Dodgy Figures?

A few days ago I highlighted a blog post written by Jon Harvey and in response to the Ministry of Justice publication of statistics relating to the two PbR pilot projects at HMP Peterborough and HMP Doncaster. 

These are extremely important trials and must provide favourable results for Chris Grayling to be able to argue that PbR works and can therefore be rolled out as part of the privatisation plans for probation. Given his obvious failure with PbR at the DWP, anything less will get him into some serious trouble with HM Treasury, bring the whole privatisation plans into doubt and probably terminate a promising political career. 

Now with this much at stake, it wouldn't take much of a cynic to assume that there might be a wee temptation to play with the figures a little in order to put PbR in as good a light as possible. I mean it's not as if politicians haven't got a bit of form where this sort of thing is concerned is it? 

Wasn't this why the UK Statistics Authority was set up in the first place to try and stop politicians misusing figures? A bit like Grant Shapps, now Conservative Party Chairman, getting caught out 'misrepresenting' benefit figures and earning a rebuke from the UKSA in the process. Jeremy Hunt, Iain Duncan Smith, and even David Cameron have all been caught out before, so how do we know for sure that Chris Grayling and his department aren't indulging in a little dissembling of their own?

Well most of us have no idea at all and have to hope that those in authority can be trusted. A ridiculous idea I know, especially given the unfolding scandal into the Care Quality Commission and the 'buried' critical report, but this is where whistleblowing, or in our case a twitching nose comes to the fore. Jon Harvey says he was 'irritated' by the MoJ statistics and knows enough to ask some very pointed questions of the author using a Freedom of Information request.

I thought it would be instructive to quote the letter containing the questions in full and hope Mr Harvey doesn't mind. I know little of statistics, but I think they're belters! The FOI clock is ticking with some kind of response required within 20 days. We all wait with interest.

Dear Mike Elkins

I have just read through your publication. I have a number of questions and I would be most grateful for your thoughts:
1.       The pilots began on 9 September 2010 and the 1 October 2011 (Peterborough and Doncaster respectively.) Please can you qualify “began”?
2.       Given that “the next Proven Reoffending Statistics quarterly bulletin will not be published until 25 July 2013”, why did you publish your results today rather than a few weeks from now?
3.       I understand that “the interim re-conviction figures being published in this statistical bulletin are based on periods half the length of those that will be used for the final results” – daft question I am sure, but presumably this applies to both the ‘experimental’ subject averages and the national comparators?
4.       You say that these “interim 6 month re-conviction figures are available for almost all of Peterborough cohort 1 (around 850 offenders) and half of Doncaster cohort 1 (around 700 offenders)”, please can you explain what has happened to the other portions of the cohorts and why they are included?
5.       In terms of methodology, you say “offenders enter the PbR pilots after their first eligible release from the prison within the cohort period”, please can you explain “eligible” in this context and whether the national comparator figures also cover the same “eligible” group?
6.       You explain that the key difference is that reconvictions only count offences for which the offender was convicted at court, whereas the National Statistics proven re-offending measure also includes out of court disposals (cautions)” and “Additionally, there are a number of other differences between the pilots and the
7.       National Statistics proven re-offending measure in terms of which offenders are counted within the cohort”. Are you able to say what difference these differences might make to the figures? For example, what number of offenders per hundred are usually subject to a caution (or similar disposal) as opposed to a court conviction?
8.       Again I assume that given that the “Peterborough pilot includes offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months, whereas the Doncaster pilot includes all offenders released from custody regardless of sentence length”, the national comparisons are on a like for like basis?
9.       You explain that the “success of each Peterborough cohort will be determined by comparison with a control group (of comparable offenders from across the country)”. How will this ‘control’ group be selected to ensure there is no inadvertent or unknown bias? Indeed was there (will there be) any form of randomised control trial element to either of these two trials (and extensions)? If not, what is your considered professional judgement as a statistician as to the validity of these results to guide future practice?
10.   For Doncaster, success “will be determined by comparison with the reconviction rate in the baseline year of 2009”. How will this accommodate national and/or local trends in (say) sentencing practice or levels of crime?
11.   Given that normally reconviction rates are measured on a 12 month basis and these interim results are measured on a 6 month one, how much is that likely (based on past data) to have depressed the reconviction rates?
12.   You say “Whereas in this publication, to eliminate the risk of seasonality and enable a consistent comparison over time, all figures relate to offenders released in the 6 month period from October to March”. I may well be missing something here, but by only using the six winter months, are you not likely to increase the risk of a seasonal effect in the data? Please explain further.

13.   Given that the Peterborough cohort finished on 1/7/12, and allowing for the 6 months plus 3 (for court delays), this takes us up to March 2013. So on this basis, why have the last three months of data (April, May and June 2012) been excluded? (As far as I can see there is no explanation of this decision, but forgive me if I have overlooked it.)
14.   Given that I assume that data is ordinarily collected on a quarterly basis, it would have been helpful to have presented your data in a similar way so that trends could be spotted over time rather than use the fairly arbitrary 19 month period to show the data. Why did you present it this way? Please could I have the data on a quarterly basis.
15.   Given that you must have the data for Peterborough for the missing 19 month period (September 08 to March 11), and acknowledging that this overlaps with the pilot beginning, please could I have this data nonetheless.
16.   Likewise, please could I have the data for the quarter beginning April 2012.
17.   You say “Nationally the equivalent figures show a rise of 16% from 69 to 79 re-conviction events per 100 offenders”. How do you get 16%? I can see a rise of 10 ‘points’ or a rise of (10/69*100) 14.5%.
18.   (As an aside, this is quite a large rise nationally in re-conviction rates comparing the period from just before the last election to period after. Have national rates continued to rise or have they levelled off now?)
19.   You say “these interim figures show a fall in the frequency of re-conviction events at Peterborough” which is drop from 41.6% to 39.2%. At what threshold of probability is this statistically significant?
20.   Please can you confirm that the OGRS scores cited relate to the cohort groups in both Peterborough and Doncaster (rather than all offenders who were released)?
21.   Why are the national re-conviction scores given next to Doncaster data (which average 32.9%) differ from the scores given next to the Peterborough data (average 37.9%)? I know the period is different and there is some missing data, but this still seems like a large difference…

I look forward to your thoughts

Many thanks

Charades

Although probation officers are all about encouraging change in their clients, there is a very well known mantra that says 'past behaviour can be a strong indicator of future behaviour.' With this firmly in mind it should therefore be a very serious warning to us all when considering the degree of competence present within the Ministry of Justice.

An article in yesterday's Guardian highlights the shambolic contract negotiated by civil servants in the department to procure interpreters for use within HM Court and Tribunal Service. The language used by Sir Alan Beith and his colleagues on the Justice Affairs Select Committee couldn't be much more damning and gives further confirmation of the impending omnishambles being cooked-up for probation and legal aid this summer:- 

The contracting out of key services by the Ministry of Justice could end in a "multiple train crash" because the department displays naivety and lacks the capacity to understand what it is doing, according to a parliamentary watchdog.

Sir Alan Beith, the Liberal Democrat chairman of the justice select committee, said the "inglorious saga" of the court interpreters service was being swiftly followed by plans to contract out most of the probation service, court infrastructure and criminal legal aid representation.

Three damning reports – from the justice select committee, the National Audit Office and the public accounts committee (PAC) – have criticised the MoJ's decision to hand over all courtroom interpreting in England and Wales from February 2012 to the private contractor Capita.

In a parliamentary debate, Beith said the service "never reached a satisfactory level" and its performance had since slipped back. "This is a department which is putting out to contract about 70% of rehabilitation services, [court infrastructure and] a large part of criminal legal aid," he said.

"If things go wrong in the same way as they have in the court interpreter services, it will be a multiple train crash we will be facing."

The MoJ did not have the capacity to contract out all these services at once, he added, nor did it have a sufficient understanding of the complexity of court interpreters' work. "The MoJ's naivety seems to be matched by [Capita's] under-performance against the contract," Beith said.

Hugh Muir also writing in the Guardian recently wondered if there was a deliberately subversive wing at work within the MoJ, or just evidence of some childish behaviour to while away the dull and boring hours spent within the lower reaches of the department:-  

Things seem little better at the Ministry of Justice, where it appears that officials seek to undermine Chris Grayling's plan to privatise probation services. They can't oppose him directly, but there must be something seditious about the decision to call the new payment mechanism Straw Man. And who'd have thought they would get away with calling the payment system FFS? It stands for Fees for Service in Whitehall-speak, apparently. Something much, much ruder to everybody in the outside world.

The 'straw man' document referred to can be found here, but it can hardly be that reassuring to know that the destiny of our profession seemingly resides with a group of incompetents who are having a laugh at our expense down in London? Or, just to positively reframe that for one moment, surely there's got to be hope that common sense will prevail and someone a bit older and wiser will call a halt to this charade?  

Sleepwalking

Yesterday's post was based on a stark analysis by an insider of exactly how potential bidders for our work will 'run their rule over' it and ruthlessly make sure they get the business by proposing massive cost efficiencies. Just in case there is anyone out there that's still not clear what that means, TUPE'd or not, it's redundancies and worse terms and conditions for all.

At the stakeholder event I attended earlier in the year, the ex probation officer from Crime Reduction Initiative who was sat at my round table put it rather more bluntly - "ex probation staff would be got rid of as quickly as possible." Dreadful as it sounds and a view that will upset the sensibilities of many, as one commentator to this blog asked yesterday, "what does it take for people to wake up to what's happening and stop sleepwalking towards oblivion?" 

Napo have just conducted an election for a new General Secretary and the turnout was a derisory 20%. Conversations on twitter indicate that significant numbers of staff have their heads buried firmly in the sand, whilst others appear to have accepted that it's all a 'done deal' and nothing can be done. Some are leaving and joining other unions and some, mindful of other criminal justice union activities, are demanding to know when there is to be a ballot on industrial action?

The discussion forum has at last generated some activity and there has been much comment concerning TUPE arrangements, together with a belief in the sanctity of national terms and conditions, and hence negotiations. Staff are urged not to be tempted to enter into any local discussions, whilst others point to the alacrity with which many Trusts have already enthusiastically built up a track record on a whole range of policy changes embracing travel, working conditions and sickness management. 

Despite warm words in certain quarters, there is widespread disarray in the ranks of both union and management. Ian Lawrence, the new Napo General Secretary has got to get a grip and quickly, but he also needs support from the membership. He needs some indication that people really have grasped what this is all about. It's not a 'Rehabilitation Revolution' at all, that's just so much smoke and mirrors, spin doctor's sophistry or bollocks even to try and cover the fact that it's actually a wholesale decommissioning exercise - effectively the outsourcing of redundancies. 

If you're still not sure what it's really all about, here we have an article written by John Hannan of the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Action and following on from that highlighted yesterday by Richard Johnson of Buying Quality Performance. I quote selectively from this excellent GMCVA analysis, again from the point of view of organisation's considering whether to bid or not for parts of our work. The whole article is well worth reading, suggesting as it does that many voluntary organisations might wish to consider not getting involved at all. 

"The market for the delivery of public services has certainly become more competitive with more expected for less and often contracts being aggregated in order to reduce administrative costs. But there is a fundamental change in addition to this. In many cases the purpose of commissioning has itself altered.

As the market for public services grew over the last decade many voluntary organisations were able to engage in the delivery of services based on their quality and the impact they generated. As new spending emerged, organisations competed more on the basis of outcomes achieved than absolute costs.

This is less the case now. We are seeing fewer instances where contract specifications seek to generate increased quality but more often seek to squeeze costs out of the system or transfer risk. Last year I wrote about “toxic opportunities” and the increasing number of short-term contracts from the public sector that contained high decommissioning costs. In the forthcoming government spending review we are likely to see the biggest squeeze on public spending in the post-war period with both the 2015 and 2020 General Elections likely to be portrayed as austerity elections. Some short term contracts with significant TUPE liabilities might better be described as an outsourcing of redundancy than an outsourcing of delivery as many of those services are unlikely to last. Recent work from NLGN suggests by 2018 public sector bodies will have 50% of the purchasing power they have now.

And then we come to the latest large scale “payment by results” scheme which will really throw sharp definition on this fundamental change – the Transforming Rehabilitation programme which will outsource probation services.

From my own conversations with potential prime contractors and informed reports elsewhere we are likely to see outsourcing of these services linked to cuts of approximately 30% of costs.There may be opportunities for voluntary organisations to play a role in delivering services in this area but this isn’t a contract to drive innovation – it’s a decommissioning contract. Any successful prime will have to strip costs from out of the system and push efficiency. Primes will be paid in arrears and may have a significant up front capital cost as they cover redundancy payments and re-organise the existing estate and delivery systems. They will contract out but will seek competitive prices with a real squeeze on costs and an element of shared risk."

Guys, it really is time to wake up, stop sleepwalking and get active! 

Probation - Some Tips on Bidding

Up and down the land some very smart people are at this minute engaged in a great deal of cerebral activity connected with our line of work. To put it bluntly it's all about trying to decide the answer to a tantalising question. Is there money to be made from probation, or like the Work Programme, is it a recipe for disaster?

At this point it might just be worth mentioning a recent article in Private Eye and picked up on by the 'Watching A4E' website. Apparently Chris Grayling met with A4E directors last July when still at the DWP and it was obvious the Work Programme was failing and A4E was enmeshed in a wave of bad publicity. It seems he told them "In 6 months it will all be forgotten" and he was grateful for what they were doing. I just thought I'd mention that Chris because we haven't forgotten!

Anyway, Chris Graying moved on to the MoJ and the same suspects and the same PbR payment methods are to be introduced for the privatisation of the bulk of probation's work. So it's fascinating to see what the current privatisation industry thinking is. Richard Johnson was managing director of Serco's Welfare to Work and in a recent article on his blogsite 'Buying Quality Performance' outlines in stark detail how probation contracts will be won and operated in order to make a profit. He takes an example of one contract area currently costing £30 million after stripping out the cost of assessment and high risk offenders:-  

If we are to win this contract, our tender will have to meet a quality ‘threshold’. But we are old-hands at this outsourcing game and know how to tick all those boxes. It comes down to price.

We know that the MoJ is looking for a 30% cost saving. We are going to have to bid at around £20m per annum. For this, we will take on all court-directed activity, including new supervision orders for people receiving sentences of less than 12 months. It is not going to be easy! But our Board are very keen indeed for us to secure this contract. They have, after all, agreed with the shareholders some stretching growth targets that can only be achieved through new contract wins.

We will inherit in Area F the ‘newco’ of transferring probation staff. In order to make it work, we will have to: strip out overhead; look for significant redundancies on the frontline; take the remaining staff through a radical cultural change programme, rolling out a new rigour in performance management; and also find ways to deliver some of the court orders differently (for example, using call centres instead of face-to-face contact). This transformation programme is going to cost us a lot of money, which is obviously going to have to come out of the £20m too.

To say the challenges are enormous is to understate the position as the article goes on to make clear:-

If we win the contract, the £20m will be paid to us in monthly instalments. Only, it won’t be fixed at £20m for every year of the ten-year contract. It will be reviewed each year to take account of any fluctuation in volumes of offenders. It will also be reduced year-on-year, to make sure we keep improving and growing in efficiency.

If we fail to deliver what the courts require, then MoJ will claw money back. If re-offending rates increase in Area F, then MoJ will claw money back.

In an attempt to focus us closely on rehabilitation, we will only be able to earn profit, i.e. anything over and above the agreed service fee of £20m, if we demonstrate a reduction in re-offending. If we have a massive impact on re-offending, they will even let us earn “super profit”, though it will be capped. MoJ are calling this the Payment by Results (PbR) element.

So. We have to take the existing service, plus some extra supervision orders, and deliver it for 30% less money. The MoJ drive us to find efficiencies and to maintain effectiveness with the risk of clawbacks. Additional interventions, over and above the core court-directed service, will have to be funded either out of the money for that core activity or be investment we make at risk, in order to generate a return from profits.

Our initial focus must be just the core contract. We have a massive transformation to achieve. Let’s get the ‘newco’ knocked into shape. Let’s drive for a much smarter core service, targeting a small reduction in recidivism to mitigate the risk of clawback. If we can deliver this for less than the £20m agreed, then that’s our profit.

To show willing to MoJ, we could propose investing some money at risk. But our Board aren’t going to like it. We’ll try to hand that risk down to subcontractors, offering purely outcome-based payments, but after the Work Programme debacle, MoJ are discouraging this. We could try to draw in social investment, but that’s not particularly cheap money and there is, to be honest, insufficient potential return in the PbR element.

I think it's fairly clear that what is being proposed is most certainly not a safe route to assured riches for any potential bidder, in fact it looks pretty much like a recipe for financial ruin to me. The article acknowledges that some bidders might pitch their bids too low and indeed lose money or go bust even, but most significantly makes the following point:- 

What this certainly is not is a rehabilitation revolution. It is not a mechanism to deliver a big decrease in re-offending. In order for that to be the case, real returns would have to be possible from the introduction of entirely new services over and above court orders. This conflicts with the objective of cuts. Payment by Results or outcome-based funding does not necessarily mean additional results – when combined with simple cost-cutting it generally just means de-risking public expenditure through shifting to cash-on-delivery.

The message from this source, that must be regarded as sympathetic to the notion of public service 'reforms', appears to me to be that we really do indeed have the making of an omnishambles here. You could get your fingers seriously burnt and it won't deliver a rehabilitation revolution. I wonder what those Trusts busily plotting to become mutuals make of it? 

So, my top bidding tip is quite simple - don't! 

Sign the petition here instead.     

   

PbR Works! - Sort of

Payment by Results is the new wonder solution to all government woes according to some simple-minded politicians, and therefore it damned-well has to work. The idea has been championed by ultra-ambitious Chris Grayling and was rolled out as a payment method for the Work Programme when he was at the DWP. 

Despite having failed miserably as a method of motivating contractors to get the unemployed into jobs, he remains undaunted and is pressing on with plans to use PbR as a way of motivating probably the same contractors to stop offenders offending. Common sense, or good practice even, normally dictates that it's a good idea to thoroughly test a new idea before attempting to introduce it nationally, hence trials of PbR within criminal justice have been running at HMP Peterborough and HMP Doncaster.

However, so confident has Chris Grayling been that PbR will turn out to be a huge success that other trials were cancelled, safe in the knowledge that Peterborough and Doncaster will deliver the goods. Thus it should come as no great surprise that with so much political reputation on the line, Mr Grayling was able to announce yesterday that, well.... 'the results are promising'. Now I don't know about you, but I'd say that was code for 'no matter how many times we did the sums, this is the best we got.'  

Actually Grayling wasn't even referring to both trials, only Peterborough, with the results for Doncaster looking decidedly 'less promising' according to Alan Travis in the Guardian:-

Under the first pilot scheme, which has been running for two-and-a-half years at Peterborough prison, reconviction rates fell from 41.6% for short-sentenced prisoners who left the jail between September 2008 – March 2010, to 39.2% for those who took part in the scheme and left the jail between September 2010 – March 2012.

The scheme provided offenders with help as they prepared for release from jail and then access to services they needed outside prison, including housing, employment and financial services. Ministers are planning to roll this out to all prisoners serving less than 12 months in legislation going through parliament in the offender rehabilitation bill.

Interim results in a second, similar scheme at Doncaster prison, launched in October 2011, appear less promising. The reconviction rate of 41.1% between October 2011 – March 2012 was higher than the 39.8% recorded between October 2010 – March 2011, but lower than the 41.6% recorded the year before. Final results will be published 2014.

Proponents of PbR like expert Russell Webster are going a bit further and saying these results are mediocre at best and simply don't make the case. Talking of Peterborough, before he concludes:-

"These results can be interpreted in one of two ways. Optimists may argue that they are extremely encouraging - a 6% fall in the context of a 16% rise nationally is a strong performance.

Pessimists, however, could make the case that a reduction of 6% is not sufficient to trigger a success payment at a pilot site which had many more advantages - in terms of the amount of development time in particular - than will be available to the new rehabilitation providers.

Conclusion

To be honest, neither of these pilots have been running for a sufficiently long period of time for the these results to be treated with anything other than the utmost caution.

However, the interim figures are hardly earth-shattering and the pilots did have a number of advantages not available to the providers who win the new reducing reoffending contracts which will be awarded next Autumn. 

The principle advantage, of course, is that the prisons and partnerships involved were actively seeking to pilot new approaches and had more time to plan their approach and were in a position, to an extent, to negotiate the terms of their PbR payment process.

My view is that these mediocre results makes the MoJ's recently published proposed payment mechanism seem even more unrealistic.

If we are really talking about transforming rehabilitation, then it will take several years for new approaches to bed in and be successful, yet the MoJ expects them to be delivering improvements in year one despite having to provide a service to many more offenders (50,000+ new short term prisoners) from within a reduced budget."  

Hey, Chris. With supporters like this, who needs enemies?!

Sign the petition here and stop this crazy omnishambles. 

PS Rooting around on the internet has resulted in the following fascinating blog by Jon Harvey a statistics expert. He is clearly irritated by the stats and posed 21 questions to Mike Elkins the person responsible. I think this might be worth following guys - you know, all that stuff about 'lies, damned lies and statistics!'  

Omnishambles Update 6

'Steady as she goes No1!' is pretty much the message from Joe Kuipers the Captain of the good ship Avon and Somerset in a recent circular to all staff:- 

".....our well regarded good ship ASPT is sailing along effectively, well helmed, brilliantly crewed and partnered, but it is now entering as yet poorly charted waters. As well as taking actions to avoid rocks and grounding we have to consider how best to ensure that our effective services have the best chance of improvement, continuity and survival and that our staff have the best future opportunities. In short, what sort of craft or ‘lifeboat’ might we in ASPT need to build to meet these objectives?"

Skilfully written in a measured tone, the document seeks to convey to staff as much information as possible that can be gleaned from the Transforming Rehabilitation process, aka omnishambles. It's clear from reported meetings with the MoJ/Noms TR team that there are still loads of unanswered questions as the whole shambolic process begins to gain momentum, but I'm sure something will be cobbled together.

As with other Trusts, Avon and Somerset are busy talking to other interested parties in the hope that some form of 'lifeboat' can be constructed in order to try and keep some staff safe and dry and ready to crew some new probation vessel.* The document makes clear that ASPT is 'not rushing into anything', but the outlined timetable and obvious hurdles involved must make any such viable initiative highly unlikely. 

In the meantime reports are beginning to emerge of some Trusts using the annual staff appraisal process to assess the degree to which individual staff members are willing to 'embrace' the TR agenda. Very naughty!

The Welsh government have made it clear that they want nothing to do with the TR proposals and are demanding that responsibility for probation in Wales is transferred to the Welsh Assembly. Plaid Cymru have confirmed their opposition to the privatisation plans and we wait to see if the government is prepared to devolve responsibility, leaving just England to go it alone. 

Interestingly a recent article in the Daily Telegraph by Peter Oborne hints at unease within Tory ranks that Conservative radicalism 'has gone too far'.

"If anything this admirably radical administration deserves criticism for doing too much. In its urgent ambition to leave an enduring mark on society, it is arguably in danger of trying to make too many changes at once. 

But there is also a deeper criticism. There are too many radicals at the heart of the Cameron government - and not enough Conservatives. These radicals fail to share the Conservative insight that continuity matters more than change, and stability more than either. Conservatives understand that there is a great deal to be said for leaving things alone. They respect the wisdom of the past, the necessity to preserve inherited institutions, and the rule of law.

This is the reason we Conservatives, contrary to popular opinion, value a strong state, so long as it is virtuous and not corrupt. We do not (as many believe) merely value a powerful state for purposes of national defence and to uphold law and order. All serious Conservative thinkers grasp that only the state can embody all those ideals which bind us together, and which count for so much more than self interest."

Yes that really is from the Daily Telegraph and sounds like a case for keeping the probation service as it is to me.

The petition can still be found here.

*Some might say a better analogy is up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle.

Seeing the Light

Regular readers will be aware that I've been following Ben Gunn on his journey from being one of Britain's longest serving prisoner's, to a new life of freedom and high profile commentating on all things criminal justice. It's been quite a journey by any standards and I have to say I've been both dismayed and bemused in equal measure at his sheer energy and capacity to wind people up, especially on twitter. 

It takes two to tango as they say, but I think he would perhaps admit that he met his match recently with a seriously robust run-in with some very angry wimmin on twitter that seemed to take him genuinely by surprise. If ever you needed some evidence as to the limitations posed to decent discussion by 140 characters at a time, this was it! That's the thing about twitter - it's either mostly platitudinous bollocks, political puffs, or soundbite flame mail. 

Anyway, it's good to see that Ben has decided to return to using the medium that brought him to wide public attention in the first place, the blog. In what could either be described as a masterstroke of perversity, or sign of divine revelation, he has confounded us all by posting a piece in defence of probation. It seems it wasn't prepared under the influence of mind-altering substances, but rather the result of some thoughtful reflection. I hope he will not mind me quoting from it:- 

My – improbable, maybe – objection to this is that the Probation Service has met every target set by Government to reduce reoffending. Indeed, it is a fact that the reoffending rate for those under supervision is the lowest level ever.

I hold no brief for Government and its bureaucracies. As a general proposition, I think Government can screw anything up. And yet the Probation Service is not merely performing well, it is possibly one of the best performing public services.

In planning to break up this service and sell it, the Government is acting out of pure ideology. There is no evidence whatever that the private sector can do as well, let alone better. Indeed, the discussions I was in with the private sector revealed that they hadn't any clue how to even begin to do the job of probation.

In their ideological frenzy, the Government has blown its cover. If it had the slightest interest in reducing reoffending and protecting the public, it would allow all qualified parties to bid for future contracts. But, and this is the tipping point for me, the Government is barring Probation Trusts from even bidding for the work. The only people with any expertise in this work are being specifically forbidden from being involved in it.

Now wouldn't it be interesting to see Ben being interviewed on tv about Graylings plans for privatising the probation service and giving a client's perspective? I look forward to further reflective pieces in the coming months. Oh, by the way Ben. Did you sign the petition that can be found here?     

A Post Revisited

In December 2010, when this blog was still relatively new and I was in a particularly depressive state of mind, I published an ominous-sounding piece entitled '10 Reasons Why Probation is Finished.' Given our present predicament, I thought it might be instructive to revisit and reflect upon it, but be warned, it is not suitable for those of a nervous disposition or if prone to emotional outbursts.    

"As we head to the end of one year and the beginning of another, I find that I'm in a particularly sombre and increasingly angry mood, hence the stark title of this piece. I know I'm prone to being a pessimist, but those who really know me are aware that throughout my career I have always tried to be positive. I'm by nature a fixer of problems - you have to be to be a Probation Officer in my view. But a good Probation Officer should also be able to analyse a situation and sort the wood from the trees. Talking my profession down gives me no satisfaction at all, but there comes a time when we have to recognise the direction of travel and face up to some uncomfortable truths. Only then can we begin to do something about the situation.

The following is my analysis of where I think we are and where we are heading and it's not good. I seriously believe we are destined for the same treatment as the Forensic Science Service whose demise was announced last week with little ceremony. If others think I'm wrong, misguided or over-stating the position, then please tell me." 

1) Ken Clarke can't stand the Probation Service for some reason and hasn't mentioned it once since taking up office as Justice Minister. This does not bode well for the Minister responsible for the Service to come to its aid. Indeed I think the groundwork is being prepared so that he can 'do a John Reid' and declare the whole thing 'unfit for purpose.'  

Well that's pretty much what's happened. Ken Clarke was a pussy cat compared to Grayling. There isn't even a minister with probation in their official title any more. Despite some warm but half-hearted words from ministers on occasion, most can't stand us because they don't know what we do, a situation that makes it very easy to marginalise us and plot our demise.  

2)The Coalition government are privatising Approved Premises and Community Payback, so have a very clear agenda of wanting to see the Service slimmed down and operated more cheaply. In relation to Unpaid Work, the government obviously feel that the current ethos would not be conducive to the implementation of a tougher work regime.

In the end the government ducked out of privatising Community Payback, largely because they decided to go for the 'big bang' approach, abolish trusts and privatise virtually the whole thing. London was the exception and serves to indicate what is likely to happen when cost savings are introduced by private contractors such as Serco. There will be less supervision, redundancies and a one-size-fits-all approach to clients.    

3) Pre-sentence reports have been 'dumbed-down' and are rapidly becoming useless as sentencing documents. This is all too clear to people who have been around for a while. Together with the inexorable growth in short format FDR's, even at Crown Court, it will only serve to convince sentencers that they can largely dispense with PSR's completely.

The number of PSR's being prepared continues to fall, but incredibly the courts seem oblivious to the reduction in quality brought about by them being OASys generated. It does make you wonder if they ever bothered reading them thoroughly in the past? Maybe we've been largely wasting our time all along? The lack of critical comment regarding the change to OASys computer formatted reports has been truly astonishing to me.  
  
4)There is an inexorable move towards PSO's doing the work of fully qualified PO's. I predict that the full role of PO will be undertaken by PSO's in a couple of years. The training has already been dumbed down and there is a growing chorus from PSO's that PO's weren't that skilled anyway. This is great news for management because they are much cheaper to employ. 

Well we now know that virtually all PSO's will be destined to transfer to the privatised service, leaving most PO's as civil servants within a rump public service looking after the high risk cases. It's inevitable that terms and conditions for PSO's will deteriorate under the auspices of the private and third sector contractors. The future for the probation profession in terms of training looks bleak with the only glimmer of hope coming from the formation of a professional Probation Institute.   

5)The Probation Unions refuse to acknowledge Payment by Results as worthy of field trials. I have repeatedly said that this stance is a big mistake and arguments about it not working are utterly futile because if necessary, the figures will be fiddled to prove otherwise, just like all those in the past. Oh, of course it just might work too. I think the public image of NAPO looks tired and needs sharpening up.

I've probably been a bit naive about PbR, but as originally proposed it was about levering in new money from charitable sources in order to fund work with those sentenced to less than 12 months custody. But the idea has proved so attractive to politicians as a 'silver bullet' that no trials are felt necessary because it will be made to work, or more accurately fiddled so it appears to work. As for Napo, it needs taking by the scruff of the neck and shaken hard.  

6) Probation Trusts continue to support large Head Offices at the expense of field offices. I continue to be amazed at the size of the management bureaucracy, just as local offices are being shut to save money. One Assistant Chief is currently trumpeting a 'going local' initiative at the very time that he's closing a local office. Such humbug will not go unnoticed. The same Service is introducing a leave purchase scheme to save money with each officer being able to buy up to 30 days extra leave a year. That not only says a great deal about current attitudes to the job, but I wonder who is expected to cover for all these missing people when caseloads are so high?

The closure of field offices and retreat into ever-larger out of town bunkers has continued apace, whilst the Head Office bureaucracies have remained largely intact. Utterly inexcusable, but the inevitable product of our having fully embraced managerialism with gusto. Our profession has not been served well by senior management in recent time and a great deal of the blame for our current predicament must lie at their feet.

7)The Service has no unified public identity, national champion or high profile leadership. Since the control freak government of Tony Blair, Chiefs of Probation have been effectively silenced and have yet to find an effective voice. The new Chiefs Association has been ominously silent for a couple of months now, and even before only spoke in relative hushed tones. There is no longer any central Probation Management, it having been completely dismantled and subsumed into a prison-dominated NOMS.

The probation voice has all but disappeared with no senior people within NOMS and a gagging order placed on probation staff. The spokesperson for the Chiefs is a former civil servant and accountant who is simply unable to speak authoritatively on behalf of the profession. Napo centrally has imploded amidst scandal and significant departures and may never recover in time to mount an effective defence.      

8)The public simply do not understand what the Probation Service does. This is extremely handy for a government intent on breaking the whole thing up. There will be absolutely no public opposition to our demise.

The public still don't understand what we do and neither do most politicians. The No10 petition has struggled to make 21,000 signatures, as opposed to that in relation to the proposed cuts in criminal legal aid. With no real understanding and appreciation of what we do, there will be virtually no public opposition to our demise.

  
9)The Service is paralysed with bureaucratic processes which hinder client contact. The imposition of OASys was utter ill-thought out madness and has done more damage to client contact and morale than any of the worst excesses wreaked on our Service in living memory. Can I remind people that, far from management having the bottle to admit this, the real driver behind them imposing the short format FDR's is that they cunningly avoid a full OASys.

Unbelievable I know, but things are now much worse with the national roll-out of the utterly frustrating and time-consuming nDelius case recording system, together with OASys R proving to be incapable of producing a professional-looking PSR for court. Not surprisingly the pressure continues to dispense with as many full PSR's as possible in the name of efficiency and speeding up justice. An absolutely key part of the job ruined by an IT disaster resulting in probation reports being increasingly marginalised and more of our time spent on the computer instead of seeing clients.    

10)The architecture is in place to facilitate the dismantling of the Service. Together with the powers contained in the legislation that set the National Offender Management Service up and the compulsory transition to independent Probation Trusts, the government would find it administratively very easy to transfer all probation functions to any organisation it felt appropriate.

Well this has certainly proved to be the case with Chris Grayling intending to make full use of the legislative changes so handily provided by the last Labour government in order to effect its privatisation and without having the trouble of going back to Parliament. Of course Labour now cries 'foul!' But it's all a bit late in the day thanks to Tony Blair listening to Carter all those years ago and his crazy ideas of 'introducing a bit of tension' into the system. We really could be finished guys.  

Politics is a Dirty Business

We all know most politicians of every persuasion are professional liars and not to be trusted in normal circumstances, but this is a battle for the survival of a vital public service and the rest of us just have to swallow hard and do what ever it takes to win. Politics has always been the art of the possible.

So it is that we must now find the will to applaud the architects of the whole probation privatisation fiasco, the Labour Party, as they seemingly mount a 'spirited' opposition to Graylings proposals in the House of Commons.

There's no point in even mentioning matters of principle here, or what might be the right thing to do. Labour are just going through the motions for a bit of political expediency, as HM Loyal Opposition is paid handsomely to do. It's all a game, as they know full well that they don't have a cat in hell's chance of inflicting a defeat on the government due to the Liberal Democrats remaining firmly in bed with their Conservative partners. 

Anyway, I quote from the Labour Party press release issued yesterday:- 

"Labour has tabled amendments to the Offender Rehabilitation Bill that would force the Government to pilot their controversial changes to the probation service.

We believe their proposals constitute a serious risk to public safety because of their untested and untried nature.

Because the Government is misusing 2007 legislation, this means they require no change in the law to introduce their proposals. By tabling these amendments, Labour is ensuring that their ill-thought through plans receive proper parliamentary scrutiny.

And, if successful, they would mean that the Government’s changes to probation could not happen until they have been properly piloted and independently evaluated to ensure there is no risk to public safety."

Things are always different in the Upper House though with so many non-politically aligned cross benchers and today probation's good friend Lord Ramsbotham has been leading opposition to the proposals by tabling some key amendments to the Bill that, if passed, would effectively kill it. The key amendments proposed are 21, 22 and 23 which respectively prevent changes to the probation service without parliamentary approval, prevent the introduction of PbR for 3 years and without the results of pilots being evaluated first and ensure probation trusts can bid for any contracts. 

But any amount of sound reasoning might still come to nought as the government can in the final analysis invoke the Parliament Act in order to exert their will over a troublesome House of Lords. What is much more likely to be effective in saving our bacon is pure chance and good luck. As Harold Macmillan once famously remarked, events have a habit of throwing the best laid political plans off balance and there's quite a few possibilities in the wings. 

For a start the whole parliamentary corruption issue has been re-ignited as a result of those pesky media types setting up MP's and Peers with yet another honey-trap sting operation. They always fall for it don't they? But I have to say I'm not sorry to see the smug look removed from the face of that dreadful self-serving ex-copper Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate. 

Then there's the astounding secret affair that's so shocked the Prime Minister. Despite gagging orders, it won't be secret for too much longer. Finally, we still await news in relation to the police investigation into historical child abuse allegations at the Elm Guest House in West London. All these and more can derail the best laid plans of any government.

Word has it that Grayling's job and career are on the line over his plans for 'reforming' the criminal Legal Aid system. As the first non-lawyer to become Lord Chancellor, he's made lots of powerful enemies in the legal profession and as we know many politicians are lawyers. If he screws it up, and some are confidently saying he's massively under estimated the guile and sheer power that the law still exerts within the Establishment, it's curtains for Chris's prospects which can only be good news for us. A dirty business indeed - but hey ho! 

I know you've signed the No10 petition - but please tell others to sign it here.        

Omnishambles Update 5

More details are beginning to emerge concerning the timeline for the proposed probation omnishambles and I'm grateful to a reader for supplying a summary from their Trust and I quote selectively from it:-

Phase 1 (to August 2013) The implications of the split between the public sector and competed services for staff and for workload will be worked through on paper. 

Phase 2 (August 2013 - March 2014) operational staff will be allocated to either the public sector probation service or the competed services through a matching and selection process. The competition will be advertised in August/September. 

Phase 3 (April - October 2014) all staff are transferred to either the National Probation Service or the 'NewCo' - a government owned holding company. This will allow the new operating model to be tested. 

Phase 4 (November 2014 onwards) Contracts will be signed with the providers who will take over the 21 'NewCo's'.

"From April 2014 staff who will be working in the competed services will move over to one of 21 ‘NewCos’, coterminous with the contract package areas announced in the government’s response to Transforming Rehabilitation. Essentially, these will be holding companies which will be government owned.  Each ‘NewCo’ would be led by a management team from within the Trust.  It will operate in this way for between three and nine months until all staff and assets move over to the new provider in the autumn/winter 2014. It is not anticipated that there will be any immediate changes for staff, although restructuring is likely over time.

Of the 18,000 staff currently employed by Probation Trusts, approximately 6,000 will transfer to the new Public Sector Probation Service. The structure of the PSPS will be seven divisions and the Local Delivery Units based on local authorities will be the building blocks. These will be clustered to form units which take account of police force areas. 

The competition will be advertised in late August. Between august and October, prime bidders will go through a pre-qualifying questionnaire process.Those who meet a quality threshold and who are financially viable will go forward to a dialogue process (autumn 2013 - January 2014) and will submit full bids by spring 2014. Contracts will be awarded by October 2014.

I can promise that we will endeavour to treat all staff fairly and follow due process when it comes to the difficult process of allocating staff either to the National Probation Service or to the services going to the new provider."

The latter point seems to confirm that it will be left up to individual Trusts to undertake the invidious process of selecting who stays and who goes. As has already been pointed out in several quarters, this will inevitably lead to to a huge number of grievances being lodged and that should clog the system up nicely for quite a few months.

The Ministry of Justice recently published further details of how the contracts will be framed and has invited comment on the proposals. Russell Webster outlines the main aspects in his recent post here and makes the point that the MoJ clearly intend to leave it up to individual bidders as to how much risk they are prepared to take in terms of the Payment by Results element. So bidders will not just be competing on price, they will have to compete on the proportion of PbR as opposed to fixed fee. Oh it's definitely an omnishambles in the making this one! 

Meanwhile NAPO are still bravely trying to give the impression that it's 'business as usual' despite having now lost the services of a joint chair, thus leaving some members concerned regarding the remaining incumbent's mandate. Still, at least Harry Fletcher has at last 'broken cover' and has started tweeting somewhat half-heartedly for the cause whilst undertaking his new work on anti-stalking. I wonder if he might be tempted in the coming months to shed some light on what exactly has been going on behind the scenes at Chivalry Road?

The No10 petition can still be found here.