THE TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION MODEL FOR PROBATION SERVICE IS IRREDEEMABLY FLAWED
The current model for the delivery of probation services in England and Wales is irredeemably flawed, and a major rethink is needed to create a system that is fit for the future, according to the Chief Inspector of Probation.
In her final Annual Report, Dame Glenys Stacey depicts a sector under exceptional strain:
- both the public-sector National Probation Service (NPS) and privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are failing to meet some of their performance targets. The NPS is performing better overall, whereas eight out of ten CRCs inspected this year received the lowest possible rating – ‘Inadequate’ – for the implementation and delivery of probation supervision. In too many cases, there is not enough purposeful activity.
- the probation profession has been diminished. There is a national shortage of qualified probation professionals, and too much reliance on unqualified or agency staff.
- in the day-to-day work of probation professionals, there has been a drift away from practice informed by evidence. The critical relationship between the individual and the probation worker is not sufficiently protected in the current probation model.
“More than a quarter of a million people are under probation supervision each year. If probation services are delivered well, there would be less reoffending, fewer people living on the streets, and fewer confused and lonely children, with a smaller number taken into care. Men, women and children currently afraid of assault could lead happier, safer lives. These things matter to us all.
“I have seen first-hand the life-changing potential of probation at its best – but probation is not working as it should. It is not delivering well enough for some of the most troubled and sometimes troublesome people in society, when they and the wider public deserve better.
“Probation must be delivered locally, yet the service is now split at a local level. Despite capable leaders, there has been a deplorable diminution of the probation profession and a widespread move away from practice informed by evidence. This is largely due to the impact of commerce, and contracts that treat probation as a transactional business. Professional ethics can buckle under such pressures, and the evidence we have is that this has happened to some extent.”
Dame Glenys is clear that the intention to terminate CRC contracts early and move to better-funded and better-structured contracts will improve matters, it will not be enough.
Dame Glenys said:
“Probation is a complex social service, with professional judgement at its heart. The future model for probation services needs to ensure more consistent and effective supervision, to reduce reoffending as far as possible and to keep the public safe.
“Any new probation model must focus on quality. In my view, effective probation work is most likely when good leaders are free to manage, motivate and develop professional staff, who are in turn able to build challenging but supportive relationships with offenders. Specialist and local services are also crucial to help offenders turn their lives around.”
Dame Glenys calls for:
- probation services to be evidence based. Work to reduce reoffending should draw on research and evidence, and new initiatives should be evaluated and the results added to the evidence base.
- probation services that meet both the needs of victims and the individuals under supervision. Probation work should be of the right quality, whoever is providing it.
- an integrated and professional service. The probation service should have enough qualified professionals with access to the right facilities, services and information (and, where necessary, protections) to enable them to do their jobs well.
- a probation service able to command the confidence of the judiciary, victims, the professional staff employed and the wider public.
Dame Glenys concludes that national, inter-departmental strategies are needed to provide for accommodation and timely benefits payments. Accredited programmes and essential treatment orders should be available locally and ordered whenever appropriate by the court. A good range of rehabilitative community sentence requirements should be available to the court as well, alongside or instead of Rehabilitation Activity Requirements. Intensive inter-agency support should be piloted for the most prolific offenders currently sentenced to short terms of imprisonment.
In her view, a purposeful programme of work is now needed to rebuild the probation profession. Probation professionals should be given the status, recognition and protection of an independent professional body, and she advocates a code of ethics for the profession. In her view, a national workforce strategy is needed, to provide good training and development for all staff and to make sure of the fair distribution of probation professionals across the service.
Dame Glenys argues that national strategies are needed to provide common IT systems with the right functionality, and to make sure that essential and specialist services for those under probation supervision are available when needed locally. She also proposes a rethink about probation premises: only 15 per cent are jointly occupied by the NPS and CRCs. In her view, the existence of two separate estate footprints is both inefficient and ineffective.
Dame Glenys said:
“These things will be difficult if not impossible, alongside the contractual provision of probation services. Instead, services of the right quality are most likely if probation leaders are able to lead, motivate, engage and develop a sufficient number of probation professionals who in turn can exercise their professional judgement in each case and tailor supervision in each case, with access to a range of specialist services to meet needs in each case. Leaders can then be held fully to account for delivery, for the service’s adherence to the evidence base and for value for money.
“Experience has shown that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to reduce the probation service to a set of contractual measures. I urge the government to consider carefully the future model for probation services, and hope this report will be of help.”
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Letter to the Secretary of State
I am pleased to present you with my Annual Report.
My term as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation comes to an end shortly. It has been a privilege to do the job. I have seen at first hand the life-changing potential of probation at its best, and the lifesapping and sometimes fatal consequences when the service does not work as intended.
The government’s 2013 Transforming Rehabilitation programme split the service at local level, with the bulk of probation work contracted out to the private sector. It has been a turbulent time. To implement government policy, capable probation leaders were required to deliver change they did not believe in, against the very ethos of the profession. On inspection, we now find probation supervision provided under contract to be substandard, and much of it demonstrably poor. Judicial confidence in community sentencing is now at serious risk.
Probation is a complex social service, with professional judgement at its heart, but probation contracts treat it largely as a transactional business. Consequently, there has been a deplorable diminution of the probation profession and a widespread move away from good probation practice. This is chiefly due to the impact of commerce. Professional ethics can buckle under such pressures, and the evidence we have is that this has happened to some extent.
You have taken the bold decision to terminate contracts early, with the intention of re-contracting on better terms, and aligning provider boundaries. While this would help, it would leave serious design flaws unaddressed.
The probation model delivered by Transforming Rehabilitation is irredeemably flawed. Above all, it has proved well-nigh impossible to reduce probation services to a set of contractual requirements. Professional probation work is so much more than simply a series of transactions, and when treated in that way it is distorted and diminished.
With contracts now likely to end in December 2020, there is an opportunity to redesign the service. With that in mind, I have proposed design principles for the service, and focused this report on the most relevant matters for consideration, to help with the difficult decisions you must make.
I would like to thank all those who have participated in any way in our inspections. Without their help and cooperation, it would not be possible to do the job we do. And I am very grateful to you and your officials, for appreciating the validity and real value of the inspection evidence we have been able to provide.
Dame Glenys Stacey
Chief Inspector Probation
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Conclusion
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Conclusion
I have proposed that there should be better governance requirements for probation providers. I advocate more sensitive payment arrangements for probation professionals, consistent measures of staff engagement, and that staff should work in safe, secure and suitable premises that are kept in a reasonable state of repair. These things will be more difficult to be sure of in the existing model, but not impossible by any means.
The government has proposed a next generation of better funded and better structured probation contracts, and the alignment of boundaries between NPS divisions and CRCs. In my view, that will improve matters but it will not be enough.
The probation profession has been diminished, and the skilled work that professionals can deliver has been devalued. The quality of probation work has suffered and it must now improve, to reduce reoffending, protect the public and restore judicial confidence in community sentencing. Probation leaders are braced to bring about yet more change, as government has indicated, but in my view success is much more likely if probation leaders can bring about change they believe in, and change that respects and values the ethos of the profession.
Leaders must be able to motivate, engage and develop probation professionals to deliver evidence-based and evidence-led services, rather than probation supervision continuing to drift. Promising new approaches should be evaluated routinely, and the best should be made available nationally. Leaders can then be held fully to account for effective delivery and value for money.
Probation work that is integrated, professional and delivered as locally as possible is most likely to turn around the lives of offenders. Probation professionals must be able to exercise their professional judgement in each case and tailor supervision, with access to a range of specialist services to meet individual needs. I argue that a national approach is needed now, rather than the continuation of the current divisive arrangements.
To provide an integrated service, a carefully considered commissioning strategy is needed. Accredited programmes and other valued interventions should be routinely available locally, and accessed readily by all probation professionals, to match need.
A national workforce strategy is needed, to provide engaging training and development for all staff and to make sure that enough probation professionals of the right grade are available nationally and in all locations. A national IT strategy and common systems are needed, to support the continuous assessment of individuals under probation supervision and the ready transfer of important information. In this way, effective probation supervision is most likely.
A national estates strategy is needed, to bring about a much more strategic national footprint, with probation services delivered as locally as possible. The operating model should support effective delivery in rural and urban locations, and should always put the relationship between the probation professional and the offender centre stage.
Experience has shown that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to reduce the probation service to a set of contractual requirements and measures, and equally difficult to deliver probation well without a nationwide approach to the essential underpinnings of the service. Significant flaws in the system have become increasingly apparent.
It will be virtually impossible to deal with these issues if most probation supervision continues to be provided by different organisations, under contract. I urge the government to consider carefully the future model for probation services, and hope that this report will be of help.
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In the face of universal opposition, bankrupt CRC owners, negative performance reports, academic criticism, public concern, professional anger, Parliamentary disdain, privatisation failure, press scrutiny and union campaigning, how can the government ignore the pressure and just pretend TR2 will fix things?
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In the face of universal opposition, bankrupt CRC owners, negative performance reports, academic criticism, public concern, professional anger, Parliamentary disdain, privatisation failure, press scrutiny and union campaigning, how can the government ignore the pressure and just pretend TR2 will fix things?
From the Guardian:-
ReplyDeleteChris Grayling’s part-privatisation of services to monitor offenders in the community is irredeemably flawed, a watchdog has said.
In a highly critical assessment, Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, highlighted a catalogue of problems including a national staff shortage, sub-standard performance of private providers and shortcomings in efforts to keep victims safe.
Probation services, which manage more than 250,000 offenders a year in England and Wales, have been part-privatised for the past five years under Grayling’s transforming rehabilitation programme, introduced when he was justice secretary”.
In her annual report, Dame Glenys Stacey said public ownership is a safer option for the core work. She revealed white noise is being used to stop private conversations between probation staff and offenders being overheard when meetings take place in open booths.
The inspector suggested a lack of judicial confidence in probation and community punishments may be leading to more custodial sentences in borderline cases.
The number of probation professionals is at a critical level, with too much reliance on unqualified or agency staff, according to Stacey. She said: “The probation model delivered by transforming rehabilitation is irredeemably flawed.
“Above all, it has proved well-nigh impossible to reduce probation services to a set of contractual requirements.
She said victims, judges, the public and offenders must all have confidence in the quality of the service. “I find it difficult to see how this can be achieved while probation remains subject to the pressures of commerce,” she added.
Individuals subject to probation include inmates preparing to leave jail, former prisoners in the local community and people serving community or suspended sentences.
Under Grayling’s shakeup, 35 public sector probation trusts were replaced in 2014 by the National Probation Service (NPS) which continued to be held in public ownership, and 21 privately owned community rehabilitation companies (CRCs), which cover different regions.
High-risk cases are supervised by the NPS, with all other work assigned to CRCs. The ministry of justice plans to end the existing CRC contracts early, in December 2020.
Under the proposed new system, 10 probation regions would be created in England, with each containing an NPS division and a CRC. In Wales, the NPS would assume responsibility for the management of all offenders.
Stacey said moving to better-funded and structured contracts would help but serious design flaws would remain unaddressed.
She was unable to say whether or not the public was less safe since the introduction of the existing regime. “What I do know is they could be a lot safer if we get the model right,” she said.
Setting out her probation blueprint, Stacey, whose tenure as chief inspector ends in May, called for a national approach and evidence-based services.
At the end of September, 258,157 offenders were on probation in England and Wales. Of those, 151,788 were under CRC supervision and 106,369 were managed by the NPS.
The prisons and probation minister Rory Stewart said: “I am grateful for this incisive report, which redoubles my determination to continue working towards a probation service that puts public protection first, commands the confidence of the courts and breaks the cycle of reoffending.
Delete“Our reforms mean 40,000 more offenders are being supervised, which is a positive move for public safety, but it is clear the current model is not working and there is much more we need to do.
“We have already taken decisive action to end the current contracts early and have invested an extra £22m a year to support offenders on release – and we are carefully considering how best to deliver an effective probation service for the future.”
Richard Burgon, shadow justice secretary, said: “Chris Grayling’s reckless privatisation of probation has left the public less safe and wasted hundreds of millions of pounds in bailing out failing private probation companies.
“Instead of continuing with the deeply flawed idea of running probation for profit, the Tories need to act on the mounting evidence, scrap their plans for new private contracts and bring probation back in house.”
But Young Rory still insists on calling himself the Prisons Minister, so his commiment to 'Probation' is wafer-thin at best, i.e. non-existent in reality. In any event he's too busy peddling brexit door-to-door...
DeleteExtract from Russell Webster:-
ReplyDeleteThe report is 108 pages long and divided into two main sections. The first provides a detailed summary of the role and organisation of the probation service. One might think that this is superfluous in an annual report but the section makes sense for two main reasons:
It provides an authoritative and up-to-date description of the work of probation; in itself an invaluable resource as anyone who has ever had to try to explain what probation is for to people from outside (or sometimes even inside) the criminal justice system is likely to agree.
It gives a clear account of the significant changes which have taken place in probation over the last decade, both in terms of government expectations and the demographic and offending histories of those supervised by the service.
The section pulls together the latest data with specially commissioned graphics and will form the basis of another blog post next week. As a taster, see the graphic above which condenses the probation service’s workflow in such a helpful manner.
The second section presents a systematic evaluation of the current provision with an emphasis on the many failings of the current system with a focus on how things need to change. Again, I will provide more details in a subsequent blog post.
Conclusion
This report is written explicitly to urge ministers to redesign the probation service in line with the principles set out above. Taken with the recent National Audit Office report which also highlights the dangers of a split service, the MoJ will find it hard to argue that it has not received helpful advice on the future of probation. The aspect of Dame Gleny’s report which I personally find most heartening is her insistence that for many years probation worked well and that if the new system allows probation staff to use their experience and skills and focus on their interactions with the offenders they supervise (rather than have an eye on the requirements of commercial contracts), it will do so again.
I will leave the last word to the outgoing Chief Inspector:
"Services of the right quality are most likely if probation leaders are able to lead, motivate, engage and develop a sufficient number of probation professionals who in turn can exercise their professional judgement in each case and tailor supervision in each case, with access to a range of specialist services to meet needs in each case. Leaders can then be held fully to account for delivery, for the service’s adherence to the evidence base and for value for money.
Experience has shown that it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to reduce the probation service to a set of contractual measures. I urge the government to consider carefully the future model for probation services."
I read the Guardian article in the middle of last night. I noted it was also covered in the FT and Metro. It can't be anymore damning, and this morning it's covered on Sky TV and BBC news channels and beginning to appear in other papers.
DeleteIt's still quite early, and I'm only a layman, but I'd be bitterly disappointed if I didn't see union chiefs spending the day giving interviews and statements publically pushing the case for renationalisation of the service and demanding answers from the MoJ on why they are intending to continue with TR2 in the face of such evidence that privatisation has been such an abject failure.
It's early yet, but surely its an open goal that must be slammed into the back of the net?
'Getafix
Don't hold your breath, Getafix
DeleteJust looked at the Probation Institute website. Not much to be found there, but on the 27th March they've published a very short note that includes a hyperlink to their view of the future principles of probation services. It's worth a look, and I'm pleased to see that they see one of those future principles is renationalisation.
Deletehttp://probation-institute.org/principles-for-a-future-probation-model/
'Getafix
Yes we'll be covering this in a forthcoming post 'Getafix - not much gets past you.... :-)
DeleteSorry Jim. I hate the Tories almost as much as I hate private enterprise making huge profits from making social problems, poverty and people's misery their commodity of trade.
DeleteGuess I get a bit excited when I feel its getting stuck back at them.
Having said that, you'll no doubt be aware that Dame G has also embarrassed the MoJ over youth justice services today?
I get 4gig of data on my phone a month. If I didn't use it on here I wouldn't know what else to do with it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47725248
'Getafix
Young people at risk of committing crime were not adequately supervised by staff at a youth justice service, probation inspectors have found.
DeleteThe report into the Western Bay Youth Justice and Early Intervention Service in south Wales raised several concerns. Inspectors said the body underestimated the risk posed by children's previous criminal behaviour and did not properly protect the public. Western Bay has "fully accepted" the findings.
Youth justice and early intervention services work with young people aged 10 to 17 to help prevent crime, supervise offenders and protect the public. The Western Bay service - the result of a "poorly managed" merger of youth justice services in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend in 2014 - was inspected by HM Inspectorate of Probation last year.
In contrast, Wrexham Youth Justice Service in north Wales was found by inspectors to be good overall, with many impressive areas of practice and "high aspirations" for children and young people.
The inspection of Western Bay also raised concerns over safeguarding of the young people being supervised, and found many examples where it was "impossible to tell" if the children were protected. It said it was particularly serious that two youngsters who had downloaded indecent images of child abuse were deemed as being at low risk of serious harm.
Inspectors said in the case of one of these children, Western Bay had not properly understood the child's ability to access the "dark web" when, in reality, it was "virtually impossible to come across materials of this nature accidentally". The report also said some children as young as eight with safeguarding needs were being incorrectly referred into a criminal justice scheme.
Inspectors also said:
The management board did not have a good enough understanding of its responsibilities or difficulties
The strongest area was support for children and young people to prevent re-offending, but their needs were often underestimated and the impact of abuse in their backgrounds was not given significant weight
Managers and staff were "left to firefight and respond to the symptoms of significant systemic problems"
Inspectors found that staff - whose morale was "fragile" - were "very child-focused" and trying to do their best in difficult circumstances, and police support to the service was good.
HM Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey said: "We expect the management board to take swift action to deal with the recommendations."
Last week it was announced that Western Bay's regional approach was being discontinued. Andrew Jarrett, chairman of its management board, said this would ensure close co-operation between council social services and other organisations to provide "the best services possible" to vulnerable young people.
"A number of priority actions identified in the report have already been completed by each local authority and more comprehensive action plans are being developed to address all of the concerns," he added.
@08:24 to be fair to Napo (not something you will usually hear me say!), they are competing for airtime and column inches with a fairly big news story at the moment...
DeletePity La Dame didn't have the bottle to say all of this earlier, instead of touting her equivocal fence-sitting which more often than not praised wholly incompetent management - but maybe better late than never is ok? It won't damage her pension arrangements now, and maybe her chum Govey feels its advantageous to encourage her to dish the dirt & trash Grayling at this time?
ReplyDeleteNot another nail in the coffin: more like a stake through the heart.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is will this halt the procurement process that appears to have been full steam ahead ?? I want convinced by Rory's comments.
ReplyDeleteJust another thing in Interserve's CRC's on the 1st April ( potential for irony here ) our email address is changing to ; justice.org which most people have pointed out is not a secure address ??
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003jhl
ReplyDeletewell worth a listen on whatever means you have to listen to R4 programmes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003jp2
DeleteDame Glenys Stacey interviewed on the BBC Today programme from 1:44
The Yorkshire Post says: Chris Grayling in the dock over disastrous probation failures
ReplyDeleteThe failures of Chris Grayling in his current role as Transport Secretary have been well-documented by this newspaper and others, but now a damning new report has highlighted the damaging legacy of his time in charge of the Ministry of Justice.
As Justice Secretary, Mr Grayling was responsible for introducing a controversial part-privatisation of the probation service, which saw 35 trusts replaced in 2014 with 21 privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and the public-sector National Probation Service.
Put simply, the results of the overhaul - which was known as Transforming Rehabilitation - have been disastrous
Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey has highlighted a catalogue of failings including a national staff shortage, sub-standard performance of private providers and shortcomings in protecting victims – and said the public could be a “lot safer” than is currently the case.
Eight out of 10 CRCs to be inspected since January 2018 have been rated inadequate for implementing and delivering supervision of criminals, while a growing lack of judicial confidence in the system is believed to be leading to more people being sent to jail due to judges fearing that sentences of community punishments will not be properly administered by probation services.
Dame Glenys has said that public ownership is a “safer option” for core probation work, while the Ministry of Justice plans to end the existing CRC contracts early in 2020 and revise the existing structures.
But the chief inspector’s report makes clear that tens of thousands of offenders are currently being supervised under a system which is “irredeemably flawed” – words that also aptly describe the continuing employment of Mr Grayling in the loftiest echelons of British politics.
Napo Press Release:-
ReplyDeleteProbation must be returned to public control says Napo
Probation union Napo has called on ministers to abandon plans to remarket rehabilitation services after the current model was branded "irredeemably flawed" in an annual report published by probation chief inspector Dame Glenys Stacey today.
Commenting on the findings, Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence said "This latest contribution by the chief inspector and her team is not only testimony to their work, but it endorses the conclusions of two Parliamentary Committees and our expert practitioner members that the earlier 'Transforming Rehabilitation' reforms have been a complete disaster, and have failed to deliver what was promised."
This latest report vindicates Napo's claims that the current CRC contracts (which will terminate early in December 2020), have significantly failed in a number of key areas including public safety, and have only been sustained due to numerous taxpayer funded bailouts as the operational costs increased well above the contractors' original expectations.
Ian Lawrence went on to say: "The chief inspector has highlighted the fact that not only have the Community Rehabilitation Companies delivered sub-standard services, but the National Probation Service also has significant failings. Staff shortages and a reduction in professional standards have resulted in unmanageable workloads across the board. In London alone, staff vacancies are running at 20%, so it's clear that the NPS is not sustainable in its current form."
Increased workloads and staff shortages have had a ripple effect with there being a significant rise in serious further offences, and 38% of magistrates indicating they have less confidence in probation now than they had under previous arrangements.
The Ministry of Justice plans to let 10 new contracts later this year which will see an increase in the size of the existing Community Rehabilitation Companies but a reduction in the number of private providers. The proposals have attracted massive criticism from stakeholders across the justice system who are also joining the call by Napo to halt the programme and consider an alternative model.
Napo agrees with the key conclusions of the HMIP report that probation services must be evidence based to command the confidence of the public and the judiciary, with a focus on victims and the needs of those being supervised. The union also welcomes the suggestion that a regulatory body should be established to ensure high standards of probation delivery in the future.
In the face of even more damning evidence, where is the comment, criticism, challenge and constructive leadership from our senior managers.
ReplyDeleteThe collective ( or selective) three wise monkeys model prevails.
They are worse than the Graylings of this world because they do it for selfish personal reasons whereas he does it to follow a political ideology.
Senior leaders, like us front line types, are hamstrung by the civil service code. I'm not risking losing the ability to pay the mortgage to put my name to publicly documented criticism. We whined about trust leaders not publicly standing up for us, well they had far more independence and capacity to do so than the current batch.
DeleteWhere are our leaders you ask, busy feathering their own nests, collecting I'll deserved awards (CBEs) and generally being nodding donkeys/yes men and women. Fiddling whilst Rome burns.
Deletehttps://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/paul-routledge-public-services-dont-14199737
ReplyDelete