched in Liverpool yesterday on my way to a joint event put on by Liverpool John Moores University and the Probation Journal, a sort of post mortem on 'Transforming Rehabilitation'. The star turn was Oliver Lodge of the National Audit Office and author of three out of the four NAO reports on TR to date.

Having reminded us that the NAO's job is never to question government policy, but rather examine and audit in respect of Value For (Taxpayer's) Money, a trot through the key findings of all four reports, delivered in a typical accountants' flat, unemotional tone, nevertheless was devastating in utterly demolishing this particular bit of government policy. A bit surreal really, but a situation rather neatly encapsulated by a bit of typically British understatement "not a pretty picture" he said.  There really was nothing and I mean nothing, to commend TR, according to the man from the government department whose job it is to never question government policy - well, except this:- 

'At the end of the TR contracts, the cost will be £822m less than before.' 

I had to have a long think about this figure and indeed I seem to recall that the TR architect himself, Chris Grayling, has already quoted it in defence of the TR omnishambles. Lets just ponder for one minute what this figure of underfunding has meant over the last few years:-

• careers ruined
• stress caused
• sick leave increase
• staff vacancies
• recruitment stymied
• reduction in training 
• more victims
• more crime
• more SFOs
• community orders not made
• increase in recalls to prison
• accommodation not found
• jobs not secured

This is not a comprehensive list, but you get the idea, a situation confirmed in spades by all the other panel speakers whether academics, from NPS, from CRC or Napo. They all spoke movingly and unlike our friend Oliver from the NAO, passionately about the horror of TR and Lol Burke in particular reminded the audience that its introduction has been likened to  workplace violence. I personally know of a colleagues having been diagnosed with PTSD.

The NAO has suggested in the strongest terms that TR2 be 'paused' and are very concerned at the 'huge challenge to come'. We know the outgoing HMI says TR is 'irredeemably flawed' and the Justice Committee are very concerned. As yet there has been no response to last years 'sham' consultation, but some say we will hear in May. We could be in for another round of trauma folks.  

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This letter in the Telegraph confirms the magistrates are not happy:-

Probation reform

SIR – The report by Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, on the state of the probation service is extremely concerning (report, March 28), suggesting that existing provision is simply not fit for purpose.

The report highlights poor performance, dwindling confidence among magistrates in the delivery of community sentences, and the risk that people are being sent to prison when a suitable community sentence might have made this avoidable.

As the Ministry of Justice decides on its next steps in reforming the probation service, these matters must be addressed. Magistrates will not be able to impose community sentences with confidence unless they know that they can be delivered.

John Bache JP
National Chairman, Magistrates Association
London SW8

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We wonder what the new HMI and current MoJ insider will make of it all:-

The Secretary of State has announced the appointment of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation.

The Secretary of State has announced the appointment of Justin Russell as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation for a tenure of 3 years. His appointment will commence on 1 June 2019 and run until 31 May 2022.

The appointment follows a report from the Justice Select, Committee into Justin’s suitability for the role, published on 8 March, and a public hearing with the committee held on 5 March.

Appointments and re-appointments are regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, and have been made in line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments.

HM Chief Inspectorate of Probation

The Chief Inspector of Probation reports directly to Ministers, but operates independently of government and the services under its scrutiny. The Chief Inspector has a duty to ensure the inspection of probation and youth offending services in England and Wales and to provide independent scrutiny of the quality of work undertaken with individual offenders.

Justin Russell Biography

Mr Russell has spent over thirty years working on a wide range of criminal justice issues as a researcher, policy maker and major programme leader and has a long-standing interest and involvement in probation and youth justice policy. Mr Russell has also worked for the Audit Commission and Mental Health Foundation and was a non-executive Director of Turning Point from 2005 to 2011. Until recently, he was Director General for Justice Analysis and Offender Policy at the Ministry of Justice and is currently the Director General for No Deal EU Exit Planning at the Ministry of Justice.

--oo00oo--

Finally, Bob Neill writing in the Times makes clear his view that prison reform can only happen if probation is fixed:-

Time for rethink on a prisons policy that amounts to crisis management

The government’s approach to prisons in England and Wales is failing to deliver.

The prison population has nearly doubled since the early 1990s — currently standing at 82,000 — and forecasts to 2022 suggest that even more people than that will be in prison by then. This is against the backdrop of a £1.2bn black hole in the Ministry of Justice’s finances, with many prisons overcrowded and a rapidly changing prisoner demographic.

There are many people in prison with drug, alcohol and mental health problems, and prison is often not the best place for them to get help. Despite this, we use custodial sentences more than any other nation in western Europe, and we get considerably worse results in terms of turning people’s lives around and preventing reoffending.

The Commons justice committee’s wide-ranging report, published today after almost 18-months of evidence gathering, proposes a range of solutions.

David Gauke, the justice secretary, is right in his assertion that there is a strong case for abolishing short sentences of six months or less altogether — and not purely because it is an easy way of saving money or closing prisons.

The ministry has rightly focused on safety and decency in prisons, however this has come directly at the expense of rehabilitation. We heard robust evidence that poor access to rehabilitation has a cyclical impact on the degradation of regimes and on safety, which can in turn lead to violence and self-harm. There must now be a dual approach to maintain safety and decency, but also improve rehabilitation.

Without doubt, prison will always have a role in dealing with the most serious crimes and those who are a threat to society, but cutting the use of short sentences, and instead properly investing in tough and rigorous community rehabilitation services would go a long way to solving many of the problems I have described.

Almost a third of prisoners are on sentences of less than 12 months. Better access to support and opportunities for offenders would reduce repeat imprisonment, bring down the estimated £15 billion annual cost of reoffending, and start to alleviate pressure on jails.

It is time for a serious and open public debate about the criminal justice system, the role of prison and its affordability. The government has acknowledged this, but it should happen sooner rather than later so the public can understand the challenging nature of decisions around criminal justice.

No solution is straightforward, but ministers must produce a plan that shows a more joined-up approach to the way we use imprisonment and how that is linked to the rest of the criminal justice system.

At present, we waste unsustainable vast sums of public money, but also fail the thousands of people convicted of less serious offences who need support to move on from their past mistakes. It is time for a serious rethink.

Bob Neill is a Conservative MP and chairman of the justice select committee.

Transforming Rehabilitation: The Movie

“The Ministry set itself up to fail in how it approached probation reforms. Its rushed roll-out created significant risks that it was unable to manage."

So, Probation unions, grounds for those who lost their careers to claim against HMG for gross negligence, loss of earnings, constructive dismissal? THEY, the MoJ, imposed premeditated job losses when negotiating & issuing contracts to the new providers. They cannot pass the buck. Job losses were integral to this flawed project & Grayling's provision of £80m from the Modernisation Fund to pay redundancies is evidence of that. Make them pay the price - we had to.

*****
It was never about innovation or reducing reoffending. It was about handing money to the private sector, cutting wage/pension bill, palming off responsibility for any problems from the government to others.

******
The 'new model' being rolled out in Interserve CRCs such as Cheshire and Greater Manchester is a 'new model' in name only. No money is being spent on it - quite the contrary in fact. In a clumsy attempt to reduce expenditure still further the 'new model' consists of nothing more than some meaningless new team names within which the only change is yet higher caseloads for PSOs and the few remaining POs while Interserve sells off the services of experienced PO staff to the NPS. This was initially attributed to a bogus claim that they had suddenly realised their CRCs had too many POs for the nature of the caseload cohort, before the justification was quickly abandoned because it was transparently untrue, and they admitted it was entirely a matter of wanting to spend less. For the sake of the staff, the client group and above all for the sake of public safety their collapse is the best thing that can possibly happen.

*****
For me the real elephant in the TR room is Interserve. In two weeks time they will ask their shareholders to vote through a rescue deal which will wipe out 95% of their holdings. All shareholders that is except its board members. Orwellian turkeys voting for Christmas. If the deal isn't passed, Interserves piggy bank is empty, and it's government bailout or fold. If a second TR contractor should go into administration then TR2 must be dead in the water. In summary to my meanderings? Well it's all just the most awful f****ng mess.

*****
On behalf of all the under 12mth group that's not mentioned I'd like to extend a big thank you to Grayling for the wonderful support his probation privatisation has brought everyone. Through the gate? Most under 12mths are now through the gate many times a year on recall or breach of licence. But I guess that represents the support with accommodation that you promised.

It's unfortunate that the third sector have failed to play fair and provide substance misuse and addiction services for free. It wouldn't be fair on the private sector to expect shareholders or CEOs to contribute to those services and damage their bonuses.
And the mentors are great, and I just can't understand why there isn't more of them. It's an opportunity to do something for free whilst helping big corporations earn lots of money.
And on the subject of money you deserve a special thankyou as everyone still gets £46 to put in their pocket! Thankyou Mr Grayling.

*****
I would also like to point out the immense amount of talent and experience lost to the Probation Service as a result of TR. Talent and experience that was matured by years, often decades, of personal dedication and by the profession, a public sector profession. Talent and experience sold for tuppence to the lowest bidder in order that they could contrive a profit at all our expense. I think a lot of these companies were, still are, chancers and opportunists with limited credentials.

*****
Two deaths on my caseload this year a drug overdose in a notorious den and a suicide, 46 and 28yr old. I'm in CRC and the system is broken, minimal rehabilitation it's all about enforcement. Staff sit behind computers clicking away and management send spreadsheet after spreadsheet. We need to reform with the NPS to save lives of service users, victims, families and staff.

*****

I have recently started training as a probation officer and I am considering leaving already. I can see the POs are hard-working and trying their best but the morale and office environment is shocking. They are all looking for new jobs and look exhausted. I wanted to have some security in this training and learn from POs around me but they have nothing more go give, they are burnt out. Most of them have been in the job 20 years and they say the job is beyond recognisable, they used to enjoy it but the changes have made the job and case loads unmanageable. I had a job interview today and I hope I get it so I can leave. I value my own mental health and there are red flags everywhere for a team that is like a sinking ship.

******

So many years have seen a few hardcore anonymous voices fighting to keep the issues surrounding Grayling's murder of the Probation profession alive, with Jim's commentaries & his all-inclusive blog the locus of those who regularly post. Bizarrely, a blog overtly ignored by at least one trades union. Perhaps the criticisms on the blog were a bit too close to the truth...It's intriguing to see who is now venturing out of the woodwork to condemn Grayling & TR.

Posters to this blog have generated many links & exposed practices or policies that have no place in a Probation setting, whether CRC or NPS. Sadly it will probably be a case of "told you so", rather than seeing Grayling swing from any metaphorical lamp-post. The machinations of TR2 are progressing apace behind closed doors & it would be hard to see Gauke & co pulling back from expediting (what I guess are) deals that are more-or-less done, e.g. Seetec get the Wonky Links contracts. Well done Jim & the contributors to this blog. Keep it up!! It aint over.

NAO Report Savages MoJ and TR

We are used to damning reports on the failure of TR, but this latest one from the National Audit Office puts the tin hat on the whole thing and it absolutely nails that usual feeble and disingenuous response from the MoJ that '20,000 offenders released from short prison sentences are now being supervised'. The NAO says most of 'em have been recalled. What hope for TR2? Here's the press release:-

Transforming Rehabilitation: Progress review

Reforms to probation services have failed to meet the Ministry of Justice’s targets to reduce reoffending and cancelling contracts with probation providers early comes at an additional cost to the taxpayer, according to today’s report by the National Audit Office (NAO).

In 2013, the Ministry embarked on a major reform of probation services. It created Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) to manage low or medium risk offenders and the National Probation Service (NPS) to manage those posing higher risks. It amended its contracts with CRCs in 2017 to increase their income and stabilise failing services, but in July 2018 the Ministry announced these would be terminated 14 months early, in December 20201.

By March 2017, mid-way through the reforms, there was an overall 2.5 percentage point reduction in the proportion of reoffenders since 2011, but there was a 22% overall increase in the number of reoffences per reoffender. The Ministry expected CRCs to reduce reoffending by 3.7 percentage points over the life of the contracts, resulting in £10.4 billion of economic benefits. By March 2017, just six of the 21 CRCs consistently achieved significant reductions in the number of reoffenders.

The Ministry also has not achieved its wider objectives. Only two CRCs have delivered the IT innovation they promised and the number of people recalled to prison has increased by 47% as a result of statutory rehabilitation being extended to those serving sentences of less than 12 months. Offenders serving short sentences often find it difficult to comply with license conditions and available supervision has not been appropriate to reflect the diverse needs of these people. Between January 2015 and September 2018, offenders on short sentences as a percentage of those recalled to prison rose from 3% to 36%.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation found that CRCs have performed poorly overall, with nine out of 13 inspections assessing CRCs negatively for the quality of their work in reducing reoffending and protecting the public, and five negatively for abiding by the sentence of the courts. The NPS’s performance has been stronger, with all inspected NPS areas assessed positively for abiding by the sentence of the court, and 10 positively for protecting the public and reducing reoffending. However, the NPS has been constrained by severe staff shortages and high workloads. In August 2018, its overall staff vacancy rate was 11%, and as high as 20% in London.

The Ministry’s contracts have proved to be ineffective, hampering its ability to hold providers to account for poor services. It designed outcome-based contracts to encourage CRCs to innovate, but this did not fit well with its low risk appetite for failure. As it takes two years for data on reoffending to become available, and changes in reoffending cannot be directly attributed to CRCs’ interventions, its payment by results model was inappropriate for probation services.

The Ministry designed and implemented its reforms too quickly. It sought to transfer the risk of lower volumes of probation work to CRCs, but only tested the impact of volumes reducing by 2%. Two years into the contracts, volumes were between 16% and 48% lower than anticipated. Although this meant the Ministry was paying less to CRCs, it overestimated their ability to reduce costs as their income fell, which put them under financial pressure and affected their willingness to invest in probation services and their transformation plans.

By March 2018, CRCs faced collective losses of £294 million over the life of the contracts, compared to expected profits of £269 million, increasing the risk of providers withdrawing services, performance deteriorating further and potentially multiple providers becoming insolvent. Terminating these contracts will cost taxpayers at least £171 million2. The Ministry originally expected to pay CRCs up to £3.7 billion over the life of the contracts, but by August 2018 it was expecting to pay CRCs £2.3 billion through to December 2020 when it ends its contracts. Yet, together with its earlier unsuccessful efforts to stabilise CRCs, the Ministry will pay at least £467 million more than was required under the original contracts. The full costs will not be known until at least December 2020.

The Ministry has acted on many of the shortcomings in the reforms, including abandoning payment by results, but the NAO has identified risks with its proposals. For example, while the Ministry plans to better align probation regions, it has proposed retaining the split between the NPS and CRCs, meaning it still faces the challenge of ensuring these services work well together and with the wider system. It will also need to manage the risks of transitioning to the new contracts and existing providers withdrawing services or failing outright. For example, on 14 February, Working Links, owner of three CRCs, entered administration. The Ministry implemented its contingency plans and announced that Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC, owned by Seetec, would become responsible for the three Working Links CRCs.

With limited time to procure new contracts, the Ministry should pause and reflect on whether its proposed approach is both deliverable and consistent with its strategic aims for the probation system, and in doing so it should consider how it will respond to the risks set out in this report. In parallel, it should publish a cross-government strategy that spells out how it will work with other bodies to reduce reoffending and develop a detailed plan for managing the wind-down period of its existing contracts.

Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, said today:

“The Ministry set itself up to fail in how it approached probation reforms. Its rushed roll-out created significant risks that it was unable to manage. These have had far reaching consequences. Not only have these failings been extremely costly for taxpayers, but we have seen the number of people on short sentences recalled to prison skyrocket. It is welcome that the Ministry’s proposals address some of the issues that have caused problems, but risks remain. It needs to pause and think carefully about its next steps so that it can get things right this time and improve the quality of probation services.”

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None of us in probation are surprised to hear that "the MoJ set itself up to fail and rushed to roll-out which created significant risks that it was unable to manage." We'd say that's an understatement and this latest NAO report confirms in forensic detail what practitioners, academics and the wider criminal justice world have known right from the beginning - TR was always going to be an unmitigated disaster and utter omnishambles of epic proportions because it was just 'a hunch'. There was no evidence base; no trial period and no understanding of probation practice, especially the management of risk. 

The disgraceful and unworkable 'split' introduced by TR wrecked the careers of many of the most experienced and highly-trained staff; it smashed a former gold-standard service; has failed completely to assist the under 12mth prisoners on release - ie the very group stated as the reason for instigating TR in the first place - and endangered the public by not properly supervising offenders who have subsequently gone on to commit serious further offences.

Most alarming of all, it has created unsafe working conditions for many staff who are becoming ill due to the stress caused by high caseloads, failing IT, constant change and often inexperienced and bullying management. There are staff shortages everywhere and poor retention of new staff due to rock-bottom morale. In short the MoJ must call a halt to TR2, put the service back together and return probation to public control and operation.