Private probation firms fail to cut rates of reoffending
Only two of 21 regional companies have reduced reoffending among low to medium-risk offenders. The vast majority of companies set up to tackle reoffending as part of a controversial drive to privatise the probation service have failed to meet their targets, in a substantial embarrassment for the government.Dramatic official figures have revealed that only two of the 21 regional companies set up to oversee low and medium-risk offenders have managed to reduce the number of new offences committed by reoffenders.
The revelation comes amid claims that the probation system is in crisis. Senior figures in the service warn that the companies involved lack the resources to do the job, while staff shortages have already meant that some ex-offenders are supervised by telephone calls. The failure emerges just weeks after the public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, warned that the new “payment by results” system meant that a failure to hit reoffending targets could blow a further hole in the service’s finances. The companies involved have already required an extra £340m.
It is another sign of the difficulties facing public services after years of public spending cuts. Theresa May is already under pressure over NHS funding, with a crisis also hitting the nation’s prisons system. The supervision of offenders not deemed high-risk was handed to 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) in 2014, as part of a privatisation drive by the former justice secretary Chris Grayling. Companies were to be partly paid in relation to their success in reducing reoffending.
However, official figures from the first year of the new system’s operation reveal that, among the prisoners who went on to reoffend, the average number of crimes committed in 2015-16 went up in all but two areas compared with 2011. It means that only the companies operating in Merseyside and Northumbria met their targets and are in line to receive a full payout from the Ministry of Justice. The remaining 19 could have a portion of their income cut as a result of the “payment by results” system.
These results follow a devastating official report at the end of last year in which Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, said there was “no clear evidence that payment by results linked to reoffending rates [had] made any difference to the life chances of these or others under probation supervision.
“In those cases we inspected, only a handful of individuals had received any real help with housing, jobs or an addiction, let alone managing debt or getting back into education or training,” she said. “What is more, about one in 10 people were released without a roof over their heads.
“CRCs are too often doing little more than signposting and form-filling. Apart from Wales and Durham CRCs, we find that CRCs we have inspected are making little material difference to the prospects of individuals upon release, and yet this work is so important in breaking the cycle of offending.”
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the data revealed significant flaws in the privatised service. “The rhetoric at the time of the privatisation was all about payment by results and improving the fight against reoffending,” he said. “But that was really just a smokescreen for something that was about cutting costs and taking money out of the system.
“When you put these figures alongside Glenys Stacey’s report, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this was about taking money out. When you boil it down, this is a service where companies are failing and being paid to fail because of a botched privatisation.”
The Ministry of Justice said that there were now fewer offenders overall and that those who remained in the criminal justice system were more prolific offenders – which explained why the numbers of new offences per reoffender were increasing.
“Our probation reforms mean we are monitoring 40,000 offenders who would previously have been released with no supervision,” a spokesperson said. “Overall, community rehabilitation companies have reduced the number of people reoffending, but they need to do more to ensure we have a service that keeps the public safe and helps offenders turn their back on crime. Probation officers are doing an incredibly professional job, and we will continue to work closely with CRCs to improve performance.”
The department also said that those companies that had failed to meet targets would face deductions in their fees.
The revelation comes amid claims that the probation system is in crisis. Senior figures in the service warn that the companies involved lack the resources to do the job, while staff shortages have already meant that some ex-offenders are supervised by telephone calls. The failure emerges just weeks after the public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, warned that the new “payment by results” system meant that a failure to hit reoffending targets could blow a further hole in the service’s finances. The companies involved have already required an extra £340m.
It is another sign of the difficulties facing public services after years of public spending cuts. Theresa May is already under pressure over NHS funding, with a crisis also hitting the nation’s prisons system. The supervision of offenders not deemed high-risk was handed to 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) in 2014, as part of a privatisation drive by the former justice secretary Chris Grayling. Companies were to be partly paid in relation to their success in reducing reoffending.
However, official figures from the first year of the new system’s operation reveal that, among the prisoners who went on to reoffend, the average number of crimes committed in 2015-16 went up in all but two areas compared with 2011. It means that only the companies operating in Merseyside and Northumbria met their targets and are in line to receive a full payout from the Ministry of Justice. The remaining 19 could have a portion of their income cut as a result of the “payment by results” system.
These results follow a devastating official report at the end of last year in which Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, said there was “no clear evidence that payment by results linked to reoffending rates [had] made any difference to the life chances of these or others under probation supervision.
“In those cases we inspected, only a handful of individuals had received any real help with housing, jobs or an addiction, let alone managing debt or getting back into education or training,” she said. “What is more, about one in 10 people were released without a roof over their heads.
“CRCs are too often doing little more than signposting and form-filling. Apart from Wales and Durham CRCs, we find that CRCs we have inspected are making little material difference to the prospects of individuals upon release, and yet this work is so important in breaking the cycle of offending.”
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the data revealed significant flaws in the privatised service. “The rhetoric at the time of the privatisation was all about payment by results and improving the fight against reoffending,” he said. “But that was really just a smokescreen for something that was about cutting costs and taking money out of the system.
“When you put these figures alongside Glenys Stacey’s report, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this was about taking money out. When you boil it down, this is a service where companies are failing and being paid to fail because of a botched privatisation.”
The Ministry of Justice said that there were now fewer offenders overall and that those who remained in the criminal justice system were more prolific offenders – which explained why the numbers of new offences per reoffender were increasing.
“Our probation reforms mean we are monitoring 40,000 offenders who would previously have been released with no supervision,” a spokesperson said. “Overall, community rehabilitation companies have reduced the number of people reoffending, but they need to do more to ensure we have a service that keeps the public safe and helps offenders turn their back on crime. Probation officers are doing an incredibly professional job, and we will continue to work closely with CRCs to improve performance.”
The department also said that those companies that had failed to meet targets would face deductions in their fees.
--oo00oo--
Whilst nothing much appears to be happening to address matters in England, something is going on in Wales:-
Conversation Starters
That the TR “reforms” to Probation are an unmitigated omnishambles is now beyond debate. It is however, important that this point continues to be made, and evidenced, not least as there is a risk that politicians and policy-makers will take one look and consign the whole thing to the “too difficult” box if they are allowed to. It is notable that successive ministers, senior and junior, have in conversation dropped the “and probation” bit of their job title in HMPPS. If we don’t make the case, we will be ignored.
Richard Burgon MP, our Shadow Justice Minister, has grasped the “and probation” suffix, and has announced, at the last NAPO AGM and elsewhere, that a Labour government would take the CRC’s “back into” the public sector. So far so good; but the CRC’s cannot “go back” anywhere, as the local Trusts from whence they were purchased, have gone: The NPS is, according to the Chief Inspector, doing better, but the NPS within the Civil Service is strangled by bureaucracy, failing IT, short of staff, and one suspects, increasingly expensive for what it achieves.
The Chief Inspector has also observed that while the NPS is doing better, in risk assessment and management, the work of rehabilitation is not given sufficient attention. A probation department without rehabilitation as its beating heart, is not “Probation”. Nor is it performing its function of enabling desistence for the time after its control and enforce role recedes from each individual case.
The CRC contracts will be up for review/renewal in three years’ time. By then the cracks will be showing in the NPS. It is without doubt a matter of urgency that a conversation is had about “What next?”
The professional, effective, humane Probation Service which we can describe and to which we can aspire is a great thing. Getting there is a whole other matter, and as the saying goes “I wouldn’t start from here”. Regardless of the sorry state of affairs that Probation is in, we are on a journey, and we should look to taking a role in navigating this, if the flickering but not yet extinguished flame of Probation is not to be snuffed.
The perils of ill considered, untested and hasty reforms don’t need rehearsing here. Those of us who lobbied and campaigned through the whole TR debacle will be more than aware that this required a lot of explanation and education of those in a position to make or affect policy decisions. The “What next” conversations must start now.
To that end, NAPO is hosting an event in the Welsh Assembly on 7th February. In September 2017 the First Minster of Wales Carwyn Jones announced a Commission on Justice in Wales, and in November announced its membership and terms of reference: of which the first is “promoting better outcomes in terms of access to justice, reducing crime and promoting rehabilitation.”
NAPO Cymru has invited Assembly members and other “interested and interesting” guests, to a panel discussion under the catchy title “How do you solve a problem like Probation”. The event will open with a few words from Commission Member Juliet Lyon CBE, and there will be speeches from Dean Rogers, NAPO Assistant General Secretary; Anne Fox, CEO of “Clinks”; Dr Jill Annison, Associate Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice Team, University of Plymouth School of Law, Criminology & Government; Darren McGarvey, author of the acclaimed “Poverty Safari”, broadcaster and performer; and Bernie Bowen Thomson, CEO of Safer Wales. There will be time for lively discussion with the invited audience, which includes Probation staff, Police and Crime Commissioners, Welsh Government Policy staff, Local Authority leads, and academics. This is aimed to be the start of a conversation about the future of Probation in Wales. Or a conversation in Wales about the future of Probation. Take your pick.
Su McConnel
Communications Officer
NAPO Cymru
--oo00oo--
Napo press release :-
NAPO TO START A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PROBATION AT THE WELSH ASSEMBLY ON FEBRUARY 7th 2018
The leading union in the Probation service Napo, are launching a national conversation on the future structure of probation delivery and accountability at a panel discussion to be held at the Welsh Assembly on Wednesday 7th February.
Napo claim that Chris Grayling’s “Transforming Rehabilitation” (TR) revolution has been an unmitigated disaster – the subject of hugely critical reports by the NAO and HMI Probation at the end of 2017 and now the subject of parallel investigations by the Public Accounts Committee and the Justice Select Committee.
On-going risks identified by staff include:
At the Welsh Assembly Panel event, sponsored by Jayne Bryant AM, Mr Rogers will be joined by author Darren McGarvey; Dr Jill Annison from the University of Plymouth; Safer wales CEO, Bernie Bowen-Thomas and Clinks CEO, Anne Fox. The event takes place at the Media Briefing Room between 12 and 1.30pm.
Napo are campaigning across Wales and England saying that a new delivery model will need to reunite probation locally; increase local accountability and co-operation between local stakeholders; and remove the profit motive which skews commissioning and stifles local innovation.
Dean Rogers added: “Privatisation hasn’t worked in large part because there was never a market and no profit to be made to start with. Local CRC’s commissioning local providers isn’t working because CRC’s are making a loss and need to keep everything for themselves. But the nationalised bit doesn’t work either, because this is a local service that needs to be locally accountable and respond to local needs. Napo’s role is not to have all the answers but we should be generating debate and asking all of the right questions”
Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence, who provided Oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee inquiry this week said: “This is an exciting initiative and Wales seems like the right place to start the national debate because people know about devolution and are well placed to explore possible options. Urgent consideration needs to be given to the key issues of probation funding and the impact on public safety of a fragmented service.”
Specific briefing note to Editors: With an emerging political consensus that the TR model will not survive past the current contracts which run until 2022, Napo is eager to move the debate from simply identifying what is accepted to not be working and towards what a new model could look like. In this they recognise that part of Chris Grayling’s problem was a failure to properly engage with professionals and stakeholders and build a consensus around reforms that could genuinely work.
DEAN ROGERS has been Assistant General Secretary of Napo since 2013. He has been representing and negotiating for employees across the public sector for over 25 years working with different unions and over 60 different employers including government departments and local authorities, numerous private sector contractors, mutual and charities.
In Napo, he’s the strategic lead for Operational Strategy, covering legal support and representation, collective bargaining, alongside developing Napo’s internal structures and capacity to meet member needs and expectations in their ever more complex working environments.
Dean is an Associate of the CIPD and is particularly interested in organisational design, culture and change. He writes regularly about challenges in criminal justice and for unions and the labour movement, as well about wider social and political challenges in our post-rational age. See more here.
ANNE FOX is Clinks’ Chief Executive Officer and joined in October 2015. Clinks is the national infrastructure charity supporting voluntary organisations working to support people in the criminal justice system and their families across England and Wales. Clinks also manages the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance and in 2017 merged Women’s Breakout within the organisation.
Anne’s role is to provide inspirational leadership to the organisation and be an influential advocate on behalf of the voluntary sector working with people in the criminal justice system and their families.
Previously the Director of The Communication Trust - a consortium of over 50 not-for-profit organisations working to support children and young people’s speech, language and communication in England - she has worked in the voluntary and community sector in the UK and Republic of Ireland in campaigning, policy, public affairs and communications roles for 19 years. With an educational background in social policy and postgraduate training in public relations she has led campaigning, communications and policy in national parenting and one-parent family organisations and managed high profile campaigns at Mencap - the UK’s leading learning disability charity.
DARREN McGARVEY aka LOKI grew up in Pollok, Glasgow. He is a writer, performer, community activist and columnist, and former rapper-in-residence at Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit.
He was part of the Poverty Truth Commission that was hosted in Glasgow in 2009 and has presented eight programmes for BBC Scotland exploring the root causes of anti-social behaviour and social deprivation. His recently published “Poverty Safari” “lays down challenges to both the left and the right, It is hard to think of a more timely, powerful or necessary book” (JK Rowling)
JILL ANNISON is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) within the Criminology and Criminal Justice Team in the University of Plymouth School of Law, Criminology & Government. She is the Senior Personal Tutor and the Academic Liaison Partnerships person (ALP) for the CCJS programme in 2017-2018.
She started her professional career as a probation officer and has a particular interest in the links between policy, practice and research. Published work includes Annison, J., Brayford, J. and Deering, J. (eds) (2015); Women and Criminal Justice: From the Corston Report to Transforming Rehabilitation. Bristol: Policy Press, and Ugwudike, P., Raynor, P. and Annison, J. (eds) (2018) Evidence-Based Skills in Criminal Justice: International Research on Supporting Rehabilitation and Desistance. Bristol: Policy Press.
BERNIE BOWEN-THOMSON is CEO of Safer Wales. Bernie has a Masters degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice (MSc) and over 18 years’ experience of working in the community safety and criminal justice field. Passionate about social justice, Bernie has a strong track record of developing and delivering evidence-based services to improve the lives of groups who are stigmatised by, or invisible to, the rest of society.
These groups include victims of domestic or sexual violence, substance users, the street homeless, sex workers, victims of sexual exploitation or trafficking, women involved with the criminal justice system and those who fall into more than one of these categories, who may have mental health needs.
Bernie has been instrumental is developing innovative and multi-agency services to meet the complex needs of a number of marginalised groups, including:
As CEO of Safer Wales, Bernie is committed to continuing to develop services that lead the way in preventing today’s social problems becoming tomorrow’s crises.
Whilst nothing much appears to be happening to address matters in England, something is going on in Wales:-
Conversation Starters
That the TR “reforms” to Probation are an unmitigated omnishambles is now beyond debate. It is however, important that this point continues to be made, and evidenced, not least as there is a risk that politicians and policy-makers will take one look and consign the whole thing to the “too difficult” box if they are allowed to. It is notable that successive ministers, senior and junior, have in conversation dropped the “and probation” bit of their job title in HMPPS. If we don’t make the case, we will be ignored.
Richard Burgon MP, our Shadow Justice Minister, has grasped the “and probation” suffix, and has announced, at the last NAPO AGM and elsewhere, that a Labour government would take the CRC’s “back into” the public sector. So far so good; but the CRC’s cannot “go back” anywhere, as the local Trusts from whence they were purchased, have gone: The NPS is, according to the Chief Inspector, doing better, but the NPS within the Civil Service is strangled by bureaucracy, failing IT, short of staff, and one suspects, increasingly expensive for what it achieves.
The Chief Inspector has also observed that while the NPS is doing better, in risk assessment and management, the work of rehabilitation is not given sufficient attention. A probation department without rehabilitation as its beating heart, is not “Probation”. Nor is it performing its function of enabling desistence for the time after its control and enforce role recedes from each individual case.
The CRC contracts will be up for review/renewal in three years’ time. By then the cracks will be showing in the NPS. It is without doubt a matter of urgency that a conversation is had about “What next?”
The professional, effective, humane Probation Service which we can describe and to which we can aspire is a great thing. Getting there is a whole other matter, and as the saying goes “I wouldn’t start from here”. Regardless of the sorry state of affairs that Probation is in, we are on a journey, and we should look to taking a role in navigating this, if the flickering but not yet extinguished flame of Probation is not to be snuffed.
The perils of ill considered, untested and hasty reforms don’t need rehearsing here. Those of us who lobbied and campaigned through the whole TR debacle will be more than aware that this required a lot of explanation and education of those in a position to make or affect policy decisions. The “What next” conversations must start now.
To that end, NAPO is hosting an event in the Welsh Assembly on 7th February. In September 2017 the First Minster of Wales Carwyn Jones announced a Commission on Justice in Wales, and in November announced its membership and terms of reference: of which the first is “promoting better outcomes in terms of access to justice, reducing crime and promoting rehabilitation.”
NAPO Cymru has invited Assembly members and other “interested and interesting” guests, to a panel discussion under the catchy title “How do you solve a problem like Probation”. The event will open with a few words from Commission Member Juliet Lyon CBE, and there will be speeches from Dean Rogers, NAPO Assistant General Secretary; Anne Fox, CEO of “Clinks”; Dr Jill Annison, Associate Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice Team, University of Plymouth School of Law, Criminology & Government; Darren McGarvey, author of the acclaimed “Poverty Safari”, broadcaster and performer; and Bernie Bowen Thomson, CEO of Safer Wales. There will be time for lively discussion with the invited audience, which includes Probation staff, Police and Crime Commissioners, Welsh Government Policy staff, Local Authority leads, and academics. This is aimed to be the start of a conversation about the future of Probation in Wales. Or a conversation in Wales about the future of Probation. Take your pick.
Su McConnel
Communications Officer
NAPO Cymru
--oo00oo--
Napo press release :-
NAPO TO START A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PROBATION AT THE WELSH ASSEMBLY ON FEBRUARY 7th 2018
The leading union in the Probation service Napo, are launching a national conversation on the future structure of probation delivery and accountability at a panel discussion to be held at the Welsh Assembly on Wednesday 7th February.
Napo claim that Chris Grayling’s “Transforming Rehabilitation” (TR) revolution has been an unmitigated disaster – the subject of hugely critical reports by the NAO and HMI Probation at the end of 2017 and now the subject of parallel investigations by the Public Accounts Committee and the Justice Select Committee.
On-going risks identified by staff include:
- Huge shortages of staff across privatised Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), largely due to job cuts due to loss making contracts;
- A staff morale crisis in the National Probation Service (NPS), run by the MoJ, arising from staff shortages, low staff morale, high workloads and payroll problems due to systemic failures in managing different pay and pension systems after the staff transfer;
- Knowledge gaps between staff working for the different organisations about offenders when cases are transferred between the two separate organisations;
- Fears about contract stability, especially following the recent collapse of Carillion.
At the Welsh Assembly Panel event, sponsored by Jayne Bryant AM, Mr Rogers will be joined by author Darren McGarvey; Dr Jill Annison from the University of Plymouth; Safer wales CEO, Bernie Bowen-Thomas and Clinks CEO, Anne Fox. The event takes place at the Media Briefing Room between 12 and 1.30pm.
Napo are campaigning across Wales and England saying that a new delivery model will need to reunite probation locally; increase local accountability and co-operation between local stakeholders; and remove the profit motive which skews commissioning and stifles local innovation.
Dean Rogers added: “Privatisation hasn’t worked in large part because there was never a market and no profit to be made to start with. Local CRC’s commissioning local providers isn’t working because CRC’s are making a loss and need to keep everything for themselves. But the nationalised bit doesn’t work either, because this is a local service that needs to be locally accountable and respond to local needs. Napo’s role is not to have all the answers but we should be generating debate and asking all of the right questions”
Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence, who provided Oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee inquiry this week said: “This is an exciting initiative and Wales seems like the right place to start the national debate because people know about devolution and are well placed to explore possible options. Urgent consideration needs to be given to the key issues of probation funding and the impact on public safety of a fragmented service.”
Specific briefing note to Editors: With an emerging political consensus that the TR model will not survive past the current contracts which run until 2022, Napo is eager to move the debate from simply identifying what is accepted to not be working and towards what a new model could look like. In this they recognise that part of Chris Grayling’s problem was a failure to properly engage with professionals and stakeholders and build a consensus around reforms that could genuinely work.
--oo00oo--
In Napo, he’s the strategic lead for Operational Strategy, covering legal support and representation, collective bargaining, alongside developing Napo’s internal structures and capacity to meet member needs and expectations in their ever more complex working environments.
Dean is an Associate of the CIPD and is particularly interested in organisational design, culture and change. He writes regularly about challenges in criminal justice and for unions and the labour movement, as well about wider social and political challenges in our post-rational age. See more here.
ANNE FOX is Clinks’ Chief Executive Officer and joined in October 2015. Clinks is the national infrastructure charity supporting voluntary organisations working to support people in the criminal justice system and their families across England and Wales. Clinks also manages the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance and in 2017 merged Women’s Breakout within the organisation.
Anne’s role is to provide inspirational leadership to the organisation and be an influential advocate on behalf of the voluntary sector working with people in the criminal justice system and their families.
Previously the Director of The Communication Trust - a consortium of over 50 not-for-profit organisations working to support children and young people’s speech, language and communication in England - she has worked in the voluntary and community sector in the UK and Republic of Ireland in campaigning, policy, public affairs and communications roles for 19 years. With an educational background in social policy and postgraduate training in public relations she has led campaigning, communications and policy in national parenting and one-parent family organisations and managed high profile campaigns at Mencap - the UK’s leading learning disability charity.
DARREN McGARVEY aka LOKI grew up in Pollok, Glasgow. He is a writer, performer, community activist and columnist, and former rapper-in-residence at Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit.
He was part of the Poverty Truth Commission that was hosted in Glasgow in 2009 and has presented eight programmes for BBC Scotland exploring the root causes of anti-social behaviour and social deprivation. His recently published “Poverty Safari” “lays down challenges to both the left and the right, It is hard to think of a more timely, powerful or necessary book” (JK Rowling)
JILL ANNISON is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) within the Criminology and Criminal Justice Team in the University of Plymouth School of Law, Criminology & Government. She is the Senior Personal Tutor and the Academic Liaison Partnerships person (ALP) for the CCJS programme in 2017-2018.
She started her professional career as a probation officer and has a particular interest in the links between policy, practice and research. Published work includes Annison, J., Brayford, J. and Deering, J. (eds) (2015); Women and Criminal Justice: From the Corston Report to Transforming Rehabilitation. Bristol: Policy Press, and Ugwudike, P., Raynor, P. and Annison, J. (eds) (2018) Evidence-Based Skills in Criminal Justice: International Research on Supporting Rehabilitation and Desistance. Bristol: Policy Press.
BERNIE BOWEN-THOMSON is CEO of Safer Wales. Bernie has a Masters degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice (MSc) and over 18 years’ experience of working in the community safety and criminal justice field. Passionate about social justice, Bernie has a strong track record of developing and delivering evidence-based services to improve the lives of groups who are stigmatised by, or invisible to, the rest of society.
These groups include victims of domestic or sexual violence, substance users, the street homeless, sex workers, victims of sexual exploitation or trafficking, women involved with the criminal justice system and those who fall into more than one of these categories, who may have mental health needs.
Bernie has been instrumental is developing innovative and multi-agency services to meet the complex needs of a number of marginalised groups, including:
- The Women’s Turnaround Project
- Street Life Project
- The Safer Wales Service for young girls who are sexually exploited or at risk of sexual exploitation.
As CEO of Safer Wales, Bernie is committed to continuing to develop services that lead the way in preventing today’s social problems becoming tomorrow’s crises.
