For me, the recent discussion thread has basically confirmed that sadly there's no way out of our 'doom loop' because Andy Burnham has fallen for the accepted mantra that there's too much political risk associated with being seen to be 'soft' on crime. This seemingly accepted view has obviously been a huge success with significantly higher prison numbers year on year, massive recall figures, increased re-offending rates and vast public expenditure on prison building programmes. All while every part of the criminal justice system is in crisis and virtually every probation area rated as unsatisfactory, or worse. But amazingly, while levels of crime have fallen dramatically over recent decades! So, lets remind ourselves of a few things. This paper from 2020:-
Evidence versus politics in British probation
Highlights
To understand what went wrong, and what might be done about it, we need to look a bit further back, and my starting point is the development of the Welfare State in Britain after the second World War. Probation services in Britain were well established by then, and like other welfare services, they had good prospects for further development. Max Grünhut, a German lawyer and criminologist who escaped from the Nazi regime and established the teaching of criminology at Oxford, wrote ‘Probation is the great contribution of Britain and the USA to the treatment of offenders. Its strength is due to a combination of two things, conditional suspension of punishment, and personal care and supervision by a court welfare officer. With the growing use of probation, social case work has been introduced into the administration of criminal justice … ’ (Grünhut, 1952, p. 168). A few years later Leon Radzinowicz, another refugee from Nazi domination of Europe who founded the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, wrote ‘If I were asked what was the most significant contribution made by this country [i.e. England] to the new penological theory and practice which struck root in the twentieth century … my answer would be probation’ (Radzinowicz, 1958: x). In addition to such expert endorsements, probation services were well respected and an integral part of both the developing social work profession and the criminal justice system. They were run by County-level committees which consisted mainly of magistrates, giving the main users of probation a stake in its success and a good understanding of how it worked. Chief Probation Officers played a significant role in social work's professional organisations, and expansion and development continued fairly smoothly until the 1970s. Even the proliferation of negative or discouraging research findings about the capacity of different sentences to reduce offending (for example, Martinson, 1974) did not significantly undermine probation in Britain, as it developed a new and useful mission as the provider of alternatives to custodial sentences. Governments were keen to encourage this for financial reasons. In this way the Service largely avoided the cuts in public services which were imposed by a Conservative government during the 1980s.
1. Populist punitiveness versus ‘What Works’
The tide began to turn in 1993. A Conservative Minister, hoping to achieve popularity through a display of toughness, declared to his party's annual conference that ‘prison works’, signalling an end to ‘alternatives to custody’. The Probation Service, under considerable political attack, needed a new way to present its role, and in due course its leaders (particularly the Chief Inspector of Probation, Graham Smith) launched the ‘What Works’ initiative to develop the Service's effectiveness in reducing reoffending (Underdown, 1998). By this time the ‘nothing works’ consensus of the 1970s was being replaced by new research which showed that some ways of working could have a positive impact on offenders' behaviour. Probation leaders and researchers were strongly influenced particularly by Canadian studies of effective rehabilitation (for example Andrews et al., 1990) and by British psychologists who disseminated similar ideas (such as McGuire, 1995). Money from a new Government of a different political colour enabled the establishment of ‘Pathfinder’ projects to develop and evaluate new methods, with a particular (though not exclusive) emphasis on cognitive-behavioural group programmes, and for a while at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, England and Wales were seen as global leaders in a very ambitious and comprehensive ‘What Works’ exercise. Gerhard Ploeg, a leading figure in Scandinavian probation, told the Confederation of European Probation that ‘The Probation service in England and Wales has always been in the vanguard in these developments, and many other European countries are watching it like a hawk, ready to accept that which seems to be working and to criticise that which isn't’ (Ploeg, 2003, p. 8).
Unfortunately the results of the ‘Pathfinders’ were not as good as probation's leaders hoped (Raynor, 2004). Over-rapid and top-down centralised implementation did not give probation staff time to understand and adapt: many of the new methods eventually became established, but this took at least twice as long as the three-year period allowed for the Pathfinders to prove themselves. In addition, political changes were reinforcing central Government control over probation, so that probation policy became more politicized and local influence and control, particularly by the Courts, was diminished. A new Criminal Justice Act in 1991 had redefined probation as a punishment in its own right (no longer Grünhut's ‘conditional suspension of punishment’) and in 2001 the Service became the National Probation Service, run from London. This also meant it was very visible to London-based politicians, and vulnerable to politicians of both major parties who wanted to be seen as ‘tough on crime’. In 2004 the Probation Service was merged with the larger and wealthier Prison Service to form the National Offender Management Service, which in theory might have led to better integration of offender management across the criminal justice system but in practice meant that the central administration of probation was dominated by officials who understood the needs and practices of prisons better than they understood probation.
2. Evidence versus delusion
Practice in the meantime had become dominated by risk assessment and risk management, with some officers having to spend more time on their computers than with the people they were supervising, and with a new official focus on enforcement as a priority. The evidence-base of practice remained primarily psychological, and there was less time to address social circumstances and social needs or to link people into the other services from which they could benefit. Probation officer training had been disconnected from social work training. However, the biggest changes were yet to come, as a new Conservative-led Government looked for opportunities to reduce social spending and to marketize public services by moving them into the private for-profit sector. A new Government Minister, Justice Secretary Christopher Grayling, was a particular enthusiast for privatisation and saw this as a way forward for probation. There was, in fact, no evidence to suggest that this was a good way to run community corrections in Britain, or that this might be profitable for the private companies jostling for a slice of the criminal justice pie. The Minister was encouraged to pilot the proposed arrangements but stated that there was no need to do so. This egregious example of evidence refusal was motivated by blind faith in markets and a right-wing Conservative tradition of scepticism about State-funded public services, and in 2014 seventy per cent of the Probation Service's work was handed to private companies, some with little criminal justice experience (Raynor, 2020).
After implementation in 2015, it quite quickly became clear that the private companies (known as Community Rehabilitation Companies) were in difficulty, and a series of inspections by the independent Inspectorate of Probation consistently showed them to be performing considerably worse than that part of the Service which had remained public. The companies had exaggerated what they could offer, and only a high degree of magical thinking by politicians could explain their confidence that the new arrangements would work. Before long the companies were trying to maintain profitability by making about a third of their staff redundant, leading to over-large caseloads handled by often inexperienced people. In short, although some innovations were interesting, overall the private companies damaged the services they claimed to be able to improve, leaving them in ‘a worse position than they were in before the Ministry embarked on its reforms’ (Public Accounts Committee, 2019 summary: 1). Eventually, after four years of bad results, politicians had to recognise their mistake. The decision has now been taken, by a new Justice Secretary, to terminate the contracts of the private companies and to re-unify probation as a public service. This is already happening in Wales, and England is following.
It is, of course, encouraging to see a bad policy decision reversed by considering the evidence; this does not always happen. However, the new Probation Service faces a considerable task of reconstruction and recovery, and discussions are still continuing about exactly how it should be organised and managed. Many commentators favour a greater degree of local involvement in governance with the restoration of some judicial input, not just central control by civil servants in London. In addition, practitioners and their managers need to be able to focus on the development and use of evidence-based skills, informed by what we already know about how to promote rehabilitation and desistance from offending. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that Government spending on public services is necessary and unavoidable, and there is less political clamour to shrink the State and hand over services to private enterprise. However, the post-Covid world will be short of money, and criminal justice will have to compete with other strongly justified demands for public expenditure. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from the rise and fall of British probation is that there is no magic bullet to bring about a step-change in the effectiveness of probation services: development needs to be gradual and incremental, and informed at every step by evidence and evaluation rather than ideology.
Peter Raynor
- Twenty years ago, the Probation Service in England and Wales was widely regarded as world-leading.
- Since then it has been weakened by a series of politically driven and poorly evidenced changes.
- A badly flawed and ideologically driven privatisation programme implemented in 2015 has done serious damage.
- The recent decision to end this failed programme is an opportunity to redesign better.
To understand what went wrong, and what might be done about it, we need to look a bit further back, and my starting point is the development of the Welfare State in Britain after the second World War. Probation services in Britain were well established by then, and like other welfare services, they had good prospects for further development. Max Grünhut, a German lawyer and criminologist who escaped from the Nazi regime and established the teaching of criminology at Oxford, wrote ‘Probation is the great contribution of Britain and the USA to the treatment of offenders. Its strength is due to a combination of two things, conditional suspension of punishment, and personal care and supervision by a court welfare officer. With the growing use of probation, social case work has been introduced into the administration of criminal justice … ’ (Grünhut, 1952, p. 168). A few years later Leon Radzinowicz, another refugee from Nazi domination of Europe who founded the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, wrote ‘If I were asked what was the most significant contribution made by this country [i.e. England] to the new penological theory and practice which struck root in the twentieth century … my answer would be probation’ (Radzinowicz, 1958: x). In addition to such expert endorsements, probation services were well respected and an integral part of both the developing social work profession and the criminal justice system. They were run by County-level committees which consisted mainly of magistrates, giving the main users of probation a stake in its success and a good understanding of how it worked. Chief Probation Officers played a significant role in social work's professional organisations, and expansion and development continued fairly smoothly until the 1970s. Even the proliferation of negative or discouraging research findings about the capacity of different sentences to reduce offending (for example, Martinson, 1974) did not significantly undermine probation in Britain, as it developed a new and useful mission as the provider of alternatives to custodial sentences. Governments were keen to encourage this for financial reasons. In this way the Service largely avoided the cuts in public services which were imposed by a Conservative government during the 1980s.
1. Populist punitiveness versus ‘What Works’
The tide began to turn in 1993. A Conservative Minister, hoping to achieve popularity through a display of toughness, declared to his party's annual conference that ‘prison works’, signalling an end to ‘alternatives to custody’. The Probation Service, under considerable political attack, needed a new way to present its role, and in due course its leaders (particularly the Chief Inspector of Probation, Graham Smith) launched the ‘What Works’ initiative to develop the Service's effectiveness in reducing reoffending (Underdown, 1998). By this time the ‘nothing works’ consensus of the 1970s was being replaced by new research which showed that some ways of working could have a positive impact on offenders' behaviour. Probation leaders and researchers were strongly influenced particularly by Canadian studies of effective rehabilitation (for example Andrews et al., 1990) and by British psychologists who disseminated similar ideas (such as McGuire, 1995). Money from a new Government of a different political colour enabled the establishment of ‘Pathfinder’ projects to develop and evaluate new methods, with a particular (though not exclusive) emphasis on cognitive-behavioural group programmes, and for a while at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, England and Wales were seen as global leaders in a very ambitious and comprehensive ‘What Works’ exercise. Gerhard Ploeg, a leading figure in Scandinavian probation, told the Confederation of European Probation that ‘The Probation service in England and Wales has always been in the vanguard in these developments, and many other European countries are watching it like a hawk, ready to accept that which seems to be working and to criticise that which isn't’ (Ploeg, 2003, p. 8).
Unfortunately the results of the ‘Pathfinders’ were not as good as probation's leaders hoped (Raynor, 2004). Over-rapid and top-down centralised implementation did not give probation staff time to understand and adapt: many of the new methods eventually became established, but this took at least twice as long as the three-year period allowed for the Pathfinders to prove themselves. In addition, political changes were reinforcing central Government control over probation, so that probation policy became more politicized and local influence and control, particularly by the Courts, was diminished. A new Criminal Justice Act in 1991 had redefined probation as a punishment in its own right (no longer Grünhut's ‘conditional suspension of punishment’) and in 2001 the Service became the National Probation Service, run from London. This also meant it was very visible to London-based politicians, and vulnerable to politicians of both major parties who wanted to be seen as ‘tough on crime’. In 2004 the Probation Service was merged with the larger and wealthier Prison Service to form the National Offender Management Service, which in theory might have led to better integration of offender management across the criminal justice system but in practice meant that the central administration of probation was dominated by officials who understood the needs and practices of prisons better than they understood probation.
2. Evidence versus delusion
Practice in the meantime had become dominated by risk assessment and risk management, with some officers having to spend more time on their computers than with the people they were supervising, and with a new official focus on enforcement as a priority. The evidence-base of practice remained primarily psychological, and there was less time to address social circumstances and social needs or to link people into the other services from which they could benefit. Probation officer training had been disconnected from social work training. However, the biggest changes were yet to come, as a new Conservative-led Government looked for opportunities to reduce social spending and to marketize public services by moving them into the private for-profit sector. A new Government Minister, Justice Secretary Christopher Grayling, was a particular enthusiast for privatisation and saw this as a way forward for probation. There was, in fact, no evidence to suggest that this was a good way to run community corrections in Britain, or that this might be profitable for the private companies jostling for a slice of the criminal justice pie. The Minister was encouraged to pilot the proposed arrangements but stated that there was no need to do so. This egregious example of evidence refusal was motivated by blind faith in markets and a right-wing Conservative tradition of scepticism about State-funded public services, and in 2014 seventy per cent of the Probation Service's work was handed to private companies, some with little criminal justice experience (Raynor, 2020).
After implementation in 2015, it quite quickly became clear that the private companies (known as Community Rehabilitation Companies) were in difficulty, and a series of inspections by the independent Inspectorate of Probation consistently showed them to be performing considerably worse than that part of the Service which had remained public. The companies had exaggerated what they could offer, and only a high degree of magical thinking by politicians could explain their confidence that the new arrangements would work. Before long the companies were trying to maintain profitability by making about a third of their staff redundant, leading to over-large caseloads handled by often inexperienced people. In short, although some innovations were interesting, overall the private companies damaged the services they claimed to be able to improve, leaving them in ‘a worse position than they were in before the Ministry embarked on its reforms’ (Public Accounts Committee, 2019 summary: 1). Eventually, after four years of bad results, politicians had to recognise their mistake. The decision has now been taken, by a new Justice Secretary, to terminate the contracts of the private companies and to re-unify probation as a public service. This is already happening in Wales, and England is following.
It is, of course, encouraging to see a bad policy decision reversed by considering the evidence; this does not always happen. However, the new Probation Service faces a considerable task of reconstruction and recovery, and discussions are still continuing about exactly how it should be organised and managed. Many commentators favour a greater degree of local involvement in governance with the restoration of some judicial input, not just central control by civil servants in London. In addition, practitioners and their managers need to be able to focus on the development and use of evidence-based skills, informed by what we already know about how to promote rehabilitation and desistance from offending. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that Government spending on public services is necessary and unavoidable, and there is less political clamour to shrink the State and hand over services to private enterprise. However, the post-Covid world will be short of money, and criminal justice will have to compete with other strongly justified demands for public expenditure. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from the rise and fall of British probation is that there is no magic bullet to bring about a step-change in the effectiveness of probation services: development needs to be gradual and incremental, and informed at every step by evidence and evaluation rather than ideology.
Peter Raynor
Swansea University 2020
So…..localism works…….local probation boards having oversight in their particular area……….time for the Civil service to say goodbye to probation and return us to our local roots…….i have to add for local people !
ReplyDeleteBurnham speaks constantly about the huge benefits of decentralisation and devolution, giving local authorities the autonomy and independence to focus on localised issues.
DeleteIf he really is of that mindset he cannot not see how returning probation services to a more locally specific, locally developed agency.
'Getafix
Steve Gillan nails it here. It's prison specific but the argument can be applied universally across the CJS.
Delete" Staff spend so much time managing risk, they are unable to make any positive change"
https://www.poauk.org.uk/news-events/news-room/posts/2026/september/the-sentencing-act-2026/
'Getafix
Political failure cannot be solved by emptying our prisons, argues General Secretary Steve Gillan
DeleteThe Sentencing Act 2026 has been presented as a solution to the prison capacity crisis, but those of us who have spent our working lives inside prisons know the truth. This legislation is not a strategy for justice. It is an emergency response to a crisis that has been years in the making; a crisis created not by frontline staff or by prisoners themselves, but by successive governments that have treated the prison service as a soft target for cuts, underinvestment and short-term political decision-making.
EARLY RELEASE SCHEME
The early release provisions contained within the act represent an admission of failure. Rather than ensuring there are sufficient prison places for those the courts have determined should be in custody, ministers have instead chosen to reduce the amount of time many offenders spend behind bars. That may ease population pressures in the short term, but it does nothing to address the structural problems that have brought the system to breaking point.
POA WARNINGS
For years, the POA has warned that the estate was operating beyond safe capacity. Those warnings were ignored. We have seen prisons deteriorate through a lack of investment, maintenance deferred year after year, experienced staff lost, and recruitment struggles become a permanent feature of the service. At the same time, governments continue to introduce tougher sentencing policies without delivering the prison places, staffing levels and infrastructure needed to support them. The result has been entirely predictable. Overcrowded prisons struggle to provide purposeful activity, education, training or rehabilitation. Staff spend more time managing risk and less time supporting positive change. Violence, self-harm and instability become harder to control in establishments operating under relentless pressure. None of this benefits victims, prison staff or the wider public.
WHAT IS THE ANSWER?
The solution to decades of underinvestment cannot simply be to release prisoners earlier, because there is nowhere left to house them. Justice should not be dictated by available bed spaces. Sentencing decisions should reflect the seriousness of offending, The protection of the public and the interests of justice – not the government’s inability to provide sufficient prison capacity. This situation is the consequence of years of what can fairly be described as financial vandalism against the prison service. Capital investment has too often been delayed or cancelled, maintenance budgets squeezed and the service expected to deliver more with fewer resources. Frontline staff have repeatedly been asked to shoulder increasing responsibilities while working in ageing buildings that are frequently no longer fit for the demands placed upon them.
The prison estate cannot continue to function on emergency measures. Every time capacity reaches its limit, another temporary scheme is introduced to buy time. Yet buying time is not the same as solving the problem. Without sustained investment in modern prisons, maintenance of existing establishments, staff recruitment, retention and rehabilitation programmes, the same crisis will return repeatedly.
The POA has never argued that imprisonment alone solves crime. Effective rehabilitation remains a vital part of reducing reoffending and protecting communities. However, rehabilitation requires stability, resources and time. It cannot flourish in overcrowded prisons operating under constant crisis management, nor can it succeed if policy is driven by the immediate need to free up cells.
VICTIMS OF CRIME DESERVE HONESTY
DeleteThe public also deserves honesty. The prison population has grown for complex reasons, including changes in sentencing, and the nature of offending and demographic pressures. If governments choose policies that increase the demand for prison places, they must also accept responsibility for providing the capacity required to implement those policies safely and effectively. It is neither credible nor sustainable to legislate for longer or more custodial sentences while simultaneously failing to invest in the estate needed to accommodate those sentenced by the courts.
The POA remains committed to maintaining safe, secure and decent prisons. Every day our members manage some of the most complex and challenging individuals in society, often under considerable pressure and personal risk. They deserve more than political promises made during moments of crisis. They deserve long-term planning, adequate staffing, modern facilities and resources necessary to carry out their duties professionally.
POPULATION CRISIS MUST SERVE AS A WARNING
The Sentencing Act 2026 should serve as a warning rather than a template for future policy. Emergency early release schemes may relieve immediate pressures, but they should never become a substitute for sound prison policy. The justice system requires confidence from victims, communities, staff and the judiciary alike. That confidence is weakened whenever operational necessity appears to override sentencing decisions made in open court.
If ministers are serious about restoring confidence in the criminal justice system, they must move beyond short-term fixes. They must invest properly in the prison estate, rebuild staffing resilience, maintain existing prisons to an acceptable standard and ensure future sentencing policy is matched by realistic operational planning. That requires political courage and sustained financial commitment, not simply another emergency measure whenever prisons approach capacity.
PRISON OFFICER GRADES AND OSG RESILIENCE
POA members have shown remarkable resilience despite years of financial pressure. But resilience has its limits. Staff cannot continue to compensate indefinitely for systemic underinvestment. Nor should public protection depend upon emergency release schemes introduced because governments have failed to plan adequately for the consequences of their own policies.
The country deserves a prison system that is properly resourced, professionally staffed and capable of carrying out the sentences imposed by the courts. Anything less risks undermining public confidence in justice itself. The solution is not to manage decline through ever more creative release mechanisms. The solution is to rebuild the prison service through sustained investment, strategic planning and a genuine commitment to the frontline professionals who keep our prisons and, ultimately, our communities safe.
What I find particularly striking about Peter Raynor’s paper is that even the evidence-informed What Works initiatives encountered difficulties because of the speed and centralised nature of their implementation. In other words, it wasn’t necessarily the underlying evidence that was deficient, but the assumption that a centrally designed approach could be translated into effective practice simply by requiring people to deliver it.
ReplyDeleteThat seems an extraordinarily important lesson, particularly given the current direction of probation.
There may be a perfectly reasonable evidence base for allocating supervision proportionately according to risk and need. But that doesn’t automatically validate the operating model through which those decisions are implemented.
Take OFPS. Practitioners are expected to recognise changes in circumstances, reassess risk, update the relevant information and, where appropriate, reconsider supervision packages. There are also contingency arrangements for additional contact. So professional judgement hasn’t disappeared, and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise.
But the process raises some fundamental questions.
Risk assessments are only as reliable as the information available and recorded. Predictors cannot account for everything, and practitioners frequently recognise concerns that have not yet translated into a measurable change in risk classification.
Recognising those concerns requires contact, knowledge of the individual, information from other agencies and time to exercise professional curiosity.
Yet the amount of contact available is itself influenced by the assessments that practitioners must keep updated.
There is a potential circularity here. We depend upon professional contact to obtain the information necessary for accurate risk assessment, while increasingly using those assessments to determine how much professional contact is allocated.
And when circumstances change, how much additional practitioner time is spent reassessing, recording and demonstrating the need for supervision rather than actually delivering it?
That brings me to Steve Gillan’s observation about staff spending so much time managing risk that they cannot make positive changes.
Surely helping somebody make positive changes is part of managing risk? Perhaps the real problem is that we have increasingly confused administering risk-management processes with managing risk itself.
On the question of localism, I would certainly welcome greater local accountability. But transferring management from Whitehall to local boards would achieve little if practitioners remained bound by the same centrally prescribed operating arrangements, resource constraints and performance expectations.
The issue is not simply where probation is managed, but where meaningful professional decisions can be made, and whether the organisation has sufficient confidence in those decisions to support them.
Raynor’s account of Transforming Rehabilitation should also remind us that implementing a reform is not evidence of its effectiveness. Nor should the ability of practitioners to keep an imperfect system functioning be mistaken for proof that the system is sound.
What I would really like to know is how OFPS will be evaluated beyond its intended capacity savings and compliance with the new arrangements.
Will we measure whether practitioners have sufficient time to recognise and respond to changing risk? Whether supervision is helping people make meaningful changes? Whether the model supports timely preventative intervention? And whether the administrative demands of reassessment are proportionate to the professional benefits?
Because if we are serious about evidence rather than politics, surely those are the outcomes that should determine whether the model succeeds, needs modifying or should be reconsidered altogether.
Please add OFPS to the Blog Glossary. I. presume it is unrelated to PVAC.
ReplyDeleteOur Future Probation Service - yes a bit naff isn't it?
DeleteThanks anyway - I always liked the identification of Prison Voluntary After Care Clients and my relief that the take up was low as it meant it was slightly easier to get the Social Inquiry Reports done without asking the courts for more time.
DeleteI missed this as reported by InsideTime:-
ReplyDeleteJustice Secretary Alex Norris has once again committed the Government to cut the numbers left homeless on release from prison by half. He made the latest promise in his speech to the Labour Party conference last week.
He told the conference: “We have already committed to halve the number of offenders who are homeless on their first night out of prison. Those early days are crucial to getting them back on the track to become law-abiding members of society. We know that offenders leaving prison homeless go on to reoffend at almost twice the rate of those with somewhere to live.”
He continued: “So today I can announce that we’re modernising the methods prison and probation services use to identify and secure accommodation with the creation of a single digital service that finds the right accommodation and support for people leaving prison.
“And we know, and we are talking about this week at this conference, our Prime Minister’s ambition to end rough sleeping for good is the right one, a noble one, a Labour one. And we and my department will do our bit to make it a reality.”
https://youtu.be/cOgdFbwmZXs?si=wGXd3EPnac9sAUEu
DeleteOh please please not yet another digital tool...this £700 million is fast disappearing into a black hole of digitisation, while probation at its core suffers, is dismantled and reduced to shreds of its former self.
DeleteThis means that someone released from a northern prison is offered a bedsit in Penzance !
ReplyDeleteNo room immigrants having kebab wars down here. Machete on the main high road broad daylight. Housing problems social cohesion and now immigration battles.
DeleteNewcastle PO here, I've 6 people who'll take that bedsit if it's still going!
DeleteAnother northern PO. If the Bedsit has a beach view I’ll take it for myself?
DeleteI wouldn’t dismiss the proposed digital accommodation service out of hand. If it improves communication between prisons, probation and accommodation providers, reduces duplication and makes suitable vacancies easier to identify, that could be genuinely useful.
DeleteBut I do wonder whether we are once again concentrating on the mechanism for accessing a resource rather than the availability of the resource itself.
A digital system can identify a vacancy. It cannot create one. Nor can it resolve the shortage of appropriate supported accommodation, overcome every landlord’s reluctance, or ensure that somebody with complex needs has access to the services necessary to sustain a placement.
The comment about a prison leaver being offered a bedsit in Penzance is amusing, but it makes a serious point. Accommodation has to be suitable, not merely available. Geography matters for supervision, treatment, employment, family relationships and victim safety. An address might solve an immediate housing problem while making several other aspects of risk management considerably more difficult.
There is also a question about how success will be measured.
The commitment is to halve homelessness on the first night of release. That’s a worthwhile ambition, but what happens on the second night, after a fortnight, or when temporary accommodation comes to an end?
Are we measuring the successful identification of an address, or the establishment of stable accommodation that somebody can realistically sustain?
The recent reports of approved premises closing because of staffing shortages and building conditions make the announcement even more concerning. These are different accommodation services, but they illustrate the same underlying point: the effectiveness of any referral or placement system ultimately depends upon having suitable, properly resourced provision to refer people into.
And then there is the workload involved. Finding a potential vacancy is only part of the process. Somebody still needs to establish suitability, consider risk, liaise with providers, coordinate support, resolve difficulties and respond when arrangements break down.
Those responsibilities don’t disappear because the search has been digitised.
I would welcome a system that genuinely reduces the time practitioners spend navigating fragmented accommodation arrangements. But I would be interested to know how its success will be evaluated.
Will we measure the sustainability and suitability of placements, reductions in homelessness over time, and whether practitioners actually spend less time trying to resolve accommodation crises?
Or will we simply be able to demonstrate that more people have been matched with an address on their first night out?
Because the difference between identifying accommodation and securing a stable home is rather more than an administrative detail.
The Newcastle-to-Penzance example might be amusing, but just think about the practicalities from a probation practitioner’s perspective.
ReplyDeleteTwo PDUs at opposite ends of the country, both already struggling with workloads, trying to coordinate effective supervision for someone who has been placed hundreds of miles from their home area.
If the case remains with the originating PDU, the receiving practitioner may be expected to provide caretaking appointments for someone they barely know, while the practitioner who holds responsibility for risk management is hundreds of miles away. One has the case history and established knowledge of the individual; the other is actually seeing them.
How is that supposed to support meaningful supervision? Particularly when the receiving practitioner already has a full caseload and the additional work doesn’t simply disappear because it’s described as caretaking.
There is a danger of those appointments becoming little more than check-ins. Not through any lack of professionalism, but because building a relationship, recognising subtle changes in behaviour and understanding someone’s circumstances takes time. It also requires effective communication between practitioners, police, safeguarding agencies, accommodation providers and local support services.
And if the case transfers instead, the receiving PDU inherits the whole package: another case to manage, assessments to review, risk-management arrangements to establish, local services to coordinate and a working relationship to build from scratch.
Now add OFPS into the equation.
We’re moving towards prescribed supervision packages, with contact allocations informed by risk assessments and predictors. Significant changes in circumstances may require reassessment and potentially a different supervision package. Contingency contact exists, but it is intended for exceptional circumstances, not as a routine solution to inadequate capacity.
So who is finding the time to undertake the additional assessments, coordinate between PDUs, establish new support arrangements and provide the meaningful contact that may be needed when somebody has effectively been uprooted from their existing networks?
And what happens when the practitioner providing caretaking contact identifies concerns that don’t neatly translate into a change in risk classification or supervision package? More communication, more recording, more coordination, and potentially two already overstretched teams trying to establish what additional supervision is necessary and who is going to provide it.
Meanwhile, the individual is trying to settle somewhere unfamiliar, potentially without family support, established treatment arrangements or any meaningful connection to the area.
It’s difficult enough to deliver effective supervision when everyone is in the same geographical area. Expecting practitioners hundreds of miles apart to make these arrangements work, within existing caseload pressures and the constraints of OFPS, adds another layer of complexity.
Of course, out-of-area placements will sometimes be necessary. But they are not simply an accommodation solution. They have consequences for continuity, workload, rehabilitation and public protection.
The real concern is that what looks like a successful placement nationally can become an extraordinarily complicated exercise in trying to make supervision work locally.
And in the current climate, with the pressures practitioners are already under, it risks becoming yet another situation where everyone is expected to somehow make the impossible work.
They’re going to automate transfer under a dedicated team.
DeleteOh please! They’re talking about what we already have. Does anyone really believe there’s going to be a new accommodation system that’s simple as log in - select area - select accommodation - address confirmed?
ReplyDeleteIf we’re lucky it’ll be a slight upgrade and mix of the CAS1-3 system we have now with more access to selecting landlord properties in the scheme. Otherwise the tagging system falls apart.
There’s too much reliance on “digital tools” that make the task a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
The ai techbro heroes have plans to save us all by reducing caseloads, providing housing, writing reports, driving us to & from work, making perfect oat lattes every time, tagging & monitoring everyone...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00325cg
"Armando and Pierre work out the difference between a ‘legitimate concern’ and an ‘understandable concern’, examine Peter Thiel’s defense of evil..."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0032gq3
"Artificial intelligence is changing many aspects of our lives, but some of its most exciting possibilities are happening in the world of science. There have been lots of headlines about how artificial intelligence could transform this area, including curing disease, suggesting new drugs, and generating hypotheses at a speed no human could replicate."
and also:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0032fqd
"Armando is joined by Stewart Lee to look at the newly rebranded 'Super Intelligence'.
To get into the linguistic weeds, they are also joined by founding member of The Nerve, Carole Cadwalladr.
The tech bros are coming up with new terminology all over the shop, so we take a whistle stop tour through phrases that grind our gears. Rogue agents, warfighters and bootloaders all come under scrutiny."
Meantime we can all look forward to the spectacle of a live-streamed execution by firing squad later this year.
Welcome to Our Future.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjzxz9yp1kq9o
DeleteMeredith Whittaker has little patience for the AI doom that dominates headlines - she thinks warnings of AI turning on humanity is a fear "not anchored in science".
"The risk is very real," says the boss of the Signal Foundation, which runs the encrypted messaging app of the same name, "but it's not the shiny ghost stories the wild-eyed boys are talking about".
Instead, she believes the more immediate danger is the technology being used carelessly.
"Palantir is not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies". And earlier this year Palantir's UK and Europe boss, Louis Mosley told the BBC that "there's always a human in the loop, so there is always a human that makes the ultimate decision"...
"A system that produces faulty intelligence and almost gets us into a war ... should not be considered super-intelligent by any standards."
Jobs for when you've left noms/hmpps with a fat pension:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-restraint-review-panel-irrp-summary-report-2025/independent-restraint-review-panel-irrp-summary-report-to-end-2025
_________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-justice-board-for-wales-annual-report-2025-to-26
__________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prisons-and-their-resettlement-providers
A list of prisons and their resettlement providers: 10/26
__________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/probation-instructions-pis
Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) annual report - These statistics will be released on 29 October 2026 9:30am
ReplyDelete____________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/effectiveness-of-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-and-peer-led-interventions-for-victims-of-crime
"Knowledge To Action Research and Consulting (KTA) were commissioned by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) via open and fair competition to undertake two rapid evidence assessment (REAs) covering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and peer support interventions, specifically within the context of supporting victims of crime and enhancing outcomes such as coping, resilience, and recovery.
The primary objective of this project was to synthesise the key existing evidence on the effectiveness, delivery methods, and associated costs of these interventions, while also identifying how these factors interact with different victim characteristics and the specific needs of victim populations."
____________________________________________________________
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ac76460ab368efeb4c93343/new-prison-lancashire-consultation.pdf
"In December 2024, Outline Planning Permission was granted for the new prison. The next step for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is the submission of the Reserved Matters Application (RMA) to consider appearance, layout and scale in more detail."
_________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-policy-framework
"This policy framework sets out the arrangements for working with people whose convictions or behaviours include domestic abuse. The purpose of this policy framework is to set out HMPPS commitment and approach to reducing domestic abuse-related re-offending and the risk of serious harm associated with it.
The framework mandates adherence to the referral pathways for domestic abuse perpetrators and ensures the expectations for our work in these cases are laid out clearly and comprehensively."
Mandated referral pathways for domestic abuse perpetrators...referrals to what exactly? To the one now very generic programme on "building choices" which barely anyone can actually access? Or do they mean delivery of a few "structured conversations" about life maps via SPARKS? Is it just me or are others totally confused about what this organisation actually wants anymore?
DeleteToo many prison releases requiring a diminishing amount of properties……..discuss………Let’s see AI sort that one out !
ReplyDelete"Too many prison releases requiring a diminishing amount of properties" was the data in...
Delete... The ghost in the machine replied:
"The Scale of the Release vs. Diminishing Properties
• Surging Releases: The first wave of the phased early release scheme saw roughly 700 inmates freed on October 1, 2026. An estimated 2,000 more are scheduled for release throughout October, scaling up to a total of 4,500 by summer 2027.
• Hostel Closures: Compounding the property shortage, 11 bail hostels (Approved Premises) across England and Wales—representing nearly 1 in 8 of the nation's total stock—were forced to shut down. The closures stem from severe staffing crises and poor physical conditions, such as infestations and lack of running water.
• Plunging Accommodation Success: According to Ministry of Justice data, the percentage of prison leavers successfully placed in settled or temporary accommodation on their first night dropped to 83.3%. Analysis from the social justice charity Nacro highlights that nearly 1 in 6 individuals (15,155 people over the last recorded year) are released directly into homelessness.
The "Revolving Door" Consequences
Probation officers and unions like Napo have warned that releasing prisoners directly onto the streets significantly escalates public safety risks and guarantees high failure rates. Without a stable address, individuals are frequently unable to comply with strict supervision rules or maintain the electronic tagging equipment mandated by their release.
This directly contributes to a massive surge in licence recalls, which rose 28% to 51,419. The majority of these individuals are sent right back to custody for administrative breaches—such as failing to live at an approved address—trapping the system in a self-defeating "revolving door". As an emergency mitigation strategy, the Ministry of Justice has admitted they may have to resort to placing offenders in budget hotels if all else fails"
https://the-european.eu/story-67124/uk-prisoner-release-plan-faces-a-major-lag-as-tougher-rules-risk-sending-inmates-back-to-jail.html
DeleteAround 700 UK prisoners were released early yesterday under new sentencing rules, but campaigners warn that tougher restrictions, soaring recall rates and an overstretched probation service could send many straight back behind bars..."
what did the govt say? Want to play justice bingo?
"... The Government has announced an investment of up to £700 million in probation and community punishment, including £100 million to expand electronic monitoring, alongside plans to recruit 1,300 additional probation staff."
!! HOUSE !! (except there aren't any).
There is something deeply sardonic when the Goverment are focused on creating accommodation in prisons by releasing people early into homelessness.
Delete'Getafix
I see the new pay offer is shite, again.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it ?
ReplyDelete5% but apparently a load of T&Cs attached
DeleteUNISON is recommending that members vote to accept a 5% pay offer from HMPPS for 2026.
DeleteThe full offer from HMPPS is as follows:
5% increase on all pay points with effect from 1 April 2026
5% increase on the following cash allowances with effect from 1 April 2026:
London Allowance: increase from £4,505 to £4,730
Standby Allowance: increase from £48.83 to £51.27
Prison Supplement: increase from £781 to £820
A copy of the HMPPS offer letter and pay tables showing the impact of a 5% increase on all pay points can be found in the Resources box on this page.
If the pay offer is accepted by union members, the award will be:
backdated to 1 April 2026, including backpay for any overtime, unsocial hours and cash allowances
and staff not at the top of their pay band will be awarded their next increment, subject to completing CBF, backdated to 1 April 2026.
In the offer letter you will see that HMPPS has made the following statement:
DeleteAs part of these negotiations, there is a requirement that we jointly address the impact CBF has on the IRC (increase in remuneration cost) each year. As you are aware, as part of a condition in agreeing the 2025/26 award, HMT (His Majesty’s Treasury) requested a review into the future of CBF pay progression. We now need a firm commitment that successor arrangements (to be negotiated) for CBF will begin to be implemented from 1 April 2027 onwards. Whilst details will need to be worked through with you, new arrangements will need to reduce or remove the impact of CBF on pay progression from 1 April 2027.
What does this mean?
1 The unions agreed to enter into a review of CBF and pay progression as part of the 2025 pay award. This review is currently underway, with no agreed outcome as yet.
2 What HMPPS is saying here is that this review must be completed in advance of 1 April 2027 (the date that the 2027 pay award becomes due) with the agreed outcome of the review, whatever that may be, taking effect from that date.
3 The cost of giving staff their annual pay increments (progression up the pay bands) is expensive, so HMPPS is seeking flexibility to change the value of pay progression within the overall pot of money it gets agreement from the Treasury to make pay awards with and give eligible staff their increments/pay progression with. This is an HMPPS negotiating position for next year’s pay talks, and has not been agreed with the unions.
4 This HMPPS position does not affect the pay offer for 2026, but will inform the employer’s overall position on pay in 2027.
"The UK Probation Service joint trade union claim (led by Napo, Unison, and GMB/SCOOP) for the 2026/2027 pay year demands a 12% pay rise and a £15 per hour minimum wage... As part of prior and ongoing discussions, HMMPS and HMT (His Majesty's Treasury) are reviewing CBF pay progression, with successor arrangements planned to begin implementation from 1 April 2027"
DeletePay negotiations with HMPPS have ended with a 5% “best and final” conditional pay offer being presented to the trade unions.
ReplyDeleteNapo’s Probation Negotiating Committee (PNC) – made up of Napo members across different pay bands and roles – have rejected this offer as unacceptable and members will now be asked to vote for industrial action on pay, along with the question on workloads, in a formal ballot on industrial action to launch on the 19th of October 2026.
The members of PNC who considered this offer rejected it unanimously for two reasons.
Too Little Pay
This offer falls too far short of our initial pay claim of a 12% increase to all pay bands and allowances.
A key element to our pay claim was to continue to seek to restore Probation pay to catch up on our loss of earnings since 2010 and against comparable sectors (Local Government, Prisons, NHS and the Police), the latter as set out in the pay claim. This offer does not do enough in this respect. We reject, as irrelevant, any reference by the employer or Government to single year pay deals given to other public sector employees this year.
This table illustrates how far Probation pay has fallen against inflation since 2010.
Probation is now widely recognised to be key to the operation of the wider criminal justice system, which the provisions of the Sentencing Act make more apparent than ever. Last week saw the latest in a long line of early release schemes where Probation has been asked to take on huge amounts of additional work in the tens of thousands of prisoners released early from prisons since 2022. Many of these early release schemes are now enshrined in legislation via the Sentencing Act. This offer does not reflect the value of Probation staff to our communities.
Sacrificing Terms And Conditions
A condition – set by the employer – of accepting this offer, relating to the Competency Based Framework (CBF), was that Napo would give “…a firm commitment that successor arrangements (to be negotiated) for CBF will begin to be implemented from 1 April 2027 onwards. Whilst details will need to be worked through with you, new arrangements will need to reduce or remove the impact of CBF on pay progression from 1 April 2027.”.
PNC view this as an unacceptable condition, which: -
Seeks to prejudice negotiations between the trade unions and employer to a pre-determined outcome on a set timescale.
Risks the definite removal of CBF in April 2027 with no agreed adequate recompense in place for employees for the loss of this term and condition.
Creates huge uncertainty for members not currently at the top of their pay band.
If the outcome of open negotiations is to be a successor to CBF then Napo would seek to ensure that members benefit overall from any changes to terms and conditions. This condition effectively looks to end CBF on the cheap.
This pay offer does not include CBF payments for 2026/27
As we saw with last year’s pay offers, we believe the employer will try to artificially inflate their offer for 2026/27 by including in any progression payments under CBF into their calculations. Napo maintain our position in rejecting this misleading and divisive approach and will continue to be honest with our members about the actual value of the pay offer.
Members eligible for progression under the CBF should have been paid from April 2026, not had this withheld until a pay award is made.
It is a 5% offer that PNC have rejected and this is what it means for pay bands/points.
Next Steps
Napo has today served a notice of a Trade Dispute on Pay as part of a necessary legal step to an industrial action ballot.
Napo’s All Member’s Pre-Ballot Meeting will take place on Tuesday 13th October 2026 at 1pm to provide further information as we now move to ballot members on industrial action on pay and workloads from the week after.
Riddle me this...
Delete"UNISON is recommending that members vote to accept a 5% pay offer from HMPPS for 2026."
versus
"Napo’s Probation Negotiating Committee (PNC) – made up of Napo members across different pay bands and roles – have rejected this offer as unacceptable"
versus
"GMB SCOOP is currently pushing for immediate payment of the 2026/27 pay progression. It strongly challenges management's suggestion that progression should be held back during wider dispute talks."
Hmmm, wonder who the winners will be?
I don't get this argument, 20 years ago it worked. The world has changed in 20 years, adapt. Sure, the current OFPS is a shambles, but we live in a different world and let's be honest, we treat most criminals like victims and completely ignore actual victims of crime.
ReplyDeleteClearly a 2 stage Probation is needed, help those who want help and give longer sentences to the problematic cases who bung up the justice system. Accountability is long gone and we seek to blame anyone but the individual.
Criminals like victims ? Not sure which probation office you been in recently all treated like vermin
ReplyDeleteTelegraph:Probation Officers to strike over early release
ReplyDeleteFirst time I have ever seen comments supporting strike action: Let's seize the day!
Surely Napo you cannot drop the ball on this one? Public Support for Probation officers going on Strike?
ReplyDeleteMost comments behind the paywall support action