Playing with fire – the risks of evidence free probation practice
The Chief Inspector of Probation this week expressed clearly what everyone involved thinks – that the model of privatised probation does not and cannot work. This model was never piloted or tested in any way. Equally many of the new practices CRCs (privatised probation companies) have adopted have never been tested either.
The Chief Inspector has always been critical of the use of “remote” supervision – supervising and keeping in contact with clients by telephone rather than face to face. “A relationship needs to be formed, but up to 40% of individuals under supervision in some CRCs have been supervised by telephone only, usually following an initial meeting and assessment”. (I think the Chief Inspector is implying that some clients are never at any point seen face to face by their probation worker). In some CRCs the majority of the workers have no probation qualifications.
With, but particularly without, qualifications, probation supervision is difficult to do well. More than one academic study has pointed to “trust and strong communication” as pivotal to the worker-client relationship. It makes sense that replacing face to face meetings with telephone contact may affect trust and strong communication. But we do not know what the effects are because there is no reliable research: “there is no evidence to suggest that supervision by telephone alone is effective”. The only extensive research on the success of online/telephone consultations has been in health settings where some studies on some conditions suggest some successful outcomes. But criminal justice is very different to health, particularly because probation consultations are compulsory. So we don’t know what we don’t know.
At least the Probation Inspectorate has established that there is no good research on telephone probation supervision. There has been no review of international research in relation to other interactions which the probation service has been forced to do online. Now many “meetings” for pre-sentence reports, risk assessments of those in prison and parole hearings are done on video rather than face to face. But there is no research that I know of on the impact of having these interactions on video.
Probation practice has been profoundly changed by the impetus to communicate with clients on the telephone/on video. My understanding is that probation practitioners would always prefer to talk to clients face to face but that pressure of workloads and the demands of court reform stop them doing so.
We are playing with fire. If we don’t know what effect telephone and video interactions have on the probation-client relationship, should we be allowing these to become the default?
Penelope Gibbs
Director of Transform Justice
Director of Transform Justice
Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, University of Oxford
What Nick Clegg said about Transforming Rhabilitation in 2013
ReplyDelete"It is a radical, but practical approach that has the potential - in my view - to leave a bigger, more lasting imprint on British society than almost anything else that the Coalition Government might achieve. And I'm proud of the changes we're implementing now and our plans for the future"
(an extract from)
https://northeastessexlibdems.org.uk/en/article/2013/0688938/nick-clegg-s-speech-the-rehabilitation-revolution
Of course research has been done - though I cannot quantify it - surely it is long understood that due to the power on non verbal communication face to face contact is always likely to have more impact than anything else - hence in my opinion very little judicial business should be conducted by video link.
ReplyDelete*CORRECTION - should be "power of" rather than "power on" - sorry.
Deletehttps://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/video-interviewing-the-future-of-recruitment
ReplyDeleteBrett Davies, resourcing manager at the Post Office, has been using video interviewing since September 2014. Using the online Sonru system, the Post Office video-interviewed and reviewed 550 candidates in two weeks for the first stage of its temporary Christmas staff recruitment drive. An initial 20,000 applications were received, from which 1,400 were invited for a video interview.
Davies explains that by using conventional means it could never have assessed this number of people in such a short time frame, and says it resulted in significant cost savings. “Overall, it saved around 80% year-on-year in terms of travel, venue and similar costs,” he says. Previously, prospective candidates would have attended an assessment centre with up to 20 trained assessors hired for the day, “so we could easily be spending £50,000 to run 10 assessment days”.
And there's the immediate appeal for CRCs... 80% cost savings & no need for trained assessors.
DeleteSee the similarities already?
While video interviewing may raise concerns about discrimination during recruitment, it has many time and resource benefits.
DeleteCould virtual interviewing eventually signal the death knell of the face-to-face interview? While traditional interview processes probably aren’t going away any time soon, the time- and cost-saving benefits of interviewing someone via video, and its ability to transcend geographical barriers, will eventually lead to a significant reduction in face-to-face interviews.
The focus for those in HR should be how the two can best co-exist to make the recruitment process more efficient and effective. “It is important to remember that [video] must be used in conjunction with other technologies and human interaction to gain the best results,” says Samir Khelil, head of global sales at e-recruitment software provider WCN, which has helped several companies integrate video interviewing into their recruitment processes. “Video interviewing increases speed of hire, allowing recruiters to focus more time and energy on the best candidates,” he adds.
Research from job board Monster and University College London’s Business Psychology MSc programme, found almost half of respondents use video interviews as part of the selection process, demonstrating that the technology has passed through the early adopters’ stage. Moreover, a minority of recruiters (7%) do not use any form of face-to-face interview at all.
The most obvious application for video interviewing is for the initial stages of high-volume recruitment campaigns.
Recruitment firm TMP Worldwide introduced video interviewing for its clients several years ago when it recognised that was the future direction of assessment. “It is a very effective way of conducting global interviews and provides logistical freedom,” says Simon Hill, solution design architect at the company, which uses Tazio’s online platform.
Hill explains TMP usually deploys the technology in the early stages of the selection process. “For example, after successful submission of application and online testing,” he says. “It has proved to be an effective tool to manage the pipeline. It helps to reduce candidate volumes at the later, more expensive stages of the selection process while still identifying people of high calibre.”
When it first arrived, video interviewing sparked several concerns. One of the chief ones was its ability to allow recruiters to see candidates early in the process. Some feared this might encourage discrimination on appearance. It comes down to employers and recruitment firms putting robust policies and procedures in place to ensure their recruitment practices aren’t discriminatory. “TMP ensures that all of our recruitment processes are validated and analysed for adverse impact to mitigate any risk of discrimination,” adds Sara Azimzadeh, senior consultant in the assessment services team. “We see video interviewing as a useful tool in enhancing diversity.”
Another concern was that good candidates may be overlooked purely because they were unable to acquit themselves well on video and Khelil acknowledges there is still a generational gap between Generation X and Y. “Those brought up on technology are far more accustomed to video interviews, but the gap is gradually closing,” he says, adding that increasingly candidates will expect it as part of the recruitment process. “Candidates enjoy the process because it allows the interview to be scheduled for a time that suits them, which enhances the increasingly important candidate experience.”
Arguably the one-way interview, where the candidate uploads a video rather than a face-to-face approach, can help the individual to relax. This approach also has delivery efficiencies for the recruiter, such as removing the need for interview scheduling. “This means we can assess interviews at any time, anywhere,” says Hill. “In contrast to more traditional telephone interviewing, video interviewing also provides an opportunity to assess non-verbal communication. It’s well suited to a strengths-based assessment methodology.”
Davies says that the use of video for the Post Office’s Christmas campaign certainly helped the resourcing team manage its time more efficiently and adds there are other benefits of the one-way approach. The resourcing team was able to pre-select and agree the questions with other stakeholders in the recruitment process, and discuss exactly what they were looking for. “This made it easy for the resourcing team to match the responses to the criteria and then pass them through to the hiring manager for review,” he says. “The hiring manager can then see the video interviews and decide who to contact for the face-to-face interviews.”
DeleteFollowing the pilot, Davies gained approval and support to extend the use of video interviewing to management positions and the Post Office has since made a number of senior hires using video as part of the selection process. As well as proving to be an effective recruitment tool, Davies points out using virtual interviewing also aligns with the behaviours the Post Office is looking for in its talent.
“One of our big drivers is about ‘thinking digital’, so being comfortable with technology is an indication to us that they can work in a branch using a self-service kiosk or our Horizon counter system,” he says. “As an employer we have a responsibility to stay ahead of the curve and offer candidates an application process that doesn’t rely on antiquated methods of having to come in for three face-to-face interviews where they are asked similar questions at each stage. Of the 20,000 people that applied for Christmas jobs, some would have been surprised to see us using video, but that’s great as it has a positive impact on our employer brand.”
Tips for video interviewing
If you haven’t used video interviewing before, suppliers frequently offer free trials. Use it as a learning experience and to pick the expert’s brains on making the most of it.
Determine which solution to use. For high-volume campaigns, a one-way asynchronous approach in which the candidate records their answers at a time convenient to them and then uploads the interview is likely to be most suitable.
For those occasions when you want to quiz the candidate more closely, a two-way approach using a program such as Skype will be better.
Make sure candidates know what to expect and provide a guide to using the technology. Be contactable in the event of technical hitches.
Consider questions carefully and involve all stakeholders in the process so resourcing teams understand the hiring managers’ criteria for shortlisting.
For one-way recorded interviews, set realistic deadlines for when the interview has to be completed, and allocate sufficient time for candidates to answer each question.
The importance of, and the need for evidence was substituted and sidelined on the premise of innovation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's difficult to understand how government could expect how any innovation would impact positively on the service, when those being charged with developing any innovation were starting from a position of self interest (profit), and had no previous knowledge, or interest in the service they were contracted to run.
Any innovation was always going to suit the contractors interests rather then the service itself.
When innovation is sought, designed by, and for private sector interests, without being underpinned by any evidence, government can't be surprised TR has turned out to be such a catastrophe.
'Getafix
Apologies, an aside to this debate. How many times does a Justice Minister get to turn up on mainstream political television programmes and get asked nothing, absolutely nothing about justice matters? A Brexit silver lining without a doubt for some.
ReplyDeletehttp://shura.shu.ac.uk/15768/4/Phillips%20-%20Probation%20practice%20in%20the%20information%20age%20%28AM%29.pdf
ReplyDeleteCan't find ANY practice guidelines or advice for NPS or CRC staff (or courts or prison staff either for that matter) regarding use of videolink or telephone contact.
I'm an ups supervisor with 8 service users on a project on a daily basis can I have video link instead of face to face ��
DeleteSupervision without face-to-face contact reminds me of a supervisory technique once (and perhaps still) popular in parts of the USA when supervising scary offenders and known as "drive by and wave". If this was ever examined for effectiveness the findings may be transferable to other methods of remote supervision.
ReplyDeleteDrama on R3 tonight - sounds like it could be fun.
ReplyDeleteAdapted by Adrian Mitchell from Nikolai Gogol's classic satire, the drama concerns the corrupt officials of a small Russian town, headed by the Governor (Roger Allam), who react with terror to the news that an incognito inspector will soon be arriving in their town to investigate them. When Khlestakov (Lenny Henry), a penniless nobody from Moscow, is mistaken for this government inspector, a tangled web of misunderstandings ensues. Gogol portrays officialdom as self-satisfied philistines occupying positions for which they are ill-suited.
DeleteWidely held to have led the realist revolution in Russian drama, Nikolai Gogol (1809 - 1852) liberated comedy from a tradition of sentimentality. The Government Inspector (1835), regarded as Gogol's masterpiece, caused such a furore when first performed that he was driven into exile.
You never know what this blog throws up next; not what I would have imagined doing with a Sunday evening, but I read it here, I was intrigued & so that was what I did - and it was surprisingly good fun.
DeleteGuardian 29/03/19:-
ReplyDeleteThe rebellion against privatisation is growing, with the tide moving towards greater public control of key services.
The pushback can be seen everywhere. In an excoriating assessment of a flagship government policy, the chief inspector of probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, has used her final annual report to condemn the part privatisation of the probation service for a “deplorable diminution of the probation profession”.
The fatal mistake was to try to reduce what is a complex social service to a series of contractually defined transactions. Stacey makes clear that the government’s recovery plan – to terminate contracts early and retender – is largely a waste of time, because it will not fix the underlying problem that running probation commercially won’t work.
NHS England has abandoned a bizarre scheme to force cancer patients at the renowned Churchill hospital in Oxford to be loaded into an ambulance and driven four miles down the road to use private sector scanners rather than be scanned on site by NHS staff.
The retreat came as Jeremy Corbyn joined the backlash and Labour revealed plans to ban private companies from providing services that deal with vulnerable people. NHS England has already used its long-term plan to call for legislation to repeal automatic tendering in the health service. Water, energy companies and the railways are in the sights of the renationalisation lobby. Outsourcing companies are collapsing.
Now Lord Jim O’Neill – an authority on the policy implications of antimicrobial resistance – has massively escalated the debate about public control of vital services by arguing that a state-run pharmaceutical company may be the only answer to the private sector’s failure to invest sufficiently in new antibiotics. There have been no new classes of antibiotics since the 1980s, and only three firms are believed to be in the game.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry responded by saying how many billions its members were investing in research, failing to address the central point that however much or little they are spending, it is clearly not working.
The stakes could hardly be higher. While hundreds of thousands of people can be the collateral damage for a dysfunctional benefit system or failed probation service, the rise of antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat to us all, and is already compromising treatments for illnesses such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections and gonorrhoea.
Confronted by private sector lassitude in response to this impending disaster, the balance of risks and potential benefits is clear. Government needs to intervene decisively. The question is how.
Merely nationalising a pharmaceutical company is no more likely to deliver a solution to antimicrobial resistance than privatising a public service is going to make it more effective. Simplistic solutions to complex questions don’t work, no matter who is carrying the placard.
DeleteO’Neill admits he is unsure what a publicly owned or led pharmaceutical operation would look like or how it should be incentivised to deliver. One idea he has floated would be to run a pharmaceutical company as a public utility.
But despite the formidable practical difficulties it justifies some serious planning. Assuming it happened under a Labour government, one of the biggest challenges would be to avoid getting bogged down in issues – such as worker representation on boards or getting squeamish about paying big salaries to key staff – and to focus relentlessly on the goal of developing antibiotics.
Labour’s current leadership is facing the same problems that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were confronting as they watched the Conservative party crumble in the 1990s – how to create the conditions for progressive, productive, affordable public services. Simply reversing Tory policies will not be enough.
While Labour is keen on the Preston model for reinvigorating local services, it will have to be far more creative if it is to start dabbling in high-tech industries. But with private sector pharma companies unwilling to commit the resources on anything like the required scale to tackle antimicrobial resistance, there is an opportunity for a bold, imaginative alternative.
Richard Vize is a public policy commentator and analyst
As far back as 2014 the Guardian was reporting on the lack of evidence to suggest that outsourcing of public sector services works.
ReplyDeletehttps://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2014/may/01/no-evidence-outsourcing-public-services-works?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Famp.theguardian.com%2Fpublic-leaders-network%2F2014%2Fmay%2F01%2Fno-evidence-outsourcing-public-services-works%23referrer%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%26amp_tf%3DFrom%2520%25251%2524s
Correct - I remember we covered it at the time.
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