Time for Plan B

As Chris Grayling prepares to go before the Justice Affairs Select Committee today, he'd do well to be reflecting on whether it's now time to come up with a plan B in relation to the Probation Service. Although the opposition to his original scheme of decimation and privatisation has not been as comprehensive or effective as that of the lawyers in relation to Legal Aid, it has been rubbished far and wide, even by those expected to benefit from the break-up. 

Regular readers of this blog in particular will be acutely aware of the avalanche of scorn and criticism that has descended upon the proposed contracting out plans, and of course we are now aware that the government's own risk register highlights significant dangers of the whole thing going comprehensively pear-shaped. It's all going to cost more, lead to increased prison numbers and reoffending is likely to go up, not down. HM Treasury always had doubts about the whole thing and with the House of Lords throwing a spanner in the works, time is running out. 

As Alan Travis of the Guardian explains, it's all contained in that pesky risk register that Grayling didn't want publishing because it neatly spells out the size of the problem:-  

In Whitehall, risk registers are often discounted as simply a troubleshooting management tool where every possibility of something going wrong gets a mention just to cover their backs. The probation minister, Jeremy Wright, dismissed this one in similar terms saying they wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't plan for every eventuality, however remote.

Yet, unlike many such documents this one is unequivocal, with three "code blacks" – the highest risk rating in the traffic-light warnings of green, amber, red and black. The most stark is the risk that "an unacceptable drop in operational performance (during the programme) leads to delivery failures and reputational damage".

For probation, a "delivery failure" can mean that a medium-risk offender – who will be monitored in future by a private company working with a charity – goes on to murder or rape someone after their release because of supervision blunders.

The register says the problems that are likely to lead to an unacceptable drop in performance include "industrial relations/action, morale, management attention diverted; leadership/staff turnover/departures; inability or lack of willingness of trusts to backfill key posts; and that chairs and chiefs disengage".

The other two code blacks are closely related and raise other serious problems, such as insufficient support for the reforms among management and staff. This includes concerns that the behaviour of the existing leadership of the 35 probation trusts "is not conducive to progressing reforms" and that the Probation Chiefs Association and the Probation Association "actively promote resistance".

The third code black is a concern that the "affordability objectives for the reform cannot be demonstrated or met, leading to a failure to secure approvals during the programme". The register says they are particularly concerned that they will be unable to demonstrate the costs and benefits of the new payment-by-results model or fail to make promised savings.

The MoJ's rehabilitation programme board, chaired by Ian Poree, director of the programme and Grayling's principal adviser, also has serious worries about the likely level of private sector participation and whether the new service models will prove effective.

All this is in the government's own words remember and is an absolute gift to doubters and trouble makers both in the Commons and Lords to make mischief and really slow things down. The time for plan B has arrived and a sensible Justice Secretary would now be looking to find a way out of the mess he has found himself in.

It's time to revisit what the Probation Chiefs Association have said all along, namely that commissioning of services would be best left with the successful Probation Trusts. Their strength lies with established local partnerships and the evolving role of Police and Crime Commissioners. Give responsibility for the under 12 month prison leavers to the Trusts and leave it up to them, the experts, to facilitate, commission and organise the rehabilitation revolution we all want. 

There will have to be a re-think about how the extra work can be absorbed on reducing budgets, but many of us in probation would welcome a slimming down of some overheads, especially management and Head Office functions. There could be amalgamations, strategic partnerships or whatever, but for goodness sake Chris - wake up, smell the coffee and let probation demonstrate that they can deliver economies, an expansion of services and all without the risks associated with your crap plan A.    

The Tide is Turning

So, Chris Grayling has decided on a humiliating climb-down over a key plank of his Legal Aid reforms. Faced with an absolutely solid wall of resistance from the legal profession to the imposition of centralised contracting and the removal of client choice of solicitor, he's decided to cave in on the principle ahead of his appearance at the Justice Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday.

Having previously said that basically clients were too thick to make informed choices about legal representation, all of a sudden their right to choose will remain as the Guardian reports here:-   

Acknowledging the strength of the campaign, Grayling said – in a statement released before he appears at the Commons justice select committee on Wednesday – that "client choice" would now be kept. 

He declared: "Removing the choice of solicitor for clients receiving criminal legal aid was only proposed in order to guarantee lawyers had enough business to make contracts viable. It is clear the profession regards client choice as important and so I expect to make changes that allow a choice of solicitor in the future.

"Any future scheme for criminal legal aid must guarantee that quality legal advice and representation is available, but we still need to make significant savings.

"I am therefore pleased the Law Society has acknowledged the government's requirement for savings. We agree that a managed market consolidation is the best way to meet the challenges of the future. We are discussing their proposal about how to achieve this."

Removal of client choice has been one the main focuses of opposition to the MoJ consultation on legal aid. Many questioned why a Conservative minister was so determined to impose a centralised contract system that will stifle competition between small businesses.

In a comment last month that came back to haunt him, Grayling defended the proposal, telling the Law Society Gazette: "I don't believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills. We know the people in our prisons and who come into our courts often come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds."

Politics is only ever the art of the possible and here we have the first sign that if an idea is crap and lots of influential people keep reminding you about how crap it is, eventually you have to admit defeat and move quickly to a plan B. This government seem to have had rather more crap ideas than most, hence we have yet another u-turn to add to the long list to date.

I commented the other day on how glum Chris Grayling was looking during the Chancellor's recent cuts speech. I think the tide is turning for this previously smug-looking guy as his probation omnishambles rolls on. In politics there's only so many misjudgements, u-turns, cock-ups and bad luck allowed before your job begins to look a little less secure than it once did and there's bound to be a summer cabinet re-shuffle in the offing. Just thought I'd mention it.     

Omnishambles Update 8

Frances Crook of the Howard League has written an interesting piece for the Our Kingdom Open Democracy website entitled 'Transforming Probation : Or Wrecking a Service that Works? In particular it sheds a bit more light on the anger and subsequent ambush on the government in the House of Lords last week. It's being widely perceived as sneaky and underhand to be trying to introduce probation decimation without proper parliamentary debate, as indeed it is! 

"The ideologically driven nature of the government’s plans to reform the probation service were laid bare in the House of Lords last week as peers accused the government of concealing information and undermining parliamentary scrutiny.

The Ministry of Justice is currently attempting to secure the legislative reforms needed (via the Offender Management Bill) to implement its ambitious ‘Transforming Rehabilitation' agenda which aims simultaneously to expand, improve, privatise and reduce the cost of the probation service, all before the next general election.

It might seem surprising that some of the House of Lords’ most vocal advocates for reform of the criminal justice system are opposing the government’s plans to introduce probation support to those released from short term sentences – a longstanding aim of many penal reformers. But many are concerned about the way the Ministry of Justice is planning to implement the reforms, replacing an experienced, localised and broadly successful public probation service with a large centralised system of corporations paid on the basis of payment by results. They find themselves baffled by the lack of detail available to determine whether or not the plans stand a chance of actually working."

Russell Webster's latest post highlights how Transforming Rehabilitation is quite likely to increase the prison population quite considerably, not just because the soon-to-be-supervised under 12 month prisoners are quite likely to breach their licences, but also because magistrates may well feel no great disinclination to impose short prison sentences, safe in the knowledge that all will be subject to supervision, including mandatory drug testing, upon release. He rather neatly summarises the situation:-

"As we know, one of the reasons that short terms prisoners have such high re-offending rates is that custody does such a lot of damage – houses and jobs are lost, supportive relationships are damaged, sometimes irretrievably.

It’s entirely possible that Transforming Rehabilitation will, paradoxically, result in higher short term custody rates and an increase in reoffending."

So it's certainly not going to save money either. The more you think about this whole daft idea, the more of an omnishambes it seems. Does anyone down there in the Treasury read this?

Musical Chairs

It's a good job Joe Kuipers, Chair of Avon and Somerset Probation Trust, tells us what's going on, because no one else does. In his latest blog post he reveals that all CEO's had to gather round their screens at 9 am sharp on Friday morning in order to take instructions from MoJ/Noms HQ in London.

Despite the recent House of Lords vote, clearly HQ are intent on giving every impression that the omnishambles is progressing nicely and according to the plan they are still making up as they go along. The two top civil service probation jobs will be advertised shortly and will be filled by open competition, one Director for England, and one for Wales - I can't wait to see who gets these. 

There will be a further 7 Deputy Director civil service posts in the National Probation Service, but it's not clear how these will be filled. I guess volunteers amongst current CEO's might like to chance their luck? 

As for the leaders of the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies, or newco's? Well these poisoned chalices will be available to any interested CEO's, but of course the successful appointee's will have absolutely no idea who will ultimately be their bosses and on what terms and conditions they will eventually be employed. 

Apparently those interested are encouraged to have a 'quiet word' with Noms HQ before the music stops. If not enough CEO's come forward, or are not successful for any reason, then it looks like the field might open up to other senior grades. Would it be reasonable to expect that any chief who finds themselves without a seat at the party might be tempted to fill the yawning gap that is a leadership voice of reasoned opposition?    

All this has got to be done before the autumn, and presumably at the same time as many of the same people are involved in setting up 'alternative delivery vehicles' such as mutuals. The omnishambles is clearly still progressing, so there's still a lot to do guys as we head for a summer of discontent all round.              

Outlook Improving

Those of us who tend towards the cynical end of the spectrum have laughingly remarked that the MoJ probably doesn't read all those carefully and lovingly crafted responses we so painstakingly put together during 'consultations'. Real cynics would say it's just a bit of a PR sham that you have to go through in order to demonstrate that you're 'listening' when in fact you're doing nothing of the sort. 

Of course politically it's probably quite important to demonstrate that you've 'consulted', even if you take no notice of what's been said, and I guess there might be some legal requirement to at least be seen to have 'gone through the motions'.

As we know, the legal profession made a huge number of submissions recently on the proposed cuts and changes to Legal Aid, but somewhat alarmingly, according to twitter conversations, people have been receiving automated e-mails saying "deleted not read - consultation now closed" . 

Now I'm assuming the responses involved were indeed submitted before the closing date, so it looks to me like the MoJ is going to have to come up with some convincing arguments pretty quickly in order to explain these e-mails. I understand the Bar Council and Criminal Bar Association are taking a keen interest in the matter and Chris Grayling does well to be concerned at the mere mention of Judicial Review in certain quarters. Things just keep getting worse for this guy don't they?

Still on the subject of our legal colleagues, it's great to hear that their No10 petition has passed the 100,000 mark and there is a strong move amongst the profession to encourage mutual aid  for our own somewhat more modest petition currently standing at just over 23,000 signatures. This is a very encouraging gesture and will serve to demonstrate to government that the criminal justice system is made up of complementary elements that work together and have many shared aims.

The last few months have undoubtedly been gloomy for probation and our future prospects, but I get a sense that there is indeed reason to feel that the outlook might well be improving. We've had the leak, the government defeat in the Lords, Paul Senior's lecture is on YouTube and a Justice Affairs Select Committee hearing is scheduled for next week. Napo has a new General Secretary and probably a new public affairs person very soon. The Lawyers are really getting their teeth stuck into the Lord Chancellor and some of their acerbic writing is just brilliant.

All that's missing is the theme tune and video - hang on here it is!    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L2uD0D69o0          

Vested Interests

George or is it Geoffrey Osborne irritates me at the best of times, but on Tuesday at the end of his speech announcing further government spending cuts, he excelled himself by dismissing all those resisting reforms as merely "vested interests". That's quite rich coming as it does from a representative of a group who vote on their own terms and conditions. 

But aren't these 'vested interests' the very same skilled and professional staff required to make sure that 'Transforming Rehabilitation' actually has any chance of working? The leaked MoJ Risk Register highlighted that one of the biggest risks the whole daft idea faced was a disillusioned and unco-operative workforce that now has to contemplate the loss of annual salary increments. These may be denigrated by the Chancellor, but how does he think key experienced staff can be retained on the front line without some recognition of their expertise?

During the speech I was pleased when the camera caught a glimpse of a very glum-looking Chris Grayling, no doubt contemplating the success he's had in thoroughly stirring up the 'vested interests' throughout the entire criminal justice system. The fruits of his endeavours are beginning to show with a spirited Commons debate on the legal aid reforms yesterday and an emergency session of the Justice Affairs Select Committee scheduled for next Tuesday. I notice Ian Lawrence the new Napo General Secretary is among those called to give evidence. 

Just as an aside, it's interesting to note that one Chris Grayling voted against the Labour government's 2007 Offender Management Bill at its third reading - the very legislation he is now using to dismantle the Probation Service. There's absolutely no principle or honour in much of politics and it should serve to confirm that winning the argument is all that matters, by what ever lawful means it takes.

It looks like the right wing press are beginning to get to grips with the likely consequences of 'Transforming Rehabilitation' as revealed in the official impact assessments - an extra 13,000 people going to prison each year. As quoted in the Daily Telegraph article, the minister Jeremy Wright commented:- 

"We expect a short-term rise in the population as a result of these tougher and longer restrictions on offenders and we have enough prison places to effectively deal with this for the longer term goal of cutting re-offending."  

These plans are supposed to save money of course, and reduce reoffending, but it's interesting to note that only yesterday the Treasury First Secretary Danny Alexander announced a new £100 million super-prison for 2,000 inmates to be built in Wrexham North Wales as part of the economic stimulation package for the UK economy. Apparently they are 'delighted' in Wales to have secured this investment, in stiff competition with North West England :-

"Going back to when I was leader of Wrexham Council, I have argued that there is a strong case for a new prison to be located in North Wales. Such a facility will certainly bring considerable economic benefits to our region and could lead to the creation of over a thousand jobs. This investment will provide a significant economic boost in our region. 

When I spoke to the Ministry of Justice and Danny Alexander, it was clear that they were impressed by the business case put forward in favour of North Wales. I, alongside my Welsh Liberal Democrat colleagues, have been working tirelessly with Liberal Democrat Ministers in London to ensure a prison in North Wales would become a reality. Many across North Wales, including the six local authorities, have worked together on this bid and it shows what can be done when we work as a team."   

Well that's certainly a ringing endorsement for more prisons! Lots of vested interest in keeping them filled by the sound of it too. I think I need a lie down.  

The No10 petition has topped 23,000 and is still available to sign here.    

The Sun Shines on the Righteous

I've already said that I feel Tuesday was a good day for probation. Well as it happens, and by a strange twist of fate, as the leaked Transforming Rehabilitation risk register story was breaking and their Lordships were preparing a nasty surprise for Chris Grayling, Professor Paul Senior was on his feet in sunny Cambridge delivering a carefully crafted and measured lecture on probation's future.

The annual Bill McWilliams Memorial Lecture has been a popular fixture in the probation calendar for the past 16 years and always strives to be topical. This year was no exception with Prof Senior provocatively choosing 'Privatising Probation : The Death Knell of a Much-Cherished Public Service? as his title. It seems the MoJ were only slightly appeased by the presence of a question mark, such is the level of sensitivity and insecurity about any serious debate on such matters nowadays.

I've had the pleasure of hearing Prof Senior lecture on a number of occasions and he never disappoints. With consummate mastery of the technology, a clear message and a perfect sense of the moment, he delivered a barn-storming performance. Whilst keeping his obviously passionate views about probation firmly under control, he never-the-less confirmed that if cut in half, 'probation' would indeed be written right through him.

The amazing thing about all this is just how many times we've been here before. An article from the Napo Journal in 1968 was entitled 'Is Probation to Die?' and of course it did in Scotland as criminal justice services became subsumed within Social Work Departments. 

Following a canter through our history, the missed opportunities and mistakes such as the breakup of ACOP and Ethnie Wallis cringingly promising David Blunkett that 'we were here to do his bidding', Prof Senior had much to say about our present predicament, but firmly from the point of view of the glass being half full, rather than half empty. He did not wish to depress us any further, but rather sound a note of optimism. Yes we had lost much of the good leadership in 2001, but he felt the current chiefs were doing their best in very difficult circumstances and the Probation Chiefs Association formed only in 2008 was being effective. 

He confirmed there was absolutely no evidence to support a case for change on the scale being proposed and there was nowhere in the world that was running offender rehabilitation in the way being suggested. Even those countries where the voluntary sector was involved, it was always firmly under state control. These plans were clearly not informed by evidence: they were definitely about saving money. At a time when arguably effective practice had never been better, it was ironic that the service faced break-up. The 21 contract areas, or 'chunks' as he called them, made no sense whatever, not having co-terminous boundaries with either Local Authorities or those of Police and Crime Commissioners.

Prof Senior did not wish to enter into the public good, private bad debate. The involvement of other players was a fact of life and he felt some good innovative practice was going on outside the public service. Interestingly he did not feel that the big winners from the bidding process would be the usual suspects such as G4S and Serco, but rather the myriad smaller service companies like Interserve, Mitie and Capita. Most had no knowledge of the work, but supposedly were good at 'back office' economies and would therefore have to rely completely on the expertise of the 'newco's' to inform and provide a quality service. The timescale for mutuals to be part of the process did not look promising. 

Although he had serious doubts about how effective the rump public probation service could be given it's limited size, Prof Senior was clear that the 'newco's' would be absolutely key in effectively keeping the professional flame burning. The establishment of a Probation Institute was long overdue and discussions were ongoing as to how this could be achieved.

There are 'straws in the wind' and none of us know with any degree of certainty how things are going to pan out. Despite everything, Prof Senior was clear that 'probation' remains a strong brand and has all the elements present to claim to be an institution. The term has widespread understanding and despite the demise of the 'probation order' many years ago, it was interesting to note that in service user surveys, clients still referred to being 'on probation'.  

The lecture was videoed and can be viewed here.          

A Good Day!

Politics is as much about being lucky as anything else and things aren't looking too good for Justice Secretary Chris Grayling right now. Having decided that the official internal risk register concerning his 'rehabilitation revolution' was too damning to publish someone, somewhere, promptly decided to leak it instead to the Guardian. 

I don't know why Chris should be so surprised because I rather thought this government was keen on being 'open and transparent' and it looks like some official merely decided to give effect to such aspirations. Despite this, according to Harry Fletcher, a high level leak enquiry has been instigated, so yet another case for 'Knacker of the Yard' to investigate.

Of course the trouble with being 'open and transparent' is when it's all bad news and the reason for trying to keep things secret becomes only too clear. According to Alan Travis at the Guardian:-  

The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has been warned by his most senior officials that plans to privatise 70% of the probation service lack support, are being pushed through on an aggressive timetable and potentially endanger public safety, leaked documents show.

They also warn that promised cost savings are unlikely to be achieved.

The official internal risk register for Grayling's "rehabilitation revolution", which he has so far refused to publish, warns that there is a more than 80% risk that his proposals will lead to "an unacceptable drop in operational performance" triggering "delivery failures and reputational damage".

The warnings are contained in a document marked "restricted policy", prepared for the Ministry of Justice board responsible for the rehabilitation programme. It also says there is a high risk of insufficient support within the probation service to push through the changes.

Among the concerns expressed by the authors of the risk register are the "considerable challenge" of closing down 2,000 separate computer packages and moving to a single shared services computer system.

The document also reveals that while many probation trusts are continuing to voice concerns about the proposals, nearly all are actively making preparations: "Our concerns focus on some trusts whose senior staff seem less able to make the transition themselves. Although these senior staff recognise their responsibility, as public servants, to manage the process of change, there is a difference between managing change and leading it."

The risk register uses traffic lights to describe the risks facing the programme, coding each risk factor as green, amber, red or black, but makes no assessment of the financial risk of not delivering the programme to the agreed timescale, quality or cost.

It appears that detailed Treasury approval for the proposals will only be secured after the framework bill reaches the statute book.

The senior MoJ officials rate the risk that a campaign against the proposals will delay or block them in parliament as a "code red". They reveal that the bill being debated in the House of Lords this week has deliberately been kept slim to "minimise the dependence of the reforms" on the passing of the legislation. Media messaging is also being used to "keep key elements of reform at the top of the agenda".

The register also makes clear there are anxieties at the highest level that not enough private sector and voluntary organisations will bid for the work (code red) and that once privatised the supervision programmes will be ineffective or fail to meet the required quality.

The highest rated concerns – code black – detailed in the document are:

• There is a more than 80% risk that an unacceptable drop in operational performance will lead to delivery failure and reputational damage. The report says the failures could be caused by industrial action, falling staff morale, staff departures or probation leadership disengaging.

• There is a 51% to 80% risk that insufficient support for the proposals by probation management and staff will lead to failure to implement the changes properly and on time.

• There is a 51% to 80% risk that cost savings will not be met.

 It's pretty damning stuff, but not at all surprising to those involved in trying to get their head around these daft and dangerous proposals. There must come a point when all sensible people realise that the hole they've been enthusiastically digging is in entirely the wrong place and going no where. 

A plan 'B' is urgently required and if Chris needed further encouragement, he need look no further than the spirited debate in the House of Lords yesterday that resulted in a government defeat on the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. As reported in the Daily Telegraph:- 

Peers dealt a blow to the new laws championed by Chris Grayling and raised doubts about the the "viability and affordability" of the Justice Secretary's strategy

The lords stopped the Offender Rehabilitation Bil in its tracks after a leaked Whitehall document suggested there is a high chance it would lead to an "unacceptable drop in performance" in the probation service.

They voted for an amendment proposed by Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons, which will send the Bill back to the House of Commons for more debate and a vote.

Last night, Lord Ramsbotham called on ministers to withdraw the plans as they are too complex to be achieved safely in such an "aggressive timetable".

"There is a more than 80 per cent likelihood that an unacceptable drop in operational performance during the programme leads to delivery failures and reputational damage," he said, quoting from the leaked risk register.

His amendment was strongly opposed by Lord McNally, a justice minister, who said the risk assessment was "not a forecast of what is going to happen".

However, he was powerless to stop the amendment, which was supported by Labour, from throwing "a considerable spanner" in the Government's plans.

I think yesterday was a good day for probation and should give us all reason to feel that this is not yet 'a done deal'. It behoves all who care about this profession to create as much mischief as possible over the next critical few weeks in order to frustrate these government attempts to destroy a proud and successful public service.  

PS The Hansard transcript can be viewed here.

Omnishambles Update 7

Another week - and therefore another potpourri of bits and pieces relating to the developing probation omnishambles.

The MoJ statistics published recently for the PbR pilots at HMP Peterborough and HMP Doncaster continue to attract much analysis and comment. I must be honest and say at the outset that I don't really understand all the terminology, so I've selected quotes that I believe convey the gist and leave others rather more knowledgeable than I to plough through the detail. 

First off is Simon Barstow of the LSE who feels the results 'are modest and hardly the stuff of revolution' - 

"Bringing about ‘rehabilitation revolution’ in the prison system was never going to be easy. This is an area, after all, that has suffered from a persistent sense of fatalism over the decades about the extent to which prisons can or should be expected to rehabilitate. And the fact that the system has prided itself on running at close-to-tolerance levels of capacity day-in day-out has also sustained a healthy appreciation of the constraints on the realms of possibility in this area.

So the PBR pilots at Peterborough and Doncaster have afforded opportunity to see what is or may be possible when prisons and those that work in them are directly incentivized to focus on rehabilitative outcomes. What might we expect in terms of reduction of reconviction rates from such explicit attention? And what is the potential for changing cultures and mind-sets around rehabilitation? This interim report provides a useful insight into the size of the challenge."

"What should we make of these results? Not surprisingly, Chris Grayling and the Ministry have described them as ‘encouraging’, heading in the right direction, and so on. Indeed, as the report shows, national reconviction rates have continued to climb, whereas the pilots have shown that trends can at least be set in reverse.

Four to 6 per cent change, however, seems modest. One might expect an individual prison, incentivized explicitly over at least two years to reduce the rate of reconviction amongst 700 or 800-or so prisoners leaving its care, would be able to make more than a 4 to 6 per cent impact. In Doncaster, this equates to changing the behaviour of 1 prisoner in every 20 prisoners released. In fact, as the report suggests, this is a continuation of a trend that had started in Doncaster long before the pilot was introduced. In Peterborough, the equivalent marginal impact is more like 1 prisoner in every 40."

Dan Corry of New Philanthropy Capital thinks the figures are 'too good to be true' -

Figures for Peterborough show a 6% fall in the frequency of re-conviction, in the context of a 16% rise nationally, which looks impressive. We must be cautious though - this comparison is not of course one against a proper control group, let alone a randomised control trial, so it could be easy to over claim. Participation in the programme has been optional for prisoners and even though final results are to be measured against the full cohort, the results are bound to be affected by some sample selection bias. Furthermore Peterborough prison was carefully selected for this project, the governor is very engaged and most prisoners are released into the local area (rather than being dispersed around the country)--all factors which will have enhanced this pilot's chances of working well.

There also seem to be some strange things going on in the national population that the MoJ compares the SIB pilot results to. There seems to be a very steep rise in frequency of reconviction events between the two periods September 2008 to March 2010 and September 2010 to March 2012. We see the same pattern with re-offending rates. Both these trends seem surprising especially after a fall in the reconviction rates in the earlier period, and this probably needs further investigation before we take it fully at face value as a 'fair' comparator.

Unsurprisingly less has been made of the results from the Doncaster pilot where the payment by results system has not been delivering the same apparent level of success. Here they adopted a binary measure of success, and achieved a 0.5% fall in re-conviction levels, compared with a national average fall of 0.3%. Of course we don't know if these are good or bad figures given the lack of control group but these results do not give so much cause for optimism.

Even Toby Eccles of Social Finance has doubts -

Any caveats? A number. This is on the basis of six month reoffending, not 12 months, so one could argue that the impact of our programme may lessen over time. The comparison group, of wider national reoffending, is not as carefully defined as the comparison group that we have developed in the Peterborough model proper, where the reoffending rates of a matched cohort from the police national computer is used. Given this, the comparator group 16% increase over a two year period is something of an outlier, but it is all we have to go on.

It's worth bearing in mind though that some people are questioning the whole basis of these MoJ statistics, so watch this space.

There's growing evidence to show that the lawyers are having rather better success with their campaign to stop damaging changes to the Legal Aid scheme than we are with our battle to save probation. In an astonishing move, Dominc Grieve the Attorney General has effectively distanced himself from Chris Graylings key proposals in responding to a letter from disgruntled lawyers. Even Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, has made his views known about cuts to legal aid. 

It's going to take ages for the MoJ to plough through the thousands of lawyer responses to the consultation exercise and there have been hundreds of critical articles posted on the internet. If the combined might of the legal profession manage to force a u-turn on legal aid, I think Graylings days at the MoJ are numbered. Whether that will be good news for us or not is another matter of course, but one can hope.   

Sadiq Khan the Labour Shadow Justice Secretary made a spirited defence of a public probation service in a speech last week, but as we all know it was the Labour Administration under Tony Blair that put the whole sorry mess in train when introducing contestability and altering the statutory basis of probation. Talking of such matters, it's interesting to be reminded of what Nick Clegg said about probation when in opposition and at the time of our centenary. Politician's words so often come easily and mean absolutely nothing!

Given that the aim of these 'reforms' is to save money, it's interesting to read the recently published Ministry of Justice impact assessment of the proposals and amongst the gems are estimates as to the likely 70% failure rate of supervision and hence return to prison of the under 12 month people resulting in 13,000 recalls or prison committals, requiring 600 places:-

"Our best estimate is that there could be a cost of around £27m per year associated with breaches of licence and supervision conditions for offenders released after serving sentences of less than 12 months (and additional breaches from extending the supervision period for offenders released after serving custodial sentences of 12 months or more but less than 2 years). Our low estimate is a cost of £6m per year, and our high estimate is £42m per year." 

Today the House of Lords will be considering the Report Stage of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill and we can therefore expect some spirited opposition to the government's daft and risky proposals. There is an excellent briefing document available here prepared by the Howard League. The level of debate in the Upper House is always far greater than in the Commons and of course there are huge numbers of non-party aligned cross benchers to liven things up a bit.  

Jeremy Forrest

For those that are finding the seemingly endless saga of the probation service privatisation a bit tedious, I thought I'd take time out to comment on the Jeremy Forrest case, mainly because I've found the response in some quarters a bit disturbing to say the least.

It came as no great surprise to me that the Jury took little time to convict Forrest of child abduction, even though a significant element of his defence was that the victim was potentially suicidal at the time and he took her to France because he feared for her safety if he had not. Of course a minor cannot legally give consent to such a thing, nor sexual activity with an adult, and therefore Forrest was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment both for abduction and several counts of sexual activity with a minor.

Now given that Forrest breached his position of trust as a school teacher, and almost certainly used his privileged position in order to 'groom' the victim, I don't think many probation officers will be surprised at the length of sentence that was handed down. Others however, both on blogsites and twitter, seem to feel very differently indeed. Amazingly Frank Chalk, the former teacher and author of a hugely popular blog, just had this to say:-

So 30 year old Maths teacher Jeremy Forrest got five and a half years. Whilst we probably agree that what he did was wrong, should he really spend more time in prison than a mugger,  a burglar who attacked a woman in her own home, or a robber who almost killed his victim?  

Blimey - just 'probably agree that what he did was wrong'. Where is Frank's moral compass pointing exactly? Comparing the sentence with other serious but completely dissimilar offences is another matter entirely and not at all helpful I would suggest. But Frank is not the only one to raise doubts about whether Forrest has done anything wrong at all. 

For some time I've been reading a very popular blog by John Ward. He writes what appear to be extremely well-informed pieces on a range of topics that could be broadly termed as providing evidence of conspiracies. One of these concerns historic sexual abuse of children in care by members of the British Establishment. In particular he feels that the recent spate of historic sex offence prosecutions involving geriatric celebrities is a deliberate distraction in order to protect members of the Establishment from a similar fate. 

He is also highly suspicious of the appearance of a number of what might be termed 'apologists' for sex offending and I happen to share this view and have referred to it previously. So it is with considerable dismay that I read his recent somewhat hysterical piece on the Forrest case that serves to effectively give support to the apologist agenda (I have removed a photo and reference to the victims name so as not to be in breach of a Court Order):-

"How utterly predictable the Establishment of our nation is. Let me present my evidence for seeing it this way: but let me at the outset once more repeat that I do not condone what Mr Forrest did, because he betrayed a position of trust. I said at the time, “Fire the bugger”. But to give him a five and a half year sentence while child-buggerers walk free? It’s beyond belief.

He is 30, she is 15. That’s roughly the same age difference between my estranged wife and I.

Ms X has developed an obvious bust, hips and all the stance of a woman. To accuse Forrest of unlawful sexual intercourse with a child – on the basis of this shot alone – is ridiculous.

The Court – and the Judge – openly admit that Ms X gave her full and enthusiastic consent to their escape abroad. So I need someone – anyone – to explain for me please: how can you abduct a mature teenager who is a willing accomplice to flight? Isn’t this like rape with consent?

Now get this: Judge Lawson banned him from working or volunteering with children and unsupervised contact with children forever. Utterly astonishing."

"Now, I think Jeremy Forrest should repent the sin of being a teacher in a position of responsibility, while letting his sexual urges get the better of him. But the way the word is used in the article, the imputation is clear: he must be an incorrigible abuser of children. Bollocks. And, is he guilty – two key words here – of child abduction? Absolute crap – no he isn’t. Neither word can be legally proved – indeed, in a case like this they should have been ruled inadmissable."

Now probation officers would straight away spot the cognitive distortions contained in these quotes and that are so typically employed by many of our sex offending clients in order to try and justify their actions. But alarmingly many commentators on the article are completely supportive of the hypothesis that Forrest hadn't really done much wrong, so I was moved to add my dissenting voice:-

John – This is the first comment I’ve been tempted to make publicly, although I’ve been an avid reader for some time.

May I respectfully say that you are in danger of conflating two separate issues and in the process are in danger of appearing to be an apologist for sex offending – a situation I know you would wish to avoid.

As a probation officer I have some experience of these matters and in my view Forrest was dealt with fairly by the criminal justice system. The sentence is wholly unexceptional for such offences committed by someone in a position of trust where minors are concerned. It was also the result of a ‘plea bargain’ in relation to the fresh matters only put to him today, so his barrister will know he was fairly treated.

You and others may not agree with our current age of consent, but seeing as it is 16, in law there is and in my view, never can be any possibility of a minor ‘giving consent’ to anything sexual with an adult. It has to be that way in order to both protect the interests of minors and to ensure responsibility remains completely and unambiguously with the adult and perpetrator.

Judgements about appearance and possible levels of maturity of the minor are completely irrelevant in a case like this. Forrest was always going to get a lengthy custodial sentence because he breached his professional duty and the trust placed in him not to engage in any inappropriate relationship between pupil and teacher. It was his duty to rebuff and not encourage any advances from his pupils – simple as – or suffer the considerable consequences – which he has. Any report prepared by myself would have seen absolutely no possibility of any alternative to a lengthy custodial sentence, particularly as I agree with the prosecution case that he effectively ‘groomed’ the victim. (By the way, he’ll only serve half.)

I feel I must be even more blunt. To continue with your hypothesis, which has all the hallmarks I’m afraid of supporting the ‘apologist’ agenda, is in my view going to seriously detract from your main aim of keeping up the pressure regarding organised paedophile rings both historic and current. I think we all want to see those responsible, particularly from the Establishment, brought to justice, but this distraction really isn’t going to help.

Cheers,

The trial Judge noted that the evidence by the victim in court differed considerably to that initially given to the police and collusion is suspected. It's entirely possible that further charges of Perverting the Course of Justice might result. Evidence has also come to light indicating that Forrest had attempted to 'groom' other female pupils.