More on Bubbs

I must say how wonderful it's been to see the supremely smug and self-satisfied Sir Stephen Bubb get a bit of a well-deserved kicking this week. I find his blog easily the most egregious and self-serving I've come across and it deserves widespread publicity for this reason alone in my book. 

Judging by the negative comments being left, it would seem that Bubbs Blog has attracted quite a few extra readers of late as a result of his extraordinary outburst 'Shawcross Brings Sector into Disrepute' attacking the Chair of the Charity Commission. Unfortunately they are no longer visible as a clearly rattled Sir Stephen has removed the offending post. Lets hope the British Library have duly recorded it for posterity though.

Clearly he has irritated the Daily Telegraph sufficiently for them to trawl through the blog looking for other gems, such as that concerning his rather fabulous 60th birthday bash at the House of Lords last November when the great and the good paid homage:-

He boasted how “an eclectic mix of family and friends, Acevo members, parliamentarians, churchmen, media, old college pals, trade unionists, Baronesses, cabinet ministers gathered to celebrate with me."

“I even had a note from Ed Miliband to wish me well, though as he said, '60; hard to believe it!'. And a card from Tony and Cherie Blair.

“Tony's nice note was rather touching 'thanks for your fantastic contribution to the nation and its voluntary sector'.”

The trouble is, according to the Telegraph article:-

However it has now emerged that the event – which is thought to have cost over £1,000 – was part funded by Acevo, which is funded by membership fees from more than 1,500 chief executives or directors from the UK's top charities.

Acevo confirmed that the organisation paid for half of the cost, and that Sir Stephen had “paid half the cost personally”. A spokesman said: “This was a tea party, no alcohol was provided and Sir Stephen arranged his own birthday cake.”

The spokesman justified spending donors’ money on the event because “part of its on-going work in building stakeholder relationships”.

Frequently boasting of his ability to cause a stir, given the response to his most recent outburst on CEO pay, I sincerely hope his Trustees or his ACEVO members begin to ask themselves if he conveys the appropriate image for the voluntary and charity sector in this day and age? There's no doubt in my mind that his typically pompous reaction has done the charity sector some serious reputational damage.  

It may be relevant to note that his ACEVO empire has been shrinking in recent time, with quite a few members voting with their feet, as revealed last month in this interview with Third Sector:-

The current slowing of political momentum, which Bubb calls "a kind of limbo", has coincided with a time of retrenchment and change at Acevo, which used to have an annual income of £3m and 45 staff, but now has 30 staff and an income closer to £2m. This is partly a result of the phasing out by next spring of the OCS Strategic Partners programme, but the number of sector leaders who pay between £200 and £800 a year for Acevo membership has also slipped, from a high point of about 2,000 to 1,591.

Sir Stephen represents the bosses of the voluntary and charity organisations that will either be forming partnerships with Probation Trusts to bid for our work, or that will bid on their own account for our work. 

Things Turn Ugly

As all families are only too well aware, it's at times of stress that people are likely to show their true colours. I tend to think of Probation as a family and we're in the middle of a fight for our very survival. In a situation like this, we're likely to see the best and worst in people. Old animosities and prejudices will surface, scapegoats sought and blame apportioned. There will be pain and anguish as some normally rational and professional colleagues try and gain advantage or curry favour. It's not going to be pretty or for the feint-hearted. There will be tears before bedtime.

It strikes me that this blog has come to occupy quite a strange position in the scheme of things. Whilst officially it remains unacknowledged, readership is steadily increasing and any google search on the subject of probation encouragingly gives the blog a high ranking. I don't seek to be controversial for it's own sake, but rather share what I think is relevant information, with a personal view thrown in. It seems to fill a gap, both judging by the hit counter and contributions from readers, but there are signs that cages are being rattled in certain quarters and it would appear that several Trusts have now blocked access to the site. This is regrettable and somewhat petty, but sadly I think gives an indication of what is bubbling away under the surface.

I've never understood how a union can have within its membership both the rank and file and senior management. Old mining colleagues used to laugh themselves silly at the mere thought of an NUM meeting having pit management in the same room, let alone the same union. It's utterly absurd and surreal to be sat in a Napo branch meeting, as I did once, to discuss the subject of impossibly high caseloads and management bullying, only to find the ACO sat in one corner! Of course it spoke volumes about the social ineptitude of the individual concerned that they felt it appropriate to turn up, but the nettle really should have been grasped many years ago. 

I've long been aware that for the rampantly ambitious, active union involvement has never seemed to hinder advancement. In fact the cynical might be tempted to say it considerably assists the process, again causing much amusement amongst former mining colleagues. There was a period when virtually the entire branch executive at my Trust were managers and the Napo Health and Safety rep was my SPO during a dispute over caseloads at my office! In many ways an utterly bizarre union, having to cope with the schizophrenic consequences that flow from also being a professional association. 

Meanwhile Napo's General Secretary Ian Lawrence continues to skirt around the recent ballot turnout issue:-

"All things considered the turnout was very healthy, and the fact that traditionally not all members choose to take part in any kind of ballot, or prefer to follow the majority verdict, are also an important factor in the total return. But in case you were wondering the response was a good deal higher in percentage terms than most of the inept Politicians who rule over us manage to achieve in their elections."  

What the hell does that mean? I can't help thinking that this year's AGM is going to be very uncomfortable indeed. 

Anyway, news reaches me concerning other Trusts and their efforts at match-making. In one instance, apparently no union representatives were invited to a key meeting between Chiefs and a possible suitor, but as is the way of these things, some of what was said has leaked out and it doesn't make pleasant reading. It is said that at this meeting an ACO described PO's as:-

"too rule bound, slaves to a tick box culture, unable to innovate, were dinosaurs, lacked vision, were too expensive and that any future plans must consider reducing pay and even abandoning the PO title as qualified staff will not be required in the new world."

Apparently some people at the meeting were:- 

"very unhappy at the rudeness of Trust ACO's and CO's, and very unhappy about how they rubbished what we do" and "Trust managers were desperate to give an impression that they bought into the new world order to try and guarantee their place in it."   

Bubb Brings Sector into Disrepute

Regular readers will be aware that I've sought to bring the musings of Sir Stephen Bubb to a wider audience over recent weeks and indeed a handy link to his blog can now be found on my blog roll.

Sir Stephen can best be described as the cheer-leader for the voluntary and charitable sector, or more precisely their CEO's as he appears to fulfil the role of General Secretary of their very own union. As such he can be relied upon to argue strongly for better pay and conditions for the members of this exclusive coterie. In fact here he can be seen enthusiastically putting in a pay claim on their behalf only a few days ago. It's also worth noting that as a body, ACEVO is paid £425,000 a year by the government, in order to be able to lobby the government.

Now this is all very relevant to us in Probation because many colleagues could well find themselves working for one of his member charity outfits in the very near future. Sir Stephen and his organisation ACEVO is playing an absolutely crucial role in making sure that lots of his members pick up contracts for our work as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation omnishambles. He's long been keen on privatising the Probation Service and here he is in 2011 giving evidence to the House of Commons Public Administration Committee:-

You only have to look at one example: crime, and the money that we spend in our probation and rehabilitation services. Only 4% of that budget is delivered through third sector organisations, and yet we know the state is hopeless at rehabilitation because more than 70% of people who have been in prison are back in prison within two years. Third sector organisations that deliver those services get records as low as 50%, so why are we not commissioning them more? I think we have to open up our public services to ensure that third sector organisations really can deliver more.

For some reason best known to himself, Sir Stephen has been picking a fight with the Charity Commission for some time, but yesterday their new Chairman William Shawcross decided to fire a broadside back telling the Daily Telegraph that high wages for charity CEO's ran the danger of bringing the sector into disrepute:- 

William Shawcross, the chairman of the Charity Commission, warned that charities were risking their reputations if they were not being seen to get a grip on boardroom excess.

Unite, the union that represents many low-paid charity workers, was quick to respond as reported in the Independent:-  

Rachael Maskell, Unite's national officer for the not-for-profit sector, said: "The excessive City pay culture is seeping into the remuneration packages of charity bosses and should be curbed. This is to be deplored, as it corrupts the ethos of the voluntary sector and is an insult to those, often on average incomes, who donate to charity.

"I think the general public will be shocked by the scale of the packages that some executives are being awarded. This sector is losing its sense of what real value is."

Like all good union General Secretaries, Sir Stephen was equally quick to defend his members and return fire, on Unite:- 

Stephen Bubb, chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), accused the union of gross hypocrisy over the issue of pay. He said: "We were not surprised to see that the joint general secretaries of Unite earn a combined package of £308,000. They are running a complex organisation with millions of members and a broad range of stakeholders, just like other third-sector leaders.

On his blog though, Bubb decided to broaden his attack and have a go at The Daily Telegraph, Priti Patel MP, and of course William Shawcross and the Charity Commission 'for bringing the sector into disrepute':-

This is a disgraceful distraction by Mr Shawcross. Of all the issues facing charities why does he pick on something that is simply not a problem. Third sector CEO's earn on average £58,000. That is less than Mr Shawcross earns pro rata as chair of the Commission.

However, according to the Independent article, Sir Stephen was neglecting to mention:- 

But the survey also revealed that more than 200 members of ACEVO earned more than £70,000 last year. While the overall pay levels had fallen from last year, the median total salary of chief executives had risen by about £8,000 over the last six years to £57,264.

For those interested, he can be heard on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme trying to defend his members high salaries, but with little conviction. 

Now I guess readers are wondering how much Sir Stephen brings home? Well, in July 2011 he told the House Of Commons Public Administration Committee that he earned £100,000. Anyway, the whole issue is nicely out in the open, so lets have a look at some of those outfits likely to be bidding for our work. A blog called The Void covered the ground in March and reported here on findings from the charity trade journal Third Sector:- 

The magazine lists the top 150 earners in UK charities by income and broken down into sectors.  It is a litany of obscene wealth built on the back of the poorest and most vulnerable, revealing for example that whilst next week the Anchor Trust Housing Association will be sending out bedroom tax bills – sure to result in eviction for many people – the highest earner at the trust earns a shocking £275,000 a year.

Elsewhere in the document is a list of the top earners at mainstream charities, most of them household names.  Unsurprisingly it reads like an roll call of workfare exploiters and Work Programme sub-contractors.

Right up at the top of the list is the notorious Shaw Trust, one of the largest charitable Work Programme contractors and responsible for thousands of claimants suffering benefit sanctions.  Whilst those sanctioned on the recommendations of the charity face immediate destitution and even homelessness, the boss takes home £180,000 a year, coming in at joint fifth of the highest paid mainstream charity earners.

Other Work Programme sub-contractors in the top 30 include Scope, RNIB, Leonard Chesire Foundation and Mencap.

Workfare exploiters Salvation Army predictably feature in the list at joint 27th.  The British Heart Foundation, who claim to be moving away from workfare but according to their website are still very much part of the Work Programme, are at number 12 with the highest paid staff member earning £173,000, whilst Barnados are also on the list at number 20.

The list is also a reminder of who has pulled out of workfare.  Age UK, Cancer Research, Marie Curie and Sense all make the top 40 and have all rejected workfare over the last year and a half.

Charities will claim they need to pay high salaries to compete with the business sector.  The upshot of this is business people running charities, who put profit and the needs of the corporate sector they left behind before the people they are funded by the public to help.  Workfare is good for business, helping to undermine wages and workplace organisation.  And it’s good for big charities, who not only get a stream of unpaid workers but if they are particularly compliant may also be offered lucrative government welfare-to-work contracts.

That these are contracts and workfare placements that punish, degrade and impoverish the very people they claim to support can be brushed aside with glossy PR featuring ‘success stories’ – the handful of people who haven’t had miserable experiences at the hands of these organisations.

Millions of lives are currently being crushed under austerity and the erosion of the welfare state.  As Scope Chief Executive Richard Hawkes has said however, these savage cuts provide big opportunities for charities.  The end result of corporate style charities paying bosses hundreds of thousands of pounds are those bosses acting in their own class interests and attacking the very people whose poverty they leech from to fund their own lavish lifestyles.

I think all this should make a few people ponder long and hard as the match-making between Trusts and 'charities' continues in earnest over the next few weeks. Other organisations that might be of interest to us and that feature on the list are Turning Point paying their CEO £165,000 and Catch 22, £130,000. 

Got To Be Another Way

By all accounts electioneering is now in full swing even though we've got to wait until May 2015 for the novelty of a fixed date for the General Election. We know this for certain because politicians like Iain Duncan Smith has accused the BBC of political bias. Silly ideas are being tried out on us for reaction, such as the 'illegal immigrant's go home' poster vans, and my MP suddenly e-mails wanting to know if I want to keep receiving updates on his activities? 

We need to brace ourselves because we've got more than 18 months of this shenanigans, but as far as I can recall, the Electorate have never been asked specifically to voice an opinion about privatising public services. In the old days of class-based tribal politics, one could have assumed that the Tories would be in favour, Labour would be dead against and it wasn't really worth bothering what the Liberal Democrats thought because they had no hope of being in power. 

But that's all history as we have come to realise that Tony Blair was Thatchers true disciple and whatever Labour might say in opposition now, they embraced privatisation with gusto when last in power. Although it surprised us all when the Lib Dems jumped into bed with the Tories, low and behold they too turned out to be just as keen on privatisation. Not a cig paper can be put between them on the issue of privatising public services, which means that the Electorate is effectively disenfranchised on the topic. 

My suspicion is that a majority of the public feel pretty unhappy about this privatisation by stealth and here's an opinion poll commissioned by We Own It and reported on the Left Foot Forward website that seems to bear out the view by a staggering majority of 80%:-   

80 per cent of the public believe there should always be a public sector bid when a public service in contracted out to judge if the service could be provided at better value, according to a new survey.

The poll, carried out by Survation and commissioned by We Own It, a new organisation launching today, also found that 79 per cent believe the public should be consulted and have their views considered before services are privatised or outsourced.

60 per cent believe local and national government should run public services in the public sector by default, and only consider contracting out if this fails.

Other findings were that:

• 79 per cent believe the public should be consulted and have their views considered before any service is privatised or outsourced.

• 69 per cent of Labour voters believe the public sector is more accountable than the private sector when running public services

• 90 per cent of Tory voters believe the government should be required to end private company contracts early when they are found to be doing a poor job of running public services, following public complaints.

• 88 per cent believe private companies running public services should be required to be as transparent about their performance and financial data as the public sector

• 48 per cent (mistakenly) believe that private companies running public services are obliged by law to respond to Freedom of Information requests

Commenting on the findings, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office John Trickett said the poll demonstrated that the public were “deeply troubled” by the government’s “ideological approach” to public services.

“In Recent times the country has witnessed some high profile failures by private providers of public services, such as Serco’s disastrous out of hours GP service and the failure of A4e in getting people back to work to name just two. It is now time for the government to put evidence before dogma in its approach to public service provision,” he added.

Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It, said she hoped the report would “spell the beginning of the end for privatisation-as-usual. In the future, public services will need to be owned by and accountable to the people they serve”.

If the present political structure is simply not able, or unwilling, to adequately reflect the views of the Electorate, then surely there's got to be another way. 

Recently this blog seems to have unintentionally stumbled upon a rich vein of discussion involving film analogies that just might help lift the general depressive mood. I have no idea why, but I'd like to try and keep it going a bit longer and with reference to another of my all-time favourites, 'Dark Star'. 

Now being basically lazy, I really can't be bothered to get out my VHS copy, fire up the trusty Ferguson Videostar and fast forward to the closing scene in order to check exactly what Doolittle says, but as he surfs towards earth on a bit of space junk, I think he says "Guys, I think I've found another way!" 

Right, film analogy out of the way, isn't the time right for another political party, but one spawned of the internet age, capitalising on it's utterly democratic nature courtesy of Sir Tim Berners Lee? For those with long memories, isn't this another SDP moment? 

Don't we have all the elements in place to challenge the orthodox political ruling class in the form of a) politically-focused blogs b) sites like Guerilla Policy that pull it all together, c) discussion forums like Open Democracy and d) democratic campaigning sites like 38 Degrees with huge scope for mobilising public opinion. I can't be the only person thinking that the time must be right to harness all this passion and energy, form a new political party and give the buggers a damned good thrashing in 2015?  

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A common thread sometimes emerges from comments on this blog and just recently a couple of colleagues have alluded to the fact that it might be clients who in the end sound the death knell for the utterly ill-thought-out Transforming Rehabilitation omnishambles:- 

I think, at the end of the day, it will be our service users who scupper this ideological nonsense, as in the main they are clever, street wise, take no prisoners and unless, positively stroked (in an appropriately therapeutic way) will rise up and bring the whole crock of shite to its knees; a part of me, can't wait. 

I certainly got the impression at a recent meeting involving a potential new provider (long story, don't ask.....) that they sincerely believe that probationers will be grateful for the new 'all singing, all dancing' services they intend to provide. They clearly have no inkling of the tsunami of resentment heading their way from those prisoners who currently knock out their u12month custody in 1/2 the time, then away, but who will now be subject to a year's supervision! Good luck with that one folks, a tall order even for the most experienced staff.

It's a very good point indeed, and one I made a few months back. There will be considerable trouble in enforcing clients compliance for something that they will say is grossly unfair. They've 'done the crime: done the time' and will basically refuse to cooperate with a new proscriptive regime which they will see no need for and they're likely to 'kick off' bigstyle.

Up till now, voluntary and third sector organisations have been working largely with a willing and cooperative client group. This will not be the case under TR and there will be a huge amount or resentment, and as we all know, some quite ugly scenarios are likely to result. Breach action will become routine and enormously burdensome and bureaucratic, prisons will silt up, but most worrying of all, the perfect conditions will have been created for escalated client reoffending. As always it's the clients that end up paying the price. Of course it would be entirely different if support for the under 12 month people was voluntary, but Chris Grayling thinks he knows best.  

An interesting insight into the arrogance of the man was provided recently by Russell Webster highlighting this quote from the Institute for Government report on how government is failing to manage outsourcing contracts properly:-

"Chris Grayling came to the department....with a very specific idea about what he wanted to achieve : the Work Programme would be based on a 'payment by results', prime provider and 'black box' model. These key decisions were nonnegoatiable. Grayling not only took a highly hands-on approach in the design of the programme, but set the demanding timescales of less than a year for implementation....Grayling convened a tight coalition of senior officials from across the department, sometimes meeting as often as two or three times a week."  

As we now know, this is a very risky strategy, not least because it can seriously go awry if key people leave, and the pace of implementation inevitably leads to poor decision-making, cock-ups and as the IfG notes, risk management processes being sidelined. In fact exactly the situation that Chris Grayling is now replicating at the MoJ with the TR omnishambles. 

Wherever you look there's utter dismay about these plans. You'd think that a specialist criminal justice employment agency would be enthusiastic, but Criminal Justice Skills, part of the RedSnapper Group is utterly scathing:- 

Following an obscure publication from the Ministry of Justice, the "prior information notice" has revealed some unexpected details concerning Grayling's radical reform agenda. 

Previous estimates no longer seem valid as the recently published figures highlight the unexpected scale and pace of the planned privatisation of the probation service. The formal bidding of "payment by results" schemes are now set to start in August 2013.

Furthermore, the divide between the private/voluntary sector and the public probation service has also widened. Estimates formerly stated how 70% of the rehabilitation services would be privately/voluntarily run leaving 30% to the public, however following the addition of further caseloads to cover 50,000 extra short-sentenced prisoners, this balance has now shifted.

The MoJ has stated that this figure has risen to 88%, thus leaving a mere 12% of high risk offenders in the hands of the public probation service. The rump of the public protection service will be left managing 31,000 offenders deemed "high risk" - typically those offenders involved in sex or violent cases. The 236,000 low and medium-risk offenders will be in the hands of the private and voluntary sector, such as private security firms and charities.

Effectively, responsibilities for the likes of assessing the risk posed by each offender, providing courts and parole board with pre-sentence reports and making final decision on whether the offender must return to prison will be under the public probation service control.

Nonetheless, an overwhelming proportion of probation work will be transferred to the private/voluntary providers, hence why Grayling has previously prophesied the likelihood of a large majority of probation staff switching to the new providers.

One way for the 35 soon-to-be-dissolved public probation trusts to stay active is by converting into "mutuals" and then bidding for contracts in partnership with private companies and voluntary organisations. There is however no guarantee of bidding success.

It's estimated the new rehabilitation and supervision contracts will go for the likes of £5bn to £20bn over the next 10 years.Disregarding Ken Clarke's two pilot tests in Peterborough and Doncaster, Grayling has decided to turbocharge the scale and pace of his ‘revolution'. 

Ignoring the valid assertions that this reform is not tried and tested Grayling wants the radical probation service privatisation in place by the next general election - this is only two years' away.

What could possibly go wrong guys?

West Yorkshire Love Match

News reaches me that following a period of speed dating, Sue Hall, the CEO of West Yorkshire Probation Trust and Chair of the PCA, has chosen Prospects as their preferred partner in forming a 'mutual' in order to bid for their own work in the coming dutch auction. In a breathlessly upbeat announcement to staff she says:- 

We’ve recently met with a number of potential partners for our staff mutual, each from very different backgrounds and each having very different strategic objectives for the criminal justice sector.

We embarked on a rigorous selection process which scored all potential partners on the following essential criteria, that:

• they have a vision for delivery and a bid strategy that reflects our aspirations. This includes the ability for the partnership to be competition ready by the proposed date of announcement 23 August.
• they have experience in the delivery of public sector contracts with Payment by Results mechanisms such as the Work Programme.
• they are sufficiently resourced to bring financial and bid development capability to the partnership.
• they will enhance the reputation of the partnership and both sets of employees will recognise the synergy between each individual partner’s organisational values.

We are confident that we have selected the right partner in an organisation called Prospects. They presented some really exciting ideas and propositions as well as demonstrating understanding in areas in which we lack expertise. They scored highly on each of our criteria and demonstrated their knowledge and experience effectively.

They felt like a safe pair of hands and most importantly I feel that are best placed to allow us to keep the values of West Yorkshire Probation Trust into Transforming Rehabilitation.

We plan to have finalised the partnership arrangements by mid August at the latest. We’ll then start exploring how we work collaboratively in developing a credible and winning bid for the delivery of rehabilitative services in West Yorkshire.

Sue goes on to explain a bit about Prospects, including an enthusiastic statement from it's chairman Ray Auvray:-

Prospects is a mutually-owned, large company, working nationally and internationally in partnership with public, private and voluntary sector organisations, managing and delivering employment, education and training services.

• Their mission is to inspire success for individuals and organisations.
• Their values are; delivering excellence, working together, embracing change while valuing staff, equality and diversity.

• Prospects achieved a turnover of £71.9m in 2011-2012, employs 2,000+ staff in more than 70 local authority areas, from 60+ bases.

Their contracts are mainly in the public sector, with local authorities, Skills Funding Agency, Ofsted, Department for Education, Department for Work & Pensions, other government departments and agencies, non-governmental public bodies, colleges and schools.

• Prospects’ services and projects are usually output-related and evidence-based, and have annual values from less than £10,000 to several million.

Ray Auvray, Prospects Executive Chairman, says

“I am delighted West Yorkshire Probation Trust has chosen Prospects as a partner. Prospects has extensive experience in working with service users to turn their lives around by preparing them for life after prison with a sustainable job. We are excited at the opportunity to develop innovative ways of delivering successful rehabilitation programmes with colleagues in West Yorkshire. We believe that Prospects’ specialist knowledge of training and employment will be an important ingredient in radical new approaches to supporting those leaving custody.”

For further information on Prospects visit www.prospects.co.uk

They’re on You Tube and Twitter @ProspectsGroup if you can access.

I fully endorse this partnership and look forward to seeing it develop. The partnership between the new mutual and Prospects has my full support and I wish it the best of luck.

This sort of courtship ritual must be going on in secret up and down the country. When Sue talks about the royal 'we', I have no idea who she is referring to. It would be interesting to know who was in on the negotiating team. There's no doubt that with the deadline of mid August fast approaching for partnership arrangements to be in place, we're going to see an awful lot of similar strange relationships formed between some unlikely bedfellows.

So, what do we know about Prospects, and are they indeed a 'safe pair of hands?' They started out rather surprisingly as the careers advice service in South London when employees from three London Boroughs joined forces and a staff-owned company was 'spun off' in 1996 under the leadership of former Liberal Democrat councillor Ray Auvray. The official website

says:-

Prospects is an employee owned, mutual company, working nationally and internationally in partnership with public, private and voluntary sector organisations, managing and delivering education, employment and training services.  Prospects has thrived through our responsiveness to the needs of our customers and the external environment, as well as being at the forefront of innovation.

The business is owned by a partnership between the employees and Prospects. The employees own 75.1% of the business, giving them a controlling stake. Prospects has a 24.9% share and brings capital and business expertise needed to make the business grow. 

Under Tony Blair's government Prospects won several employability contracts, including New Deal and under the coalition government in 2010 won a £71 million contract to undertake Ofsted's early years inspections. As New Deal was phased out, they were rewarded with becoming the Work Programme 'prime' contractor in the South West worth £50 million. They seem to have grand expansionist plans and here we see Mr Auvray glad-handing the Saudi's last year.

Now as we know, employability programmes, including the Work Programme have not been a huge success, and as this article from the Morning Star makes clear, Prospects have had their little difficulties:- 

But when Ofsted inspected its schemes for the unemployed, it was less enthusiastic.

Ofsted didn't give any of the eight Prospects schemes it inspected a top mark. Two were graded "good," but six got the second-lowest possible mark.

They were marked "satisfactory" - a grade Ofsted now describes as "requires improvement." Two of these originally got the lowest grade, "unsatisfactory."

In 2006 Prospects' "Nextstep" outreach programme for the London unemployed was marked "unsatisfactory."

Inspectors found that "too few clients move into learning and employment following their advice sessions."

It slammed the service, saying: "The overall effectiveness of provision at London North Nextstep is inadequate. Achievements, standards and the quality of provision are inadequate. Leadership and management are inadequate, as is quality improvement."

In 2007 inspectors found Prospects' Somerset New Deal scheme "unsatisfactory."

The firm managed to improve to "satisfactory" by 2008 but inspectors still found "low job outcome rates" and "insufficient programme planning to meet individual participants' needs."

Even "satisfactory" services looked weak. In 2010 inspectors looked at its Nextstep outreach scheme for the unemployed in London.

They gave the scheme the second-lowest mark - "satisfactory" - adding: "The progress outcome rate for gaining employment overall has been consistently low."A reinspection in 2011 found some progress for trainees but "the proportion entering employment remains low."

Despite these poor results, Work and Pensions Minister Chris Grayling gave Prospects the £50m Work Programme contract for the south-west.

Prospects doesn't have to worry about inspections any more - Grayling also stopped inspectors looking at the scheme.

Prospects now works inside what Grayling calls the "black box." Ministers believe contractors should be allowed to work on trainees without government interference.

They think simple financial incentives will make contractors get the unemployed into jobs.

So ministers don't want to look inside the contractors black box. But, with the lights out, contractors like Prospects Services let the unemployed be treated in dark and dismal ways.

Now it will be appreciated that I do not normally use the Morning Star as a source of published information on this blog, but the reference to 'dark and dismal ways' is a reference to an event that hit the national headlines only last year.

You will recall that it was Diamiond Jubilee year and the press got hold of the 'famously shafted jubilee stewards' story. Suddenly the media was full of harrowing stories of 30 unpaid jobseekers and 50 apprentices who had been dumped in London at 3am and told to sleep under a bridge. Well these people had been bussed up from the West Country and the company responsible was Prospects.

Now despite the negative inspections concerning their Work Programme contract, Prospects were generally upbeat and initially trumpeted the Jubilee wheeze:- 

Prospects says its "employment and training business performed extremely well" by "using innovative methods to tackle worklessness."

At one point Prospects Services was proud of the jubilee trip. It rushed out a press release about its Work Programme trainees "making a trip to London to take up duties as stewarding staff at Buckingham Palace," saying how Prospects was "helping our jobseekers with fantastic job opportunities and for them to be part of these really exciting events. Congratulations to everyone taking part."

So, why did it all go horribly wrong? Basically because in this brave new world of contracts and payment by results, clients have become commodities to be parked, creamed, milked and in some cases traded. Prospects had effectively 'sub-contracted' it's clients to a private security firm, who in turn had a contract to supply so many stewards at the Jubilee. 

We have to go back a bit further to understand the root cause of this shambles and an article from the Guardian in June 2012 explains it perfectly:- 

Indeed, only big firms could afford the cash it costs to make the opening bid. This leads to so-called monocultural situations in which companies spring up who only deal with government contracts (A4e, for instance has had millions of pounds of public money, and it never struck anyone as strange that nobody else wanted to employ it – although A4e claims it has contracts with the private sector, most of its income comes from government contracts). They become the only viable bidder, whose efficacy is rarely tested, and when it is it doesn't matter because they're – this old chestnut – too big to fail. The possibility of corruption, while it looms large, is actually only ancillary. The central problem is that it encourages companies to expand into areas in which they have no expertise and squeeze out smaller, often charitable enterprises already working in that area.

So, for instance, Prospects started off as a south London careers service. It won a £71m contract to do Ofsted's early-years inspections in 2010 (a reminder that outsourcing didn't start with the coalition). Then it got a work programme contract in the south-east worth £50m. Then it subcontracted its "clients", who became those famously shafted Jubilee stewards.

I use this example deliberately: as a firm with no shadow of a misdeed, just a lot of government money, for work it sometimes subcontracts and doesn't have to take responsibility for.

The key phrase seems to me to be "The central problem is that it encourages companies to expand into areas in which they have no expertise and squeeze out smaller, often charitable enterprises already working in that area." 

All over the country outfits similar to Prospects are going to be springing up, keen and eager to bid for 'rehabilitation' services, even though they will know next to nothing about such services. In a neat twist to this whole evolving omnishambles, it's Probation Trusts that now look like the bid candy. 

Omnishambles Update 13

August has arrived and the Transforming Rehabilitation omnishambles rolls on with full cooperation from Probation Trust boards and management citing 'contractual' obligations that effectively prevent any other course of action. How they must be laughing down in London at the ease with which they've all fallen in to line and are following orders. As one Chief puts it:-

A lot of detailed work is taking place during August on Transforming Rehabilitation Plans. Until this is complete, there is little further concrete information about the issues which will affect us.

You know what really gets my goat? The sheer banality of the tweets still emanating from Chiefs, whilst their service's are literally being prepared for dismantling around them. It's like everything is normal, business as usual. The contrast is utterly surreal and brings to mind a scene from one of my favourite films, Brazil. A terrorist bomb explodes in a restaurant, but the Maitre D swiftly erects a screen and enthusiastically entreats the dining guests to continue, 'bon appetite!' he says enthusiastically.   

As this Trust briefing explains, the starting pistol is about to be fired, signalling the start of a free-for-all scramble by profiteers for our work, but there are some ethical and practical problems ahead :-

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is about to launch a competition to find new providers from the private and voluntary sector to deliver probation services as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme.  To ensure the competition process is run fairly and with integrity, the MoJ has produced Principles of Competition which include guidance to Probation Trusts on the need to put 'ethical walls' in place.   Ethical walls are information barriers to enforce data separation between groups within an organisation.  They enable organisations to control access to sensitive information and avoid conflicts of interest.  This is of particular importance for Trusts, such as xPT, which have staff involved in developing an employee-led mutual. All xPT workers, whether employees or otherwise, are already bound by a duty of confidentiality to the organisation.  Ethical walls are an additional measure to ensure that there is no advantage or disadvantage to any potential provider.  They are needed because some xPT staff will have access to commercially restricted information.  Other staff will be involved in developing the proposed employee-owned mutual and must not be given any competitive advantage over other bidders. Both groups of staff will be required to sign a declaration prepared by the MoJ.  xPT must ensure ethical walls are in place by 6 August and must provide MoJ with a register of those who have signed a declaration.

Meanwhile over on the Napo forum website, I notice this contribution from someone giving voice to a view which we all know is only too prevalent, indicative ballot or not:-

Even if we took industrial action, strikes or otherwise, I do not believe there would be any change to the Tory plans as it is based on pure dogma.......public bad, private good.....they are in power & I believe nothing we do will change the outcome.
I believe there is a strong argument for NAPO & Unison to not waste resources on a battle that will be lost but to focus on ameliorating the effects on members - defeatist?...perhaps, but I strongly believe this is a battle that we have lost before if has properly started.

It might be felt to be naive, 'ameliorating the effects on members', but deep down we know full well that this is the typical view of many rank and file members. It's no good quoting the recent indicative ballot, because we still don't know what the turnout was. That can only mean it was embarrassingly low, but not coming clean about it straight away was a very bad call. Even under new management, one begins to wonder about the ability of Napo to make sound decisions. Come on guys, don't you know bad news has to be handled head on? 

I'm grateful for someone pointing me in the direction of an interesting letter 'Sleepwalking into calamity' on the 'Inside Time' website and written by a serving prisoner. I hope they will not mind me quoting it here:- 

The companies which comprise what I term ‘Prison Corp International’ have manoeuvred its paid spokespersons. i.e. politicians, into a position where this country’s judiciary, as well as the Prison Service, under Home Office duress, has no other option but to cede to privatisation. May I say that this is a pre-planned and methodical assault upon the core values of democratic doctrine. It has all taken place before, as I witnessed in the USA during the 1980s and 1990s. Today US prisoners are looked upon as cash commodities in every way, which borders on legal human trafficking. The corrections industry, alongside tourism, has now become the fastest growth industry within the United States. As a direct result, vast swathes of the predominantly lower classes have been rendered socially obsolete thus adding to the accelerating economic and social decline of that country. The media won’t tell you just how hard life has become for millions of American citizens, yet our own country is seemingly hell bent upon its own self destruction as well. I guess we are just doing what we are told – like moths to a Bilderberg flame.

As in America, we can expect that the Probation Service will be put out to tender. Like the US, the probationer will have to pay for the privilege. It costs between $30 and $40 for each visit from Probation and you will be violated and returned to jail if you are unable to pay. The homeless are especially vulnerable and so what starts as a one month jail sentence for sleeping on a New York park bench turns into a lifetime of perpetual prison return. I predict that the new retirement communities of the future poor in this country will be prison establishments. As a homeless man myself, I have spent the best part of 12 years behind bars. This current sentence is now my 53rd since 2002. That should be proof enough. Also, it is my prediction that vital and truthful media, such as Inside Time, will eventually be forced to cease publication by the conglomerate-run State, as knowledge inspires dissent. As for the British taxpayer, who is sleepwalking into calamity, all I can hope is that this saying may still be true – you can fool most of the people.... Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Meanwhile, the political classes continue to treat us, the electorate, with utter contempt by packing the House of Lords with yet more of their cronies. Not an independent cross-bencher amongst them, it's disappointing to see even Doreen Lawrence agreeing to become beholden to a political party. 

Finally, no doubt as part of coping with all the stresses this blog is introducing me to, I've found a new outlet in addition to alcohol and it's a BBC1 tv programme called 'The Sheriffs are Coming'. A bit like 'Watchdog' only with menaces, I find it the perfect antidote watching truly enormous men executing High Court writs for outstanding debts, typically on society's most loathsome in the form of dodgy garages, wheel clamping bandits and other assorted con-merchants. 

What does it for me is not just the triumph of right over wrong, it's the utterly calm and controlled way these guys demolish every single argument put up by the debtor. The endless bullshit of denial, lost post, legal rights, etc etc, all very familiar avoidance tactics to probation officers, only they invariably dissipate as realisation eventually dawns that there's no way out and it's either pay the cash there and then - no cheques - or the car, van, computers, jewellery or even aircraft are seized. Love it!  

Attention all PO's and PSO's

I've been reading some exchanges over on the Napo forum website, and thank goodness there's been some sign of life just recently. What particularly struck me was a response to a long and detailed post by 'SaveProbation' basically trying to rally the troops and get colleagues to wise up to the very real threat to our profession and employment that's looming on the horizon. I thought this response was interesting, not least because I suspect the sentiment is widespread:-  

Unless you have access to secret information that no-one else does, that looks more like speculation and conjecture presented as fact.

People are rightly worried, but I don't think making things sound even worse than they are will help anyone, other than making them even more stressed than they are. 

Clearly the message about just how dire the situation is has not got through in certain quarters and I urge any doubting colleagues to wise up quickly to what's being proposed and what the likely consequences are going to be. Just look at the evidence, listen to the mood music, and read what's being said both on the Napo website, SaveProbation twitter feed and this blog, and put the pieces together for yourselves. 

There's probably only a few months left to try and scupper these plans for our demise, because it's quite obvious that management and Trust Boards up and down the country are co-operating fully with MoJ/NOMS orders.

Whatever warm words you might be hearing about the formation of 'mutuals' or what you believe about TUPE rights, or what you might think about working for 'charities' or other cuddly-sounding voluntary sector outfits, PO's and PSO's will be made redundant, terms and conditions will get considerably worse and there will no longer be any secure future for anyone in a world of competitive probation tendering. Remember, there were 200 redundancies as soon as Serco took over the London Probation Trust UPW contract, and that is a partnership with the LPT!  

It's hugely disappointing, but not a single seriously dissenting voice in probation management is willing to stand up and articulate what we all know to be true, namely that the whole thing is a bloody dangerous shambles and must be stopped. They could refuse to cooperate, but they have decided not to, so it's down to the front-line to do something.

Don't be bullied by management into either cooperation or belief that nothing can be done. Question everything. Actually the time is fast approaching when the message must be 'Don't Keep Calm and Don't Keep Carrying On.'  

In order to reinforce the message, lets just look at a bit more of the context within which all this is happening. I caught this story on BBC local news recently about Cleveland Fire Brigade and at first didn't believe my ears. They are wanting to recruit volunteers with HGV licences on a zero-hours contract to drive fire engines in the event of a Fire Brigade Union strike. They also want volunteers to fight bloody fires on the same basis in the event of a strike.

This is a direct throwback to the 1926 General Strike and call for strike-breakers. I would add in passing that it was Cleveland Fire Service that was recently canvassing the possibility of becoming a 'mutual'. Of course if Fire Services do become 'mutuals' there is nothing to stop the likes of Serco or G4S snapping them up further down the line. The same would apply to any probation 'mutual' that might be formed. 

Zero-hours contracts are spreading like wild fire and can give zero pay and zero security. They can prevent you being able to claim benefits even when you've not had any work and prevent you getting a mortgage if you've been working a minimum 45 hour week for four years. The perfect flexible employee for this brave new world we're creating. Blimey, things have got so embarrassing with even Buckingham Palace using such wheezes that Nick Clegg has instigated an investigation according to this in the Guardian. 

I have to admit I don't know a great deal about the NHS and yet another reorganisation, but I'm learning fast and yet again there are warnings about what lies ahead for us and the rapidly changing political and economic context for public services. My attention has been drawn to the case of the Poole and Bournemouth Dorset Trust hospital merger. 

Poole is basically in serious financial trouble and if it doesn't merge with Bournemouth, it will go bust. But the merger is being stalled and has been referred by the Office of Fair Trading to the Competition Commission 'because of concerns about two competing Trusts combining'. Competing? I thought hospitals were all about patient care? In blocking the merger, this blog explains what actually is important:- 

It accepts that not merging will be worse for ‘patient services’ – but blocks the merger anyway because competition trumps what’s good for patients.

If there was any doubt that what’s really at the heart of the way the government has ‘reformed’ the NHS via its HSCA 2012 is finance and profit, this surely removes every last trace of it.

Whatever lip service is given to competition as a way of improving patient choice and healthcare standards, when it comes to the crunch under this government and the Act it forced through in spite of outspoken disapproval from patient groups and all professional healthcare bodies, financial and competitive considerations beat clinical concerns and patients’ interests. Hands down. Every time.    

The situation is even worse because it's said in certain quarters that this is all a wheeze so that hospitals that go bust can be passed effortlessly into the hands of private contractors to run. So, wake up guys, this is the brave new world being created by the political class and it's just about to hit us if we don't do something about it pretty damned quick!