The Minister Explains

20th June 2014

Dear Sarah

Early day Motion 111
There are two bidders left in Cornwall for the sorry remains of Probation, (your governments line is that there should be three bidders for this to be a legal and competitive process) and rumours abound that the discredited US based company “Sentinel” is to be allowed into the ring. When I met Mr Grayling and yourself earlier this month he justified this whole TR fiasco with the claim that this would bring about the supervision of short term offenders. Not to happen “any time soon” it transpires.

What follows is a pro forma letter which has been sent to members of NAPO with a view to having these sent on to local MPs. I am most grateful for your continuing concern and your positive response to my many communications with you. Please PLEASE support this EDM. I have broken ranks to highlight the chaos that is unfolding... it was the right thing to do, but it was a major decision for me to put my loyalty to my leadership lower than my loyalty to my profession, my sense of justice, and my duty to the public. Now is the time for you to make the same ethical calculations. 

Yours sincerely,

Su McConnel

19/8/14

Dear Su,
I enclose the further response I have now received from Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of State for Justice, in reply to my recent letter on your behalf.

I hope the information contained in the Secretary of State’s response is helpful to you in further outlining the current Government stance on the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. As ever do let me know if I can provide further assistance to you and your colleagues in this time of change.

I remain grateful for your input.

Yours sincerely
Mrs Sarah Newton MP

12/8/14

Dear Sarah

TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION
Thank you for your letter of 17 July, forwarding on correspondence from your constituent Mrs Su McConnel, concerning our Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. I am replying as the Secretary of State for Justice.

Let me begin by reassuring you and Mrs McConnel that we understand the importance of rolling out these reforms in a measured, orderly way while ensuring that public safety is maintained. We are therefore taking a staged approach to implementation which will enable us to make sure the system works. This is why we have first restructured the existing Probation Service. This means that providers, at the end of the competition, can take on viable going concerns. As you are aware, transition to the new probation structures took place on 1 June and the National Probation Service (NPS) and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are now live. Thorough, externally assured business and systems readiness testing was constructed to review key activities that had to be completed prior to transition on 1 June. We remain satisfied that the business was ready to make that transition and we will conduct further testing as we head towards contract signature. The period from 1 June up to contract signature, when the CRCs and NPS are both in public ownership, provides the opportunity for the new operational processes to be further embedded and to ensure the system is stable prior to contract signature.

Your constituent wrote about EDM111, which raised concerns about the ICT supporting the reformed system. The Programme Team has carried out robust testing of the ICT changes, both centrally and across a number of Probation Trusts. Results of the tests informed the final preparation work for the ICT changes to ensure that there was minimal impact on business operations as a consequence of these changes. The tests are also informing how the new processes will operate once implemented. We will use the time while the entire system remains in public ownership to embed and stabilise these changes.

Furthermore, the data reconciliation work carried out after the migration confirmed that cases had been successfully moved across and that none had been lost. Under the new structures, staff have new roles which require them to have access to different information. It is possible that some staff believe that records have disappeared simply because they no longer have access to them. In some cases the Role Based Access Controls permissions meant that some probation staff had difficulty accessing some files but we have been working to deal with this issue. This is being resolved locally using guidance provided from the programme which can be resolved by local ICT managers.

In addition to the issues raised in the EDM, Mrs McConnel also expressed concerns about the range of bidders in the competition, and the Government's commitment to introduce support for short sentenced offenders. I would like to reassure Mrs McConnel that we have a robust and diverse market. The list of bidders who passed the first stage of the competition to win the regional rehabilitation contracts included a mix of private and voluntary sector partnerships with more than 50 organisations represented. Bids were received at the end of June and we have a healthy competition in all areas. The process to award the CRC contracts is ongoing and the details of which bidders remain in the competition are commercially sensitive information, which it would not be right to make public at this stage.

Additionally, I can confirm that we firmly believe that support for short-sentenced offenders is critical to reducing reoffending. We introduced the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 to make changes to the sentencing and release framework for offenders and, in particular, to extend release on licence to offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months, and to create an additional supervision period after licence for offenders released from sentences of less than two years. We plan to commence the relevant provisions of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 at the point when ownership of the new CRCs transfers to successful bidders.

I enclose a copy of this letter for you to share with Mrs McConnel, should you wish to do so.

With best wishes

Chris Grayling

Slow Wheels of Justice

Stuart Pycock
Rehabilitation Programme
102 Petty France
London SW1H 9AJ

19 August 2014
Dear Mr Guilfoyle,

TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION

Thank you for your emails of 26 June and 4 October 2013 to the Ministry of Justice regarding the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department. I note that there has been a delay in replying to your emails. We receive large volumes of correspondence on the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms and we strive wherever possible to provide prompt replies. Please accept my apologies for the fact that we have not responded promptly in this instance.

In your email of 4 October 2013 you enquired about the World Congress on Probation that took place 8-10 October 2013 and the speech given by the Secretary of State for Justice. The Justice Secretary spoke about the history of Probation in England and Wales, the success of the service in recent years and of the need to act to reduce recidivism further. He laid out the Government’s plans to transform the probation service, including the extension of statutory supervision to offenders sentenced to less than 12 months, the provision of ‘through the prison gate services’, and the opening up of the market to a variety of providers. The Secretary of State did not take questions as part of his presentation, but it might be helpful if I briefly recap the rationale for these reforms.

We spend almost £3billion a year on prisons, and just under £1billion annually on delivering sentences in the community. Despite this investment, overall reoffending rates have barely changed over the last decade. It is true that over recent years Probation Trusts have improved performance and this is a tribute to the hard work of Probation staff at all levels. Nevertheless rates of reoffending overall remain very high. For offenders sentenced to prison for periods of less than 12 months (the vast majority of whom have previously served a community sentence), 57.8% reoffend within 12 months. The skills and experience of probation professionals are immensely valuable in contributing to the rehabilitation of offenders, and we recognise that those who receive probation support have lower reoffending rates than those who do not. However, if we are to extend support to the most prolific offenders we need to free up resources, which is only possible through whole system reform.

Every part of the Criminal Justice System is under pressure to deliver better services, at less cost. Funding for the supervision of offenders makes up a sizeable proportion of the Department’s budget, and we, like every other part of the system, are faced with the challenge of trying to do better for less. We can either impose further cuts on the structures we have, risking increases in reoffending and leaving short sentence offenders without support after release, or we can reform the system so that it provides more effective rehabilitation at a better value to the taxpayer. We want to do this in a way that is sustainable for the future and we are committed to reinvesting most of the savings we make in order to support supervision for short sentence offenders. We can only do that if we bring in the best of the public, voluntary and private sectors to work with offenders in order to reduce their reoffending rates. The case for a new approach is clear and by fundamentally reforming the system we can start to make a difference.

In response to the specific questions in your email of 26 June 2013, neither the MoJ nor NOMS had any involvement in the 16th Annual Bill McWilliams Memorial Lecture. As such we would not have had any input into the title of Professor Paul Seniors presentation.

You asked whether or not the Justice Secretary will publish an official risk register for the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. A risk register enables the Ministry of Justice to actively manage any potential risk in a particular area of policy. The process of identifying, assessing and managing potential risks to the delivery of any programme is an ongoing process. As is establishing activities which will, where applicable, mitigate the likelihood of a risk turning into an issue. It is good government practice to manage delivery of any major project carefully and we are making sure we implement these reforms to the highest standard.

We consider that disclosure of this information would have a negative impact overall and this decision is consistent with current and previous Government practice. It is important that the correct environment exists where officials feel able to be candid about any risks relating to proposals, their assessment of the likelihood of them materialising, or the impact that would have on development of proposals. It is Government practice to challenge proposals robustly internally and we need to maintain a mechanism to do this. For this reason, there are no plans to publish the risk register.

I can confirm that the proposed timetable for the Offender Rehabilitation Bill was not impacted by the House of Lords Amendments. As you may be aware, the Act received Royal Assent on 13 March 2014. There is already legislation in place that will enable us to carry out all the proposed reforms, apart from creating a legislative commitment to provide for those offenders who have been sentenced to less than 12 months. Without the Offender Rehabilitation Act coming into place offenders who currently receive no supervision after release would have been deprived of the support they need to prevent them from reoffending.

The Transforming Rehabilitation Reforms are part of a programme across the whole justice system, making it ready to meet the challenges of the future. We are creating a system that produces more effective and efficient services for all – reforming offenders, delivering value for the taxpayer and protecting victims and communities.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Pycock

TR Week Twelve

Let's get on to the risk escalation model....the CRC officer thinks risk has risen. What do they do? Do they see the person more often, amend the order/licence...discuss ways to manage the situation...all of which that very same officer might have been expected to do in the past. NO. What do they do? They implement a process, nothing to do with the service user, nothing to do with the issues underlying the risks such as MARAC, talking to police, talking to social services talking to senior managers, hostel staff housing managers...doing the job, whatever might be useful to manage or even reduce the risks. 

NO there is a process to be implemented, a process of passing the buck to the NPS. What do the NPS do, anything up to 2 days after the situation that caused the concern has arisen? Exactly what should have happened in the first place, ie thinking about what needs to happen in order to manage the risks. Dangerous or what. Now please don't get me wrong, I am not inferring that CRC officers and their managers are complicit in passing the buck...they didn't create this ridiculous process. But this PROCESS is so fraught with delays, like transfers have always been, that it is designed to be dangerous. 

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Last week I covered late night duty at my office. One of the duty office visits was a man who was released on licence just over a year ago. His offence was one of the most serious and he has had to change his name to avoid any reprisals. He has been supervised at another office at a tier 3. He hasn't been seen regularly since last November, or at all since March - despite making repeated phone calls asking for appointments. 

His officer is on long term sick and the rest of his team have been too busy to cover it. He hasn't completed any offending behaviour work to date. My colleague saw another man with an almost identical story and had to break the news that he can't keep having his son for overnight stays until approved by social services - we don't know why this wasn't done previously as there are no contact sheets since January. 

Staff in our office are on their knees, people are going off sick. We just have to hope that there won't be anymore deaths due to TR, be it from offenders or one of our colleagues. RIP Sarah Kane.

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The example you highlight is replicated up & down the country. It is a very sad situation that colleagues are overwhelmed with work & working in absolute chaos whilst managers turn a blind eye.

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The sad news of a colleague taking her life is devastating and my heart goes out to her friends, family and colleagues left behind to manage their loss. That she took the time to reference the current destruction of a service she obviously believed in and felt passionately about in her self written eulogy is testimony to the impact of the TR agenda. If that doesn't reverberate around parliament I don't know what will.

Regarding the earlier comment about a workload management tool, the best tool is the line manager, the employer, their relationship and the organisational culture. Sadly we have employers willing to neglect their duties and employee care arrangements. TR has irretrievably destroyed working relationships.

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Death is the extreme result of somebody being unable to cope - what about everyone else at risk of stress-related strokes, heart attacks, mental health breakdowns? We desperately need a workload management tool NOW because these excessive workloads are as unsustainable. Ideally we also need to look at the staff ratios due to the glaringly obvious under/over staffing because why should I have a caseload of 90 purely because management have got their sums wrong and without a WLMT, how could I prove in a tribunal it was excessive?? RIP Sarah

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I would echo all you have said. Our loyalty to our organisation was a) to "probation" which no longer exists b) predicated on assumption that our organisation and its management would reciprocate. They fail in duty of care to staff, fail in moral duty to the service, fail fail fail. Fuck them.

******
I think the comments clarify how many in probation are feeling:

1. feeling grief stricken
2. feeling bereft
3. feeling cheated
4. feeling lied to
5. feeling abused
6. feeling abandoned
7. feeling screwed over
8. feeling shafted
9. feeling scared
10.feeling feelings you never had before and are worried why...

I'm sorry that no-one was able to interrupt her musings & take Sarah Kane fishing. I'm sorry that Sarah Kane felt she had no other options. I understand how those close to Sarah Kane could be feeling. I have lost a very close friend & mentor & and have been very close to completing a similar choice for myself. Grayling's policies, arrogance and dishonesty were contributory factors to how I felt.

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How dare Andrew Selous patronise us and say he knows how challenging TR has been. He has no idea. If we weren't all gagged from speaking out and told we must be positive about the changes maybe Sarah Kane could have received some understanding and support. RIP Sarah Kane.

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I can recall meeting with our Chief who was completely unwilling to hear anyone say anything negative about TR. The chiefs attitude was if you don't like it 'then new probation is not for u, u need to leave'. Some people spent many years investing and building their career & profession - to be the told simply 'leave' is unacceptable.

******
More work, less staff, failing IT systems, clients slipping through the cracks. Nice one Grayling!

*****

This weeks going to be interesting. More than half the office are on holiday. Now the team is massively reduced, holidays have a big impact.

*****

I work in a relatively small office and all in one day, I get notification that a Parole Board decision, made in June is to be set aside, as the prison had not notified the prisoners legal reps of the review and or the existence of a dossier, for them to read. Consequently, the process is to start again. 

Three PSR requests came in, all RIC, and for another office 10 miles away - they are understaffed due to the sheer number on long term sick; the clients are not RIC to our local nick, but 70 miles away, cos the local is full. Another colleague had to submit a nil to Court as the interpreter did not attend as requested and no explanation was received from them or the company. (Crapita). 

Everyone lost their shortcuts, again, as the system has been tinkered with over the weekend and most of us had difficulty logging on and just before she left tonight, a colleague lost an entire FDR, and it could not be retrieved. It takes twice as long to make an entry in Delerious, since the 'migration' a few weeks ago, simple information even the most IT illiterate could reasonably expect, i.e. that the computer programme you just logged into actually recognises you and doesn't have to be notified, who your are, where you work etc every time. It is completely mystifying - what the F*ck are they up to in the corridors of power? 

While I am at it - I have to say, all these positive statements from MoJ, Minister of Prisons, and Chief's, make me want to leave this job; the job that has been such a huge part of my adult life, and has helped shape and define who I am, by the time of the share sale I won't know who the F*ck I am.

******
Different tack - I've cancelled my annual leave because we just ain't got the staff. If I go off as I had planned there wouldn't be any PO in the building for 8 working days. Being the only one not going overseas, I silently made different plans. No-one at the office knows, but I ain't too popular at home this week. Hey ho, it'll pay dividends at a later date - won't it???

******
I see that the statement from Selous is very similar to every chief blog we've seen in the last few months...must have gotten a template during their jolly's to London! Lets face it they all repeat the same rubbish, maybe the implants have started, of course they have...the 'dark lord' has taken control of their minuscule brains, the Minister 'Davros' is controlling from his hidden room in Whitehall as he counts the gold bars piling up from his rich international backers, DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY!!!

Shamefully if is us who have worked hard to build a career in public service (and i mean SERVICE as we worked for the public good not profit) who are being DESTROYED. Shame on those that push people to such a low ebb and don't give a damn!

*****
Ian Lawrence tweeted yesterday that TR was 'on the wire'. I do not know what that means but suspect nerves are showing. Maybe the bids really are as bad as we thought?

*****
I hope he is right as I am on my knees with this TR shit. Had a horrible week, it still doesn't seem to get better or settle, everyone's stressed out beyond words. Someone needs to start saying things like we've tried it and its not working, instead of the drivel they keep spouting that its all going smoothly nonsense, because its not. It didn't need fixing before TR but it does now.

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Just in case anyone is interested, the systems are still fucked, staff at rock bottom in terms of energy and morale, and clients floundering all over the place, as they don't understand what is going on, and we are not in a position to help them understand. It is indefensible to treat a workforce and the public in such a dismissive and disrespectful way, but hey, everything is fine in Graylingland!
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OASys is on a 2 minute delay here. I type a paragraph and have to eagerly await for it to appear on my screen! It's so frustrating.
*******
If we do a PSR & assess client is high risk, why do we have to do an RSR & CAS form as they will automatically go to NPS? Waste of time!
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Boss has already asked if I would be interested in using some of my time off, doing overtime. The NPS is a sinking ship! Not enough staff.

*******

I'm so 'Gate-happy' I'll be pretty devastated if I don't get VR. I'm avoiding courses, meetings and anything work-wise that requires any commitment where humanly possible and my boss cannot have missed the lack of drive that people now currently demonstrate. Who wants to play a part in developing systems and new ways of working when the shifting sands make each day a new miserable landscape? I'd rather leave and have control of my own mental health back. Over the last 20 years, I can't remember a time when some muppet, probably with 'change is the only constant' pinned on their wall, hasn't been instigating change for its own sake and sucking the life out of people who thought they were there to nurture POSITIVE change in individuals and society. Enough's enough.

*******
I have gone from working 60+ hours a week to doing my contracted hours and am not alone in this. Have also noticed how empty the office is where I work too. Because we cover such a large geographical area, more and more time is being spent travelling and double the meetings now there needs to be an NPS and a CRC rep at the same meeting. 

I didn't go to work the other day because I just couldn't face it. I didn't ring in sick and no one noticed I was missing. Would apply for another job outside of probation but so fed up that I can't be bothered. Chris Grayling does not know what irreversible damage he has done to the probation service.

*******
On a daily basis I cannot decide to be angry or just sad. The phrase "staff goodwill" has been bandied about so much, and it just doesn't do justice to the commitment and dedication that has been binned in the TR shambles. The WASTE the bloody WASTE this has generated. If I was a bidder I would right now be writing off £milliions from the asset register. There is a particularly devastating horror of being a (decent) middle manager in all this; your job is to make TR "roll out" and tick the boxes for people you hate, and who have betrayed you, and your instinct is to hang in there and try to minimise the damage on your team. Devil and deep blue sea.

Guest Blog 4

“Fifty ways to leave the Probation Service” - with apologies to Paul Simon 

Arriving at work just after 8 the other morning I greeted and spoke to three members of the team I manage – they are not usually in until 9 on a Friday because of early starts and weekend working being the norm for the rest of the week, so it was a surprise to see them. A quick catch up ensued and then I looked around me. Apart from the four of us the building was eerily empty. It usually holds a lot of people on its multiple floors. Admittedly, it is August; yes, it was also the Friday before a bank holiday but.............................I am willing to bet that a year ago the building would have had staff in at that time in the morning, keen to get ahead of the day they were facing, catching up with each and having that first cup of coffee. So, what has happened?

People are leaving the Probation Service, both physically and emotionally - that is what has happened. Thinking about Sally Lewis' comment about how she felt she had not left the Probation Service, rather it had left her, I began to think about the number of ways staff are departing stage left. There may not be 50 ways, as listed in the Paul Simon song, but all the ways, no matter how many, have a finality in themselves and add to the overall demolishing of the service.

As someone who is actually in the process of leaving the Probation Service to go onto another job I have become an unqualified careers adviser for a number of staff who have been wanting to talk about their exit plans, both actual and potential. It seems many are mulling over, considering and putting into  action a wide variety of notions. Some of those plans will obviously not come into fruition but if a fraction do then the exodus of trained, qualified staff will continue and undermine the stability of both the NPS and CRCs. 

The Probation Service was renowned for its low staff turnover for decades. I am now in the situation where I see people in the office I do not know the names of - new receptionist? New to a partnership agency? Visitor? I then find out they are responsible for 60-70 cases from the office's workload and they are known as a “temp”. How did that happen? Like dementors from the Harry Potter stories TR seems to be sucking the lifeblood and soul out of the Probation Service I knew and worked hard for over many years. Certainly it was not perfect but staff were there to try and do their best with the tools they were given. That sense of togetherness and goodwill is being lost as the people who have that folk memory, if you like, leave either physically or emotionally.

Even if a person does not leave, the existence of an exit plan, however tentative makes a difference to how you view the job you are currently doing. The thought of a possible way out of the situation you are finding difficult changes how you approach everything to do with your work. Those around you may not notice the difference and it just might manifest itself in a number of ways; making sure you work your contracted hours and nothing else; not getting involved in union activity; not volunteering for an activity you might have seen as possibly interesting in the past; not joining the PI even though the CRC you are working for is offering to pay for you; sitting in silence as you listen to yet another “dialogue” with senior management about the TR changes; seeing problems as not something shared but belonging to the CRC or NPS; taking sick leave (my local observation, for what it's worth, is that the number of days taken as sickness absence will rise noticeably). Over time - and it seems to be happening at a rapid pace - it will change the nature of the organisation and it will become unrecognisable to those who know the service as it was.

I am sure that the Ministry of Justice will be cheered to hear the effect their attentions are having to the service. The bidders, however, will not want to inherit a group of staff with a large number of temporary workers. The freedom to just up and go if you do not like what is happening will give some of our temporary colleagues a lot of bargaining power, if the current drought in this direction continues. So becoming a “temp” is another way to leave the Probation Service. I think I am up to about eight ways to leave so far. Perhaps not fifty then.

There is, then, the physical leaving. Mention has been made before of Probation babies. I am sure that HR and the like will say it is inevitable when employing so many young women,but we have employed a lot of young women for decades now. Again, I am sure it will be dismissed as senile musings but I am sure that some colleagues are timing their pregnancies now - because, why not? - see what the landscape looks like in 12 months time. It will be interesting to see how many return and, if they do, for how long.

There is applying for other jobs - I went outside the service to seek another job - but I am aware that a significant proportion of POs in this CRC are starting the process of applying to the NPS - it might be frying pan and fire but CRC PO workloads appear to comprise of scores of domestic abuse cases and little else. Many are missing the writing of court reports and the sheer variety the average caseload presented - that discrete piece of work, in writing reports, involves using and honing assessment skills. It is a real loss to many a PO, along with the challenges a mixed workload presented and it hurts.

My physical leaving has yet to happen - when it does it will hurt. I do not want to go but I can see what is round the corner for the service and it will hurt even more to witness it and stay. I do hope I am so very wrong.

Anon SPO 2  

The Membership Speaks

So, what are we to make of the Napo election results released yesterday? 

For the position of Chair the following were elected: Yvonne Pattison (North Yorkshire/East Coast) / Chris Winters (Humberside/East Coast), job share. For the positions of Vice-Chair the following were elected: Katie Lomas (West Yorkshire) and Dave Adams (Warwickshire). 

Yvonne/Chris and Katie and Dave have been elected for a two year term which runs from Napo AGM in October 2014 to AGM October 2016. 

The election of Yvonne as Co-Chair creates an additional Vice-Chair position for the remainder of the term for this post from Napo AGM in October 2014 to AGM October 2015. The Officers will be considering the position and making a recommendation to the September NEC meeting.

Change of subject.............the results are out for the recent NAPO elections inc for the important post of Chair.........15% turnout.......yes just 15%.....on these figures does it matter who was elected?......the vast majority of members are not interested........will anyone at the top table take any notice of this?........NAPO is slowly dying & yes I did vote despite previously advocating a spoilt ballot papers campaign ....

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I also voted but this was against a backdrop of me giving continued thought to cancelling my membership. If the new people do not make the changes needed then I fear it will have been for nothing.

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It's hardly surprising that 85% didn't vote. It's only too clear that members views count for nothing in NAPO, and the sorry parade of new labour style 'on message' candidates for these toothless positions plainly offered no hope of anything more positive. We still don't know what led to 'Assistant Chief Executive' Rendon's Hissy fit - his abusive message to members aside - or what lies behind the long rumoured 'disfunction' at the top, let alone what kind of strategy might possibly be informing the present inaction at 'the top'. I guess it's all a matter for professional bureaucrats and their executive pals on the boss's side of the table, and not for the likes of us. As Rendon said, it's not really any of our business - its just our livelihoods, lives and futures at stake while these clowns take our money and do less than fuck all, that's all.

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I agree. Napo as an organisation is crumbling, the grassroots are dying. Napo looks more Ponzi scheme than trade union.

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I also voted. Also considering cancelling membership if there is no change of approach (and yes I have been involved and I have done things locally and I'm not expecting things to be done for me and I have made my own case with my employer despite not because of Napo but if there is no support for members in fighting TR on a level where members feel supported in their fight then I will leave). 

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15℅ in our 'member - led' union. This is evidence of deep apathy. The fight against TR is a minority interest, but no less important for that, it's just that if you cannot win the hearts and minds of your friends, what hope have you of winning over others?

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I voted but am staggered at such a low turn out. I suppose that Chris Grayling will be on that like a shot :-/

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Bigger turnout than the election for a PCC. PS I voted too! As did my PO wife. Apathy, maybe. More likely ambivalence. Most members don't know the personalities they were asked to vote for so left the decision to those of us who have a firm view.

I'm led to believe that a 15% turnout is the lowest ever, but what organisation in its right mind holds elections in August anyway? One wonders what the figure would have been had there not been a bit of a debate on this blog? What is clear is that those elected can hardly claim a strong mandate for doing much at all, which I suspect will be a source of some relief to the General Secretary and Chris Grayling.

Anyway, it's probably all a bit academic because I'm also told that the key decision not to initiate Judicial Review has been taken by the existing line-up of officers and, despite how it might eventually be spun to members, the reason is purely financial. As prudent custodians and employers, the organisation has to maintain reserves in order to pay-off the staff in the event of a winding-up. 

With the newly-elected officers not due to take up post until the AGM, I wonder how long the radio silence from Napo HQ will be maintained under the interim Chair? I guess there's a bit more mileage yet in this blog trying to fill the vacuum that seems to be so effectively in place at the top. The fight against TR will continue here, but I wonder if it will at Napo HQ? This is what Harry Fletcher says on his blog:-

Can the crash be stopped? In the absence of a coordinated campaign within parliament and the press involving unions, managers and the Institute and with sound public support it seems unlikely. Most Parliamentarians seem unaware of events. There are excellent exceptions like Shadiq Khan and Lord Ramsbotham. Others like the LibDems, know the score but will not intervene. There are 3 months left to stop the rot. Officials and senior civil servants must be aware that the timescale is not deliverable and the next Government will be left to pick up the pieces and say so to politicians. But will they? And can they be made to do so? Those are the key questions.

The Grayling Crisis

Given Chris Grayling's continued denial that there's a crisis in either prison or the probation service, and the rather soft grilling he got on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, I thought it worth reproducing two articles this week by Ian Dunt. The first can be found here. 

Grayling’s paranoid attack on charities shows he’s losing the plot

In the last two weeks, three damning reports have been published by the chief inspector of prisons. Doncaster is failing, Hindley is failing, Isis is failing. The litany of disasters is seemingly endless: children found hanging in their cells, prisoners attacked with make-shift weapons, stuffed in a cell together, locked in 23-hours a day, staff numbers slashed, funding cut, ever more inmates being crammed into a creaking system which is coming apart at the seams.

The prison estate is very good at preventing prisoners, or former prisoners, from talking to journalists. But the reports which do come in mention unreported protests by inmates after being locked up all day, small-scale riots and a fundamental breakdown of trust between inmates and guards. I'm told that one prison has started transporting sex offenders to other facilities. Sex offenders are usually the first victim of prison disorder. Their removal often indicates that authorities are losing confidence in their ability to control an institution.

For the first time, the justice secretary deigned to talk about it this morning on the Today programme, if only to deny there was any crisis. His only other pronouncements are becoming increasingly paranoid, as if he is imagining ever-more villainous enemies among the people who point out the failings in the system.

A week ago, an article by Grayling attacking charities went up on the Telegraph website and then was immediately taken down. Perhaps the editorial staff thought twice at publishing a piece which appeared to show an author balanced perilously on the edge of political rationality, even if he is a secretary of state. It went up again over the weekend. It is a quite deranged piece of writing, not improved by the Telegraph's strange style-guide insistence on capitalising the term 'Left', as if this were a missive from Trotsky.

Grayling says the internet petition site 38 Degrees is "in name, a forum for people to start their own campaigns, but in reality, an anti-government pressure group". He goes on: "As with much of the Left's campaigns and propaganda, the aim is often to portray the government in a very different light to the actual reality." The article shows Grayling start to dwell on the idea of a fifth column, an army of Labour insiders embedded in the charity sector, intent on overthrowing the government. "The issues they latch onto are usually about spending more of your money – or undermining the crucial work we are doing to turn the country round," he warns.

He then launches into an extraordinary personal attack on Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, who he calls "one of the most prominent Labour-supporting pressure group leaders". Grayling has long detested the Howard League. He is understood to have cancelled an inquiry into sex and rape in prison because of their involvement. He stormed out of a parliamentary meeting because they were mentioned in glowing terms.

This is Crook's account of what she did over the weekend, while Grayling was writing up an attack on her. You can decide for yourself if she sounds like a Labour militant.

"Today Labour held a summit on the crisis in prisons and I was invited to attend. I decided in the end it was not appropriate as the Labour press office sent out a note pre-empting the discussion by listing the policies the party had already decided on, many of which I think are wrong or trivial. Secondly the event was branded as so partisan that I felt it was inappropriate for a charity to attend."

The Howard League is independent, impartial and non-aligned. It is funded from multiple sources and doesn't accept government grants. Grayling's attack on it is indicative of his own mindset rather than its own. He sees party political conspiracy where there is public research. He sees anti-government agitation where there is scrutiny. He is a tiny tyrant, jealously guarding his little empire as it crumbles to dust. He's been this way for some time. I'm told that as employment minister he took to calling the Citizen's Advice chief executive every time she said anything critical about welfare reform. Sources say this eventually had some effect and led to a watering down of its criticism of the government. Gradually policy officers were stripped of their external roles, such as talking to the media.

In late 2012, the chief executive was sent a letter from Grayling in which he complained about a certain piece of work they'd done. Management told staff that the letter said: "You are a bunch of lefties, and if it were up to me I would shut you down". At that point management went into a flap and policy work was basically dismantled, in favour of a more 'think tank' approach.

Citizen's Advice, it should be said, deny they've watered down their criticism of the government and pointed me towards recent campaigns on employment support allowance as evidence they're still robust in their relationship to government. This treatment of charities is standard operating procedure for the coalition government. It has tried to shut down charity criticism in two ways: through legislation and co-option.

The first took the form of the lobbying bill, which did nothing to address lobbying but severely hampered charities' and trade unions' role in civic society. It was so bad it united the Taxpayers' Alliance and the Trade Union Congress. Quite the achievement. It aimed to limit spending on campaign activity in the year ahead of a general election and redefined electoral activity as anything which could affect the outcome of an election. It was a startling and undemocratic attempt to close down scrutiny, while cynically pretending to tackle lobbying.

The other method used to close down criticism from charities is incorporate them into the public service delivery system. Big, important groups with name-recognition have been hollowed out of their principles in the desperate bid for government contracts. They are terrified of commenting on government policies which are demonstrably counter to the goals they strive for. This goes for some charities working within prisons, who are as aggressive in fielding questions about what goes on there as the Ministry of Justice. And it goes on in the realm of immigration too, where charities' role picking up the breadcrumbs left over from contracts to the likes of Serco and G4S have made them terrified of biting the hand that feeds them.

Charity criticism is being shut down in the courts and in public service delivery contracts. And when that doesn't work it is shut down by a campaign of bullying and intimidation from ministers. Grayling's paranoid delusions are not just personal failings. They are reflections of government policy.

The repercussions are plain to see. A prison crisis has developed which no-one is trying to address. Yesterday, the chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association said the secretary of state and lord chancellor was "in a state of unparalleled denial". He added: "His programme has no grounding in reality. He has shown blatant disregard for the views of experts and practitioners on almost every issue. Make no mistake, this crisis is not one of prisons but of the entire English justice system."

At some point the secretary of state's refusal to listen to evidence and personal attacks on his critics must be considered more than personal failings. They are political negligence.

The second article is here.

Grayling in a state of unparalleled denial, experts warn

The entire English justice system is in crisis, a senior lawyer has said, after a damning report by the prisons inspector was dismissed by Chris Grayling. 

The justice secretary was forced to deny there is a prison crisis after chief inspector Nick Hardwick released his third critical report in two weeks. Hardwick's report found high levels of assault, low levels of trust between inmates and guards, and a regime which barely allowed men out of their cell during the day at Isis Young Offenders Institution in Thamesmead, which was set up three years ago. Ministry of Justice figures show assaults in jail are skyrocketing, with 14,083 in 2012/13 and 15,033 in 2013/14.

In his first comments on the steady stream of negative prison stories, Grayling told the BBC violence on the prison estate was lower than it was five years ago. "We're meeting those challenges, we're recruiting more staff. I am absolutely clear there is not a crisis in our prisons," he told the Today programme.

His comments have met with an angry response from campaigners. Bill Waddington, Chair Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: "Chris Grayling is in a state of unparalleled denial. "His ideologically driven programme of justice reform has no grounding in reality. He has shown blatant disregard for the advice of experts and practitioners on almost every issue, from prison reform to legal aid. Make no mistake, this crisis is not one of prisons, but of the entire English justice system."

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan suggested Grayling was "burying his head in the sand about the crisis in our prisons". Khan added: "Under David Cameron and Chris Grayling there has been a complete leadership gap in the criminal justice system, which has led to deteriorating jails, increasing violence in prisons and less and less being done to rehabilitate offenders and treat those suffering with poor mental health. "The government needs to listen to these warnings from the chief inspector about the deteriorating situation in our prisons and act now to prevent putting public safety at risk. We simply can't afford to go on like this."

Hardwick's damning report found that staff shortages had led to a restricted emergency regime which was intended to be temporary but was still in place during the unannounced inspection nearly a year later.

Inspectors described "curtailment of routines, more limited access to facilities, and a significant negative impact on the life of the prison". Nearly a third of prisoners felt unsafe and many were afraid of other inmates. Most acts of violence involved a group attacking an individual. The use of weapons was common. "Arrangements to support violence reduction were unsophisticated, and based almost exclusively on punishment or sanction," the inspectors found. "The facility was clean but access to amenities was needlessly restricted with prisoners lacking anything purposeful to do.

Access to showers and telephones was limited and staff and prisoners were given few opportunities to interact with each other, thereby reducing trust between the two groups. "It was our view that these restrictions limited opportunities for staff and prisoners to engage with each other, and frustration at the amount of lock-up experienced by prisoners, undermined good relationships between them," it found. "The prison's restricted regime greatly limited prisoners' access to time out of cell and there were insufficient training and work places to fully occupy the population."

Prison reform groups have long argued that dramatic staff reductions, combined with a growing prison population and a harsh new regime, were creating a perfect storm of potential disorder in the prison estate, but the justice secretary has not responded to their concerns. Instead, he has attacked prison reformers as secret Labour party supporters in an article for the Telegraph this weekend. "Britain's professional campaigners are growing in number: sending emails around the country, flocking around Westminster, dominating BBC programmes, and usually articulating a left-wing vision which is neither affordable nor deliverable – and wholly at odds with the long-term economic plan this government has worked so hard to put in place," he wrote.

Ministry of Justice staff even told journalists Howard League for Penal Reform statistics were "flawed and inaccurate" before realising they had been supplied to the group by the Ministry of Justice itself.

After years of being warned of the effects of staff shortages in prisons, Grayling started recruiting a reserve force of prison officers in June. The Ministry of Justice has claimed it is leading a revolution in rehabilitation by making inmates work for privileges, such as TV or books. Under new rules introduced last November, prisoners are not allowed to have books or other items sent to them in the post. Instead they must earn money through work and can then spend it on books or other items in the prison shop.

However, reports from inside prisons - which are difficult to secure due to a clamp-down on prisoners talking to journalists - suggest there are few work opportunities. Staff reductions and an ever-growing prison population also means many prisoners are kept in their cells up to 23-hours a day. This leaves them unable to access prison libraries or education services, or even do physical exercise.

The Peterborough Story

Following the publication of results from the Peterborough PbR pilot, there's been much discussion as to what they mean and whether Chris Grayling is correct in saying it had been a success. It's a complicated issue, but the following articles seem to unravel the truth from the spin. This first article is on the Civil Society website:-

Can the Peterborough social impact bond be judged a success?

Last week the first social impact bond, at Peterborough prison, announced initial results. David Ainsworth examines the implications.

A couple of months ago I wrote a really very long assessment of the pros and cons of social impact bonds, and I wasn’t necessarily planning on writing another one. But given that we now have the results from the first tranche of prisoners from the pilot SIB, it seems sensible to look at whether it’s been a success.

What is the Peterborough SIB? 

The basic model of a SIB is that the charity agrees with a public funder that it will try to solve a problem – in this case, reducing the number of crimes committed by short-stay offenders leaving Peterborough prison. If the charity succeeds in reducing the problem, the public body – in this case the Ministry of Justice – will make a payment. Otherwise, it pays out nothing.

But the charity doesn’t take the risk. That’s taken by social investors, who front the cash to deliver the service. In this case, 17 charitable foundations jointly put up the money, around £5m. They will make a profit if the intervention works. If the intervention fails, they will lose out.

Where the intervention works or not, with a SIB the delivery organisation is financially secure. In this case, the delivery organisation is the One Service, a special purpose vehicle set up by Social Finance, the organisation which created the idea of the SIB, which works with a number of charities.

The SIB was intended to work with three tranches of 1,000 offenders, but will be halted early after two. This is because of a new national programme, Transforming Rehabilitation, which also uses payment by results, but based on different metrics.

What do we know now?
Well the headline findings of the recent results show that the SIB reduced reoffending by 8.4 per cent (from an eye-watering 155 reconvictions per 100 prisoners to 142 reconvictions), which isn’t enough to trigger a payment to the investors. That needed a 10 per cent reduction. But Social Finance is pretty confident it will generate greater reductions next time. Even if it stayed at the same level, that would be enough for investors would get paid next time because only a 7.5 per cent reduction is needed over all tranches to trigger a payment. 

Of course the other news is that they’re stopping the SIB two thirds of the way through, which isn’t a great advert for the model. But I’m fairly convinced that it isn’t practical to run the SIB alongside TR, so while it’s unfortunate that it’s stopping, it’s also probably inevitable. (Whether TR is a good idea is a very different question. My guess would be that it’s based on a good principle which is going to be badly applied, and it won’t work. But that’s another story.) 

The fact that investors haven’t made any money yet looks like the key fact to take from the results, but I’m not sure it’s that important. It doesn’t tell you whether the SIB delivered useful outcomes, just whether they hit a pretty arbitrary target.The pricing structure for the first SIB was inevitably pretty finger-in-the-air, because no one quite knew what could be achieved. In order to tempt government into putting up the money, the first SIB made some stretching promises. And even then the Big Lottery Fund had to promise to put up much of the cash to pay for it.
As far as I can see, future SIBs have been priced in a way that’s more generous to the investor, and indeed, several of them have already paid out. 

So perhaps this SIB was priced ambitiously and government will have to adjust its pay scales. But there’s plenty of room between the money government saves and the price it paid this time. Government can clearly make SIBs work if it’s prepared to pay the right price.

Does the model work?
The question is not whether this particular SIB made a profit for investors – although I daresay it will – but what it tells us about the viability of the model as a whole.I’ve said before that a SIB is actually two separate things – a service delivery model which gives charities unusual freedom and a funding model intended to move risk away from them. Can we now say that both of these have worked? 

One thing to say is that it’s quite hard to measure whether this SIB’s succeeded. Numbers of convictions actually slosh about quite a lot naturally, it appears. This could be down to changes in the law or the economy, to changes in regional culture and demographics, or factors in the local criminal justice system such as the individual judges and magistrates. 

Social Finance, the inventors of the SIB and the people running the Peterborough project, believe that Peterborough prison seems to have its own kind of reoffending microclimate which they don’t quite understand. 

These changes can swamp the difference a charity intervention makes. All of this makes government quite reluctant to pay out without a high burden of proof. Still, the stats show this SIB has reduced reoffending, compared to a control group. How reliable that is, with reference to the above, is not clear. The statisticians say there’s only a 90 per cent confidence interval. I’m not a statistician, so I don’t know exactly what that means, but I think we can probably say the delivery model, at least, is effective. 

Of course this was the first SIB and as a result it’s probably quite atypical. This is the one where they made all the mistakes, but it’s also the one that got all the time and effort. It was designed to a very high specification. The outcomes to be measured were well-calibrated, and the public body sponsoring the programme put a lot of effort in. It had a lot of legal support. 

All of this can’t be replicated every time. Some of the other SIBs in existence are not such high-quality work. I suspect it’s hard to get the right metric to measure success. I suspect it’s hard to stop the commissioner trying to direct the service. And I suspect it’s really hard to actually help the people you’re supposed to help. I think in some of the other SIBs, at least one of these things has not happened.Still, this SIB offers evidence that getting good people working on the same project for a long period of time, with freedom to pick the best interventions, is an effective tactic. You’d hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock, but it seems to have surprised some people.

Funding models
So good delivery model, but I think everyone in the charity sector already liked long term delivery with secure funding before we had SIBs. The more contentious question is whether the SIB is also a good funding mechanism.To be honest, there are problems. First, we don’t know if there are enough people willing to become social investors to make it work. Also it’s expensive to set up, and it needs a lot of expertise to make it work. Also, there are ethical concerns. It distorts behaviour, particularly if your metrics aren’t good, and can lead to creaming off the easy to help and parking the hard cases. Also, like it or not, it marketises disadvantaged people. I suspect if I was a disadvantaged person, I might put up with being marketised in exchange for some help, but I also find it pretty easy to understand why some people find it distasteful. 

On the other hand, there are big pluses. First, it moves risk away from charities towards professional risk takers. At least it does if done right. PBR has had mixed results so far moving the risk to the right place. Just look at the Work Programme. Also, it has the potential to bring in new types of capital. It’s already got some cash out of investments in the stock market and into charity, although the amount remains tiny compared to the world of investment, and it’s mostly from charity investors.Most importantly, though, outcomes funding incentivises effective commissioning.Now we know that the SIB’s holistic style of intervention works – long-term, connected to all stakeholders, focused on a broad outcome. In an earlier piece, I suggested maybe we should keep the delivery model and just grant fund it. This met with a lot of support, but I don’t think government is going to do it. Outcomes finance – whether a SIB specifically or something similar – seems to trigger a willingness in government to then take a hands-off approach to bodies they fund. We’d like them to take the same approach with contracts or grants, but they won’t. I don’t know that public bodies are completely wrong, either.

After all, they do need to protect their money, and it takes a lot of trust just to say to someone – ‘here’s some money, get on with it, we trust you’, which is effectively what they’d do if they grant-funded something like the Peterborough project. “Poor implementation always trumps a good model,” says Steve Goldberg, an American social investment consultant. Meaning that it doesn’t matter how good your intervention is, if your people are rubbish.

But if you only pay if the outcome is achieved, there’s no trust necessary. So long as you’ve designed your metric right – and that’s a big if – you either get what you want and save money, or you don’t get what you want and save nothing. Also, you pay when the saving’s achieved, not when you agree the deal. And in government, that’s important. So whether the sector likes outcomes finance or not, it might be the price it has to pay to get a good delivery model.

This article by Julian Corner is on the NewStart website:-

Transforming Rehabilitation is being dressed in sheep’s clothing

Initial results from the world’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB) were announced last week. The Peterborough SIB’s One Service achieved an 8.4% reduction in the reoffending of prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months. This result exceeded the 7.5% minimum required over the life of the project for investors (of which LankellyChase is one) to get their investment back, but fell short of the 10% stretch target needed to trigger an outcome payment this time around.

Inevitably a great deal of the commentary that followed the results – including whether 8.4% was a success or failure – ranged along the battle lines drawn by the wider Payment by Results (PbR) debate. The landscape has changed radically since the SIB was first dreamt up, so that it gets cited as evidence for or against reforms that its creators could not have anticipated. The uses and abuses of its name have been legion and nearly all opportunistic. All of which obscures any attempt to judge the merits of the SIB on its own terms.

Background to the SIB
Some of the commentators who have been quick to dismiss the SIB would do well to return to the original problem it was trying to solve – and perhaps they should answer for how they would have solved it. The absence of support for prisoners sentenced to less than twelve months has been a nonsense and a disgrace for decades. Reviews have come and gone recommending change, such as the Halliday review Making Punishments Work (2001) and the Social Exclusion Unit report Reducing Reoffending by Ex-prisoners (2002). It has been abundantly clear that the social and financial costs of releasing prisoners into destitution are incredibly high, and yet no one has been able to work out where the additional resource should come from to supervise so many additional people.

It is worth recalling that, until recently, every additional responsibility on public services has been issued with a substantial price tag. The idea that the Probation Service might reconfigure existing resources was complete anathema and fiercely resisted. As such, the Government’s main change lever was to pour in extra cash. This is why we became obsessed with piloting ‘invest to save’ approaches. The hope was that if we could prove that supporting the resettlement of short term prisoners reduced their reoffending, and if we could also prove that this saved the Exchequer money, perhaps the Treasury would find a way of expanding the public money available to resettlement services.

Many pilots have come, gone and been forgotten. Quite ambitious regional schemes funded by Europe were set up only to be dismantled. None of these (in marked contrast to the SIB) caused the slightest stir among policy makers or other opinion formers. Such pilots have become almost piecemeal stopgaps rather than serious attempts to model change. A great deal of money has already been spent in this vein to little or no effect.

What did all these failed initiatives have in common? All had at least one of the following limitations: short timescales, poor resourcing, tiny and/or partial cohorts, poor or no through-the-gate support. Even when they got these elements right, they didn’t have anything like the rigour around data to nail the cash saving argument sufficiently. And all were characterised by predetermined inputs and outputs: numbers found a hostel on release; numbers attending a job centre interview, numbers referred to drug treatment, numbers starting or completing a cognitive behavioural programme.

The input/output model has acted as a particularly dead hand. As so often with social policy, the outcome (reduced reoffending) could not be contractually controlled and so it was reduced to proxy measures which appeared to correlate closely to it and could be counted. What this inevitably drove was (a) a whole lot of box ticking whereby providers were incentivised to chase numbers of inputs and outputs but not people and (b) a whole lot creaming and cropping, with the easiest to help being helped first. Classic stuff, and especially problematic for pilots trying to test the effectiveness of services for people with multiple needs.

You might wonder why the proven capabilities of the Probation Service, who after all were supervising all other offenders, weren’t trusted with the task. The expense of extending a public service aside, the levels of reoffending of released prisoners under Probation supervision have never been its strongest suit. The review of Probation’s resettlement practice and prioritisation in HM Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation’s Through the Gate (2001) wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. And those voluntary sector organisations who had been attempting to fill the gap for years were chomping at the bit to take the challenge on themselves and, candidly, were clear they could do it better.

What the SIB offered
Tens of thousands of victims later, with all the misery and cost that this implies, Social Finance entered the fray proposing a Social Impact Bond mechanism. What immediately recommended the SIB was that it offered a method of unsticking the seemingly intractable resourcing problem. The tax payer would only foot the bill if the cost was offset by savings generated through improved outcomes. Whether or not you believe that a SIB mechanism could underpin an entire resettlement system, at the very least the financial circle was squared so that an ambitious pilot could be afforded. And critically, the Government was tied into validating and responding to its results.

Several other things recommended the SIB: (i) the timescale (6 years) and scale (3,000 prisoners) allowed the service to be tested thoroughly; (ii) the cohort was the entire short term prisoner population of HMP Peterborough matched to a control, so cherry picking was avoided; (iii) the scheme was conceived as a fully resourced prison to community service; and (iv) the outcome payment mechanism meant that the initiative didn’t have to play the input/output game, and was free to focus on and follow the person, moving resources between services depending on emerging evidence of need. Significantly, the financial mechanism drove an entirely new level of rigour around data which would allow a clear assessment this time of whether the service was working and whether it was generating cashable savings.

In other words, its design overcame all of the limitations that had dogged so many previous pilots. As a result, the workers have been freed up to contend with and learn from the real challenges of the lives of short term prisoners. They have been able to build relationships of trust and have moved well beyond previous models by engaging people with lived experience to support the service and offer mentoring. They have been able to make mistakes, learn and change the service, and have had a clear incentive to do so. All the things that you hope for from a public service but which we frequently find so hard to get right, especially when the service landscape is highly complex. I have visited the service and thought it was the best realisation of a short term prisoner resettlement service that I have seen, with strong values and hard won expertise running through it.

All of which speaks to the fact that how you fund a service fundamentally determines the quality and effectiveness of the results that it can achieve. I write this in the full knowledge that many PbR mechanisms lead to all manner of perverse consequences and gaming behaviours. In the SIB, however, Social Finance seem to have found a way of shaping and protecting a space in which front line workers can focus on doing the right thing, not just through gut instinct or individual judgement, but through ongoing iterative data gathering and learning.

Conclusion
What conclusions can we draw? Social Finance, to their credit, have been very cautious. We only have results from the first cohort, hence it is still far too early to pronounce on its cost benefit and replicability. 8.4% is certainly an encouraging reduction, especially as engagement levels are continuing to grow since the first cohort; but even when later results come through there will still be a lot of cost data that will need to be crunched. There is also a lot more analysis needed on the relationship between the financial model of the SIB and the practice model of the One Service. Is the SIB mechanism the only model that could incentivise the same behaviours and performance on the ground? We just don’t know.

No such caution has been evident in the Government’s response. The SIB was being repeatedly cited by Justice Ministers as evidence for their Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms long before its initial results were available. In which case, they were never actually interested in what the SIB might teach them. And this is seen in the way that TR appears to be rewarding results, with a rigidity that will make it very hard for the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) to emulate the crucial flexibility of the SIB. What they are rolling out is not what is being piloted.

The full resourcing of resettlement which the SIB made possible through the outcome mechanism is also going to be exceedingly tough to replicate under TR. Short term prisoners have simply been added to the responsibilities of the CRCs without any new resourcing. Following further public spending cuts, the CRCs’ budgets will be significantly lower than the former Probation Trusts and yet they will have far higher caseloads. Once short term prisoners are subject to statutory license on release, we face the prospect of overstretched staff reduced once again to the bureaucratic enforcement of sentences. In other words, reconvictions triggered by breached licenses are set to sky rocket.

Within this much tighter financial context it was vital that incentive structures forced CRCs to make short term prisoners a priority. News emanating from contractual negotiations, however, suggests that penalties and rewards are stacked towards managing the public safety risks posed by more serious offenders. This is understandable, but TR was justified on the basis of reducing high reoffending rates. Given that the SIB was dreamt up to address the existing system bias towards public safety, then this is simply a reversion to type.

TR is being dressed in the sheep’s clothing of the SIB, but risks systematically disabling most of what the SIB has been trying to achieve. For those of us who have been trying for years to find a workable way of resettling short term prisoners, this is quite a blow. Whatever your views on the PbR mechanism that underpinned the SIB, here was a scheme that was finally grappling with the core questions of what it takes to do the job properly. It is deeply frustrating, to put it mildly, to see the Ministry of Justice welcoming the Peterborough SIB results when in fact they should be explaining why they have chosen to ignore the opportunity that the SIB represented.

It is not too late in the TR process to get some of this right. Peterborough type schemes could be stimulated elsewhere in the system through enhanced incentive structures. If not, and if MoJ drops this ball completely, it is going to be very interesting to see how they welcome the next set of results in 2016 when TR is well under way.

This article was signposted from a comment on the blog:-

NOTE ON PETERBOROUGH SOCIAL IMPACT BOND PILOT AND TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION PROGRAMME 

A) INTRODUCTION

Peterborough Social Impact Bond Pilot

The Peterborough SIB was set up by Jack Straw MP as Home Secretary in 2010 and is an outcomes based model. Social investors provided £5m to fund interventions to reduce reoffending among three cohorts of 1000 short-sentenced male prisoners leaving Peterborough prison. Investors will receive a return if reoffending is reduced by 10% per cohort compared to a national control group. The service was due to last until 2017 – a 7 year period. 

The “Phase 2 Report from the Payment by Results Social Impact Bond Pilot at HMP Peterborough” by Emma Disley and Jennifer Rubin RAND Europe May 2014 shows a generous funding model:

(p12) “Social Finance raised £5mn from 17 investors (Social Finance, 2011). The majority of investors were charities or foundations, including the Barrow Cadbury Charitable Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Friends Provident Foundation, The Henry Smith Charity, Johansson Family Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation, The Monument Trust, Panahpur Charitable Trust, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Tudor Trust (Social Finance, 2010”).

The Phase 2 Report shows that the Peterborough Pilot is generously staffed:

(p10) “The SIB is used to fund the One Service. This is a voluntary scheme which offers offenders support to address a range of needs and challenges to reduce reoffending. The Service is delivered by a mix of paid caseworkers and volunteers (from St Giles Trust), paid staff and volunteers (from Sova), paid specialist practitioners (from Ormiston Children and Families Trust), specialist trainers (from John Laing Training), recovery workers (from Mind) and gym volunteers (from YMCA). Staff contact offenders in prison to help them prepare for release and offer support for up to 12 months in the community following release”

Staffing includes 6 full time caseworkers and 6 volunteers provided by St Giles Trust, 50 volunteers recruited, trained and managed by Sova and other specialist practitioner from other organisations. The Big Lottery Fund and the Ministry of Justice are providing the outcomes payments. Though the amount of Lottery “topping up” support for these payments is not known, under Big Lottery’s £40mn “Commissioning Better Outcomes” programme – supported by the Cabinet Office £20mn Social Outcomes Fund - this can be up to 20%. This means that Big Lottery is providing some underwriting for payments under the programme – which may also be the case at Peterborough.

The Peterborough Social Impact Bond will now continue in its current form until June 2015 when the delivery of support for the second cohort is due to end. Results and related outcomes payments are expected in the summer of 2014 (first cohort) and in 2016 (second cohort).

Transforming Rehabilitation Programme

Under the Government's plans 35 Probation Trusts will be replaced by 21 'Community Rehabilitation Companies' (CRCs). CRCs will be responsible for the supervision of most individuals on community sentences and on release from prison.

The contracts to run the CRCs are currently being put out to tender by the Ministry of Justice. The successful bidders are expected to be large private companies mostly, awarded relatively long contracts of between seven and ten years in duration.

Alongside the CRC structure, a new National Probation Service (NPS), responsible for the supervision of so-called 'high risk' individuals, as well as some technical functions such as risk assessment and pre-sentence reports, will be established. This means that in place of a single probation service, operating locally, there will be two probation services (the new National Probation Service and the contracted provider) in every locality delivering similar services side by side and sometimes via one another.

The National Association of Probation Officers, UNISON and the GMB Unions all oppose the £800mn Transforming Rehabilitation programme to reduce Regional Probation Trusts from 35 to 21 and to invite tenders for supervision of more than 200,000 offenders each year. ACEVO and NCVO have received £150,000 as part of £500,000 Voluntary Sector support funding to assist "Voluntary Community Sector groups successfully bid as possible mutuals for rehabilitation contracts to manage and reform offenders”. It is very difficult not to interpret this as ACEVO and NCVO encouraging Voluntary and Community groups’ bidding to take union members' jobs and ultimately reduce their terms and conditions

The 21 Ministry of Justice Contract Package Areas have “Indicative Values” ranging from up to £13mn in Norfolk and Suffolk to £72mn for London. Alongside this, the Ministry of Justice published “30 Potential Bidding Entities” that have now passed the PreQualification Questionnaire stage. Many are also Work Programme Prime Contractors.

B) HOUSE OF COMMONS JUSTICE COMMITTEE

The Committee’s Twelfth Report “Crime Reduction Policies: a Co-ordinated Approach? Interim Report on the Government's Transforming Rehabilitation Programme” of January 14 2014 was highly sceptical about the programme:

“'an unavoidable consequence of the way this programme is designed is that one element of the competition will be about how cheaply providers can deliver the residual service to enable the maximum resource to be unlocked to “reinvest” in rehabilitative provision for short-sentenced prisoners and others in prison and after their release.”

“Ian Lawrence, General Secretary of Napo, a trade union representing probation staff, characterised the reforms as "...a recipe for disaster. They pose a massive risk to public safety, and are untried, untested and in our view ideologically flawed" and "destroying what works to put in place an experiment." The Probation Chiefs Association similarly argued that "[the] high performing Probation Trust structure would be replaced by a system that is untested and where there is no evidence that it will perform better or deliver efficiencies as intentioned. Richard Monkhouse of the Magistrates' Association observed "We have no evidence that anything [that is proposed] will work". Other witnesses highlighted in particular the shortage of evidence on the application of payment by results to the criminal justice arena and on what drives reoffending rates.'

C) RESULTS FROM PETERBOROUGH SIB AND DONCASTER PBR PILOT

Data on the results from the Peterborough SIB is incomplete and represents only a rough comparison. The “Phase 2 Report from the Payment by Results Social Impact Bond Pilot at HMP Peterborough” Emma Disley and Jennifer Rubin RAND Europe. May 2014:

(p2)”These data show that the frequency of reconviction events among offenders released from Peterborough has declined by 11% over the period of the pilot while the equivalent national figures have risen by 10%. The bulletin presents the Ministry of Justice’s best assessment of change at this point in time. The statistical bulletin notes that care should be taken when interpreting the figures because they are not based on the methodology which will be used to assess the success of the Peterborough pilot. For the Peterborough pilot, success will be determined based on 2 comparison with a control group of comparable offenders from across the country, which is not available for these interim results”.

Alongside this, a “Process Evaluation of the HMP Doncaster Payment by Results Pilot: Phase 2 Findings” by Evelyn Hichens and Simon Pearce, GVA April 2014 is less encouraging about a scheme which is more similar to that proposed under Transforming Rehabilitation. The Doncaster Payment by Results pilot is being delivered by “The Alliance” – a partnership of Serco and Catch 22. This operation of this pilot is similar to those to be funded under Transforming Rehabilitation.

(p2) “The 12 month reconviction rate for cohort 1 offenders released from Doncaster Prison between October 2011 and June 2012 is 52.6%, based on 1,014 releases. This is a reduction of 6.95% compared to those released between October 2008 and June 2009, and a reduction of 4.4% compared to those released between October 2009 and June 2010.”

“The 6 month reconviction rate for cohort 2 offenders released from Doncaster Prison between October 2012 and March 2013 is 43.1%, based on 580 releases. This is a reduction of 2.5% compared to those released between October 2008 and March 2009, and a rise of 1.9% compared to those released between October 2009 and March 2010”.

D) SECURITY OF FUNDING

The “Phase 2 Report from the Payment by Results Social Impact Bond Pilot at HMP Peterborough” Emma Disley and Jennifer Rubin RAND Europe. May 2014 is comprehensive about the relative security and consistency of funding provided to those delivering the Peterborough service:

“(p5) “SIB funding was perceived to be more flexible than traditional sources. Interviewees reported that decisions about spending SIB funds could be made quickly and with fewer restrictions than traditional funding for similar interventions. There are, for example, fewer procurement restrictions and no requirements for SIB funds to be spent within a specified time frame (such as a financial year).

(p8) “Service providers are not normally paid by results and do not bear risk in a SIB. Under a SIB, several providers can deliver services which aim to improve outcomes.”

(p40) “Up-front payment: All providers are paid up-front for service delivery. Staff costs and other overheads are fixed under the contract. Importantly, none of the providers bear financial risk dependent on outcomes. An interviewee from one provider reported that this had allowed them to invest resources into the project”

(p12) “If a 10% reduction in reconviction events is not detected for any of the three cohorts, at the end of the entire SIB period, the three cohorts will be evaluated together. If a reduction in conviction events of 7.5% or more is detected across all 3,000 offenders, when measured against a matched comparison group, investors will be paid an agreed fixed sum per reduced reconviction event”

In comparison, Transforming Rehabilitation requires those who bid for a contract to take the risk and provide their own cash up front – which may lead to cutting corners, or an incentive to “cherry pick”. The Peterborough Phase 2 Evaluation described difficulties for cherry picking under this scheme. To prevent cherry picking and parking, prisoners meeting the Cohort Criteria are included in the pilot, whether or not they engage with SIB funded services:

(p4)”No evidence was identified of ‘cherry picking’ and ‘parking’. A risk identified in payment by results programmes is that providers are incentivised to maximise the chance of achieving an outcome payment by prioritising service users who are easiest to help (cherry picking).

Transforming Rehabilitation will operate on a similar basis to the Work Programme, with problems of cash flow, risks of ‘cherry picking’ and smaller providers’ being used as “bid candy”. As an indication of funding complexity, the consultancy Rocket Science has produced a “Transforming Rehabilitation Contract Cruncher” to enable calculations for how much they might receive:

“Rocket Science and ACEVO, with funding from Cabinet Office, have produced a free to use tool, the TR Contract Cruncher, designed to help potential Transforming Rehabilitation tier two and tier three subcontractors assess offers from Tier one bidders, and plan for the future, by assessing cashflow projections and risk, and comparing different payment and performance offers from potential Tier one providers.

“The tool will help you to work out unit costs, assess and compare different performance and payment offers, alongside provisional client volumes. This will enable you to consider annual expenditure and income, annual profit and loss and cumulative cashflow”.

E) CONCLUSION

Because the Phase 2 Peterborough Evaluation is highly selective and makes no references to Transforming Rehabilitation, it may be concluded that in comparison the national programme is seriously under resourced and takes too many risks.

LESLIE HUCKFIELD RESEARCH SUNDAY 15 JUNE 2014

Finally, a couple of comments:-

"Still, this SIB offers evidence that getting good people working on the same project for a long period of time, with freedom to pick the best interventions, is an effective tactic. You’d hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock, but it seems to have surprised some people".

Bloody hell this is how the Probation Service worked when I started, before national Standards. We are professional we can do it all without politicians and without much of the management we have.

*******

"Most resettlement work was undertaken by a partner organisation called Catch 22 and was linked very closely to a through-the-gate payment by results (PBR) pilot. Work was predicated on a good and up-to-date needs analysis but focused on prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months. Resettlement workers provided a very good service to this group. Outcomes across most of the resettlement pathways were delivered reasonably well but there were significant short-comings in respect of offender management amongst the longer term or higher risk prisoners. While offender assessment systems were up-to-date, risk management was weak. Offender supervision was minimal and reactive. The poor quality and lack of thoroughness of public protection work was a significant concern."

An interesting statement from Nick Hardwick HMIP about HMP Doncaster.

Whilst the main effort is certainly to address the conditions the inspector found, there is some evidence in there of our predictions for the future - the focus on those offenders (less than 12 month sentences) at the expense of all others to gain payment from the PbR. So the "success" described last week by MoJ of the pilot was at the expense of good offender management and public protection.

With Catch 22 bidding in South Yorkshire CPA do we see a successful provider or an organisation focused on commercial gain at the expense of safety and the wider resettlement approach? You decide....