All Aboard HMS Probation

"It seems working for MoJ/HMPPS/NPS has suddenly become a joyous, well-rewarded experience, or...... the civil service muzzles are a snug fit."

'Fair wind and following sea' for HMS Probation - extract from yesterday's speech by Admiral of the Fleet Buckland:-  

Now, something that is little known about our probation service is that it plays a role in how the system supports victims – explaining at parole hearings the impact of crimes upon them and making sure that licence conditions prevent offenders from intimidating or trying to contact them in any way.

Probation when you think about it is one of the most important ships in the justice fleet. It can be the difference between an offender allowing themselves to be swept back into a life of crime or navigating towards a law-abiding future on their release.

With over 80% of people who receive a caution or conviction now going on to reoffend, we have got to ensure that probation is ship shape and truly set up to turn offenders’ lives around for good, which is why this year and last year we have invested an extra £155m into probation services.

And we’ve also recruited record numbers of probation officers – more than a thousand trainees were employed last year, and we plan to bring in 1,500 more this year. Now, all this investment will ensure that we have the personnel to keep a closer eye on dangerous criminals and to create more opportunities to rehabilitate offenders, and working with police to swiftly get a grip of those who continue to commit crime

But in order to really get results we also needed to get the right structure in place, which is why last month we unified the Probation Service. This was the culmination of more than two years’ planning and I am hugely grateful to colleagues across probation for making it happen.

Now, by unifying the Probation Service, we are putting down a strong foundation for change, with twelve probation areas across England and Wales led by Regional Probation Directors who are now responsible for the delivery of the services with whom the courts, Police and Crime Commissioners, the police, and indeed all criminal justice partners can work.

We also want to be more joined-up across every agency of the state. Now, I have said many times that every department in government should be a criminal justice department – because policing, education, and health among many others have a role to play in preventing people from reoffending and offending in the first place. The new model for probation will I believe make it much easier for our response to be a seamless, all-encompassing one – to really help drive those results.

This bigger, better probation service will allow us to take a more consistent approach to supervising offenders at every level of risk and to drive good practice up and down the country. Again, leadership is going to be crucial to this, with the Regional Directors setting the strategic direction and making sure that the entire Probation Service collaborates to scale up what works.

Now, the new Probation Service is already making much more use of the technology that’s on offer to us today, like GPS and sobriety tagging. These innovations will drive better compliance with conditions placed upon offenders to help them to learn self-discipline and to empower them to avoid the kind of negative influences that can drag them back into criminality. And crucially they will enable us to act quickly if offenders are going off course, to respond appropriately to get them back on the right track and, if necessary, to put them back into custody to keep the public safe and to prevent crime.

Unpaid work will be the highly visible shopfront of our new Probation Service – because we want to make sure that justice in our country is done and seen to be done. There are literally millions of hours of unpaid work handed down to offenders as part of their sentence every year and we will make sure they are served more visibly – to help improve the environment in our towns, our cities, and our countryside. My hope is that this will not only clean up neighbourhoods but also act as a deterrent to would be criminals, making them fully aware that punishments will be served in the full gaze of their local communities.

The new Probation Service will also have a refreshed set of national standards – to ensure that there are more face-to-face meetings and more frequent supervision for offenders with the highest risk or most complex needs. And in addition, this new framework will strengthen probation staff’s role in tackling social and domestic issues – working in partnership with police and social services to protect children, to protect partners, and to protect others from domestic and sexual abuse.

Now, unification of the Probation Service has taken huge amounts of thought and planning over a long period of time. We want to make sure that the process continues to be a success as these new arrangements take hold. Over the summer, I therefore intend to publish a road map setting out the path for the next 18 months – to embed, to improve, and to foster innovation in the delivery of the Probation Service.

Now the record investment we’ve put into probation, not just in cash terms but in personnel as well, mean that it is better able than ever to cut crime in our country. And through the unification of services, we’re making sure that probation is more joined-up, better equipped, and more able than ever to ensure justice is done and seen to be done.

All this work will position probation as an integral part of our criminal justice fleet – to overhaul our response to crime and cut rates of offending in our country for generations to come.

Now, I would like to finish with prisons – without doubt the largest ship in the criminal justice fleet. As such, it makes sense that they need to be first rate and able to set the direction of travel.

There are about 65,000 sentenced offenders in our prisons today. By keeping this criminal minority out of our communities, prisons make sure they cannot do further harm to the law-abiding majority in our country.

But prisons are so much more than just mandatory boarding houses for criminals. In the course of a prisoner’s sentence, the prison service does vital rehabilitative work that can help us to address the amount of crime that now comes from reoffending, as well as its staggering estimated cost of over £18 billion per year. In fact, our most recent data suggests that around a third of sentenced prisoners have 15 or more previous cautions and convictions.

Now, like all of us, during the COVID-19 pandemic prisons were forced to do things differently – finding new ways to keep providing decent prison environments as well as their day-to-day rehabilitative work. I am enormously grateful to staff across the custodial estate for everything they have done to keep prisons working, despite the hugest challenges – they really are some of the hidden heroes of the pandemic. What has been a surprise for many is just what a success these changes have been, enabling regimes to deliver better services and to make prisons safer places.

In many ways, there will be no going back to how things were done before and the government is determined to seize the opportunity to build back a better prisons system – one that not only has better outcomes but also enables staff to keep better order and spot safety concerns much more easily. And this can support prisons to do both the short and longer-term work to keep the public safe and, ultimately, to cut crime in our country.

So, I can announce today our ambition to publish a Prisons White Paper – to set a new direction of reform as the prison estate adapts to recent legislative changes, transitions from COVID-19 and which begins to look to the future of criminal justice in England & Wales. I think that has to begin with capacity.

When this government was elected, it was on a promise to keep people safe by introducing tougher sentencing for the worst offenders and to end automatic release for the most serious crimes. Through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently making its way through Parliament, we are delivering on that promise.

In effect what this will mean is that many prisoners will spend more time in custody. And to meet the need for more space in our prisons, we have already started putting the foundations in place and committed more than £4 billion to deliver 18,000 prison places over the next six years – it’s the largest prison build programme in over a century. However, we must go further, and we hope that any forthcoming White Paper will include more information on our ten-year plan to create the next generation of prison places.

But it is also important that we invest in the estate as it exists today – to ensure that we maximise every asset we have. There are two important elements to this: firstly, making sure good influences from the outside world remain accessible to prisoners and secondly slamming the prison gates shut on the bad influences that can contribute to cycles of reoffending.

During the COVID-19 pandemic prison visits from friends and family were necessarily stopped to control the spread of the virus. Now this undoubtedly contributed to the national effort to protect the NHS and to save lives. But we know just how important these relationships are to prisoners’ wellbeing. They can play a huge part in how likely they are to engage with prison regimes and to keep positive about addressing the issues they need to overcome – and I know this from my own conversations with prisoners that I’ve started to have again now that conditions are safer. This was at the forefront of our thinking last year when we quickly rolled out video calling technology across the prison estate – to ensure prisoners could keep in contact with loved ones.

With suppliers unable to attend custodial settings, that very same technology enabled locked down prison regimes to carry on offering crucial education services. By giving offenders new interests and better skills – that might not have been accessible to them at home or in school – these services can be a shop window to a better life, demonstrating just what is possible with hard work and determination.

Any forthcoming White Paper should examine how it might be possible to make much better use of technology to safely facilitate both these forces for good – to keep prisoners upbeat about who is waiting for them beyond the prison gates, and to give them as clear a view as possible of the better future that could be waiting too.

Now at the opposite end of the scale, we know that there are also bad influences, which do huge damage to prisoners in their rehabilitation journeys – leading them away from the potential of a brighter tomorrow and back down the dark alley of crime.

And substance misuse so often plays a role in that – particularly for low level or repeat offenders and, though prisons should be able to insulate people from it, time and again we see drugs making their way through the prison gates, smuggled in by criminal gangs who make sure that vulnerable offenders rack up drug debts they might never be able to pay back.

We have made big strides in recent years on security with the new £100 million Security Investment Programme – to target Serious and Organised criminals’ attempts to smuggle drugs and contraband into our prisons, and we have introduced into the legislation new powers for prisons to make use of counter-drone technology.

And our intention is for the White Paper to look again at how we can strengthen our security response and potentially put in place a new drug strategy, so that we can keep these terrible influences out of our prisons. And amongst other things, we are already funding technology to block illicit mobile phones used by gangs to organise their operations, as well as rolling out x-ray body scanners across the entire male closed estate, and we have funded counter-drone technology to close off the delivery routes. Only last week I was looking at one in Lincoln Prison and officers told me what a difference it has made – keeping prisoners and staff safe from contraband.

As I mentioned earlier, we know that of those cautioned or convicted of a crime in our country, more than 80 per cent have at least one previous caution or conviction. That means more often than not that when offenders leave our prisons they go on to offend again. But we also know what works to prevent it – a job, a home, a healthy lifestyle. The evidence on this is clear, so it is imperative that the prison estate is set up to give offenders every opportunity to get their lives back on track.

And we want to look at how it might be possible to build on programmes like the COVID Emergency Accommodation Scheme, which many probation officers found to be invaluable. They reported that having a fixed abode improved communication with offenders and led to better engagement all round with rehabilitation. And at Leeds, Pentonville and Bristol, the Offender Accommodation Pilot gives up to two years support until offenders are settled back into the community.

Now one prisoner in that scheme had spent 8 years in and out of prison because of violence and drugs, but since being put into a managed tenancy his tests for substances have all come out negative and he completed his probation for the first time in August last year.

That’s the kind of crime-cutting success story we’ve got to replicate.

So, from this summer, we are introducing a new provision of temporary accommodation and support for up to 12 weeks post-release for prison-leavers at risk of homelessness, initially in 5 of our probation areas in England. And we are collaborating with 16 prisons to test new and innovative approaches to ensure offenders resettle back into the community and turn their backs on crime. This is being funded by the £50m investment in reducing reoffending announced at the start of this year.

Now, the Prisons White Paper should explore how it might be possible to put cross-agency and cross-government working at the heart of our response, so that we can make a difference to every factor that could contribute to rehabilitative success. We are currently building on our growing body of evidence on what works to reduce reoffending, and I am keen we explore what a ‘resettlement passport’ might look like to enable prisoners to get to that better future and make a positive contribution to society.

Now, our ambition would be for these passports to bring together everything offenders need to turn their backs on crime. Because the evidence shows us that if we get these things right, then prisoners are more likely to keep on the straight and the narrow post-release. Of course, it won’t be as simple as that in every case, but in so many it can be.

Now, we know that most women in prison have experienced trauma in their lives and this affects how they engage with rehabilitative services. Trauma is often at the root of the behaviour that drives their offending, so a trauma-informed environment can indeed help to address this.

We need to support women in prison to address their histories of trauma so they can turn their lives around. So, we need to become both trauma-informed and trauma-responsive in everything we do – and that means understanding what trauma is and how it impacts on individuals and then designing our services, buildings and systems to respond to it. Again, only a few weeks ago I was talking to some prison officers and this issue came out so powerfully.

Work has already commenced within the estate to help address women’s histories of trauma and we have started to see the positive impact this can have. The White Paper should build on that work, exploring ways to further test, evaluate and incorporate trauma-based methods in the women’s estate, to inform our wider approach to trauma across all cohorts of prisoners.

And finally, the White Paper should look at how we can invest in our most important asset in the prison estate – that’s our dedicated workforce. The CSJ’s award-winning report – Control, Order, Hope – set out just how vital the prison workforce is to preventing crime and protecting the public. Now, we want to take a fresh look at how we can retain talented staff and if there are ways in which they could better use improved technology

This could enable them to spend less time on administration, and more time on the afflictions that so plague our prison population. It could also allow the space for prison staff to develop their skills as rehabilitation professionals, so that they are better equipped for the enormous responsibility of their roles.

And having seen prisons as a minister but also in my professional career over 30 years, I think jail craft is so important and little understood. Prisons are not islands; they are part of our society, facing the same challenges. They must be fully linked up to community-based services if we are to effectively reduce crime. Now, our ambition for this White Paper is to capture the moment. As we transition back to normality after the global pandemic it could lay a path for the future of our prison system – one that takes advantage of the innovations that have demonstrated a different, better way of getting results.

My department is currently working hard to finalise these details, so that we can come forward with the best possible proposals. Now, making a success of the White Paper can and should mean protecting the public from the effects of crime in the short and longer term, protecting the law-abiding majority from the criminal minority, while at the same time giving those who want a second chance the opportunity to change their lives for good.

The criminal justice fleet in our country exists to protect the British public from harm. For it to do that as effectively as possible, we need to get each ship into formation towards a single destination. And that place, that destination is a safer, stronger Britain – where there is less crime and fewer victims.

We are already making progress, getting into position and making sure we’ve got the wind in our sails. On the way that victims are treated, so that they are better seen and heard by a criminal justice system that is truly on their side. And through a bigger probation service that has better practice and a more joined-up approach to get people’s lives on track.

But there remains more to do.

Prisons and the work done in them will need to lead the way and the government will soon bring forward proposals on how the prison estate can better cut crime both today and tomorrow – keeping dangerous criminals out of our communities, and giving those who want it a chance to re-join society as law-abiding members of it.

That’s how we will rebuild the criminal justice system in our country and that’s how I believe we’ll cut levels of crime for good. That’s how we’ll get to the safer Britain we can see ahead in the distance. This government is determined to see that journey through.

Thank you.

A Grand Plan

I suppose it's only natural that when you've created a vast empire, you want a grand plan. The MoJ has such a plan and they've just published it. Here are some highlights that particularly relate to probation, but I've left out much that concerns the prison estate:-

Ministry of Justice Outcome Delivery Plan: 2021-22 

Foreword

The justice system is an essential public service, relied upon by millions of victims, families and businesses across our country to deliver justice outcomes that matter to them. Throughout the past year, the dedication and hard work of our teams and partners has kept that system going.

We are working to recover, rebuild and restore the justice system to its rightful place at the heart of our society and the foundation of our economy.

First, we must continue to rise to the challenges the pandemic presents the justice system and maintain our focus on recovery.

Secondly, we need to look beyond COVID-19 and rebuild public confidence in the justice system, by:

• Building back safer: continuing to put public protection at the heart of criminal justice, cutting crime and reducing reoffending.
• Building back stronger: by ensuring the justice system works for those who need it most.
• Building back fairer: to deliver swift access to justice to deliver a first-class public service that works in the interests of all people and businesses.

Thirdly, our goal throughout will be to restore law and justice to their rightful place at the heart of society and reaffirm the position of justice within the constitution of the whole of the United Kingdom.

The whole of the Ministry of Justice is aligned behind this vision and strategy. There are clear plans for delivery of all our objectives, supported by effective governance and resources that are aligned across the Group and with our partners.

We are working to build a leading-edge organisation that is open, inclusive and welcomes innovation. Delivering the objectives set out in this plan is possible through the professionalism and commitment of our 80,000+ colleagues who all work every day to protect and advance the principles of justice.

2. Reduce reoffending

Outcome Strategy:

Our strategy to reduce reoffending is central to the government’s commitment to cut crime. Around 80% of convictions and cautions come from those who have previously offended (MoJ, 2020).

We are focusing on the interventions that are known to work: a home, a job and access to treatment for substance misuse. We will work with other government departments to deliver targeted interventions to tackle reoffending, including the roll out of transitional accommodation in five areas of the country to support those leaving prison at risk of homelessness, and fulfil our manifesto commitment to create a new Prisoner Education Service.

We are targeting our approach with other government departments to help reduce reoffending amongst young people and prevent them from offending in the first place. We will also commence delivery of the commitments set out in the Female Offending Strategy (2018), acquiring the site for the first residential women’s centre (RWC) site in Wales. This approach will support women offenders to address the underlying causes of their offending behaviour and thereby reduce reoffending.

We completed our transition to a stronger and more sustainable probation model in June 2021. This model will establish clear accountabilities, ensure that staff have the right skills to perform their duties, implement innovative rehabilitative programmes of work to prevent future crime and increase supervision of offenders outside of prison, so the courts will have confidence that monitoring will be strict and community sentences will be robust and effective.

To deliver this strategy in 2021/22 we will:

Deliver a Community Accommodation Service, including Approved Premises expansion and improvement and the provision of transitional accommodation for prison leavers at risk of homelessness in five probation regions, supported by dedicated housing officers.

We will work within sixteen prisons to test new processes and initiatives across accommodation, education, employment and substance misuse treatment to improve the rehabilitative support individuals receive in custody.

Continue the roll out of community sentence treatment requirements to new areas, to address the underlying cause of offending, for vulnerable offenders with mental health, alcohol and substance abuse issues.

To have delivered our Probation Reform Programme by unifying the probation service, as planned, in June 2021. This will improve services, build resilience and reduce reoffending.

Introduce legislative and practical changes to create strong alternatives to youth custody for children and reform the experience for the minority of those who must be detained. We will open our first Secure School by 2023, transforming the Medway secure training centre in Rochester, ensuring that young people in custody get access to integrated education, health and care.

Pilot Residential Women’s Centres, acquiring the first site in Wales.

Test new approaches to reduce reoffending and develop solutions to the key challenges prison leavers face through the prison leavers project.

Improve our electronic monitoring service, increase the use of alcohol abstinence monitoring and expand the use of Global Positioning System tagging.

Projects and Programmes

The Reducing Reoffending Delivery Programme will:

• Deliver a Community Accommodation Service.
• Deliver an improved approach to securing employment for prisoners [SDG 8.3 & 8.5].
• Improved approach to connecting prisoners to community services to continue their substance misuse treatment. (including through Health and Justice Co-ordinators in probation [SDG 3.5].

The probation reform programme will:

• Strengthen engagement and collaboration with local partners such as devolved authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners and others.
• Accelerate the professionalisation of our workforce to secure the skills necessary to deliver effective probation services.
• Improve our ability as a department to disseminate change quickly across the probation system.

1.2 Outcome Evaluation Plan

Probation reform - The evaluation programme will separate into multiple thematic areas with various initiatives expected to be piloted during the next five years. A mixed-methods approach (process, impact, economic evaluation) will be used depending on the requirements of each component part of the evaluation.

Reduce Reoffending Delivery Programme - The overall aim will be to understand how the programme has been implemented, whether it has led to the intended outcomes, and determine which ways of working should continue, be amended or be stopped completely. We are also looking to undertake a longer-term evaluation plan.

Youth Justice Programme - Aim to review the process and impacts of implementing reform change across the youth estate, focusing on the mechanisms of planning, introducing and implementing change, identifying challenges, and lessons learned to share across the estate. Impact evaluation will explore whether the programme has met its key aims of improving safety for children and staff across the secure estate and improving life chances for children in custody.

3. Deliver swift access to justice

Outcome Strategy:

Justice is a core public service relied upon by victims, families and businesses. Whether to resolve a business dispute, protect a child at risk, or bring an offender to justice – we aim to ensure that when our system is needed, it can be accessed swiftly.

Above all, this means a plan for recovery to tackle outstanding cases created by the circumstances of the global pandemic. In addition, we will take steps to make the courts and tribunals system stronger and smarter to improve the running of cases and the experience of all who use them, whether that’s defendants, victims, witnesses or lawyers. We will pursue smarter and faster alternatives to court across civil and family justice, through different ways to resolve disputes and introducing important cross-system reforms in family justice to guide families to the best outcome possible for them. This approach enables us to deliver a better experience for our users while ensuring that resources at court are focused on those who need them most. Alongside these changes we will support victims to access justice in a way that ensures they feel protected, cared for and safe. We remain committed to the sustainability of the criminal legal aid system, now and in the future, ensuring that the system that can adapt to the changing needs of defendants, practitioners and the criminal justice system of which it is such an integral part.

To deliver this strategy in 2021/22 we will:

Recover from COVID-19 and reduce outstanding cases in our courts and tribunals by:

• maximising courtroom capacity and hearing capability across the courts and tribunals estate whilst ensuring that the appropriate COVID-19 safety measures are in operation.
• optimising performance in the courts and tribunals by increasing the throughput of volumes of cases and managing the levels of outstanding caseloads.
• working with other government departments to progress ways of resolving disputes which do not involve court hearings.
• Deliver the Court Reform Programme, a key enabler to modernising and transforming the procedures and infrastructure of courts and tribunals, to further build organisational resilience and accelerate recovery, including development of the Common Platform and investing in remote hearing tools.
• Reform the pension scheme to resolve the serious recruitment and retention issues within the judiciary, and recruit 1,100 judges and 1,500 magistrates.
• Provide victims with a service in which they feel protected, cared for and safe by:
• investing in victims’ services to support all victims of crime, with a particular focus on victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse. 
• consulting on a Victims’ Law.
• publishing a cross-government victims’ funding strategy.
• publishing the Rape Review and taking forward a programme of work to address the low number of effective trials in rape and sexual offence cases.
• implementing the Domestic Abuse Act to protect people from control, coercion and abuse.
• piloting integrated domestic abuse courts.
• Respond to the Criminal Legal Aid Review before the end of the year, which aims to ensure the legal aid sector can adapt to the changing criminal justice system..

Departments supporting the outcome delivery:

Crown Prosecution Service – Responsible for prosecuting cases and the progression of cases through the criminal justice system.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – Responsible for legislation governing employment tribunals.

Home Office – Responsible for recruitment and investment in specialist capabilities across law enforcement; tackling neighbourhood crime; delivery of preventative interventions to reduce pressure on the criminal justice system; victim support; investments in research, evidence and data; immigration and asylum decisions, which drive tribunal demand.

Department for Work and Pensions – Responsible for welfare benefits decisions, which drive demand in social security and child support tribunals.

Department for Education – Joint responsibility for the First-tier Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) tribunal operating effectively; engagement as part of the family justice system and working with MoJ to prioritise child safeguarding issues and adoption in court.

Projects and Programmes

Through our Court reform programme

• Professional court users will be able to access a single crime platform to share and access case information, bringing greater consistency and efficiency to the way criminal cases are managed.
• Local authorities will apply online to take children into care and users will be able opt to resolve simple disputes online.

Victims’ support/law

• Deliver a cross-government strategy to better align and refine outcomes for funding for support services for victims (2021).
• Increase in victims who receive their rights and have confidence in the criminal justice system (2021).
• Consult on a Victims’ Law (2021).

Domestic abuse

• Pilot Integrated Domestic Abuse Court, which will improve outcomes for victims of domestic abuse, introduce an investigative approach in the family courts and implement the Harm Panel recommendations (2023).
• implementing the Domestic Abuse Act.

1.2 Outcome Evaluation Plan

HMCTS Reform Programme - The Overarching Evaluation is a five-year evaluation programme running alongside the HMCTS reform programme. The evaluation will help assess whether the reforms are meeting their intended aims, improving access to justice, and ensuring the justice system is fair. We have identified four main themes in the reform programme and our research is structured around these:

• Redesigning channels around user needs and a shift towards online services.
• Enhancing the use of audio and video hearings.
• Changing the physical court estate and the way it is utilised.
• Centralising processes and providing additional support where required.

Legal aid review - We will monitor the impact of changes to the fee schemes through information gathered through the billing process. The impact on the provider base will be monitored through Legal Aid Agency (LAA) management information. Sustainability and diversity impacts in particular will continue to be assessed through the data sharing arrangements secured with the representative bodies (e.g. The Law Society and the Bar Council). These data linkages provide detailed information on provider base characteristics.

The impact on the provider base will be monitored through LAA management information. Sustainability and diversity impact in particular will continue to be assessed through the data sharing arrangements secured with the representative bodies (e.g. The Law Society and the Bar Council).

Embedding a Baseline Roadmap Across Digital Platforms

Yes, we're all super excited, as I'm sure you are, to hear of the many and varied ways the MoJ is helping tired and weary frontline probation crime fighters cope with their digital platforms. It's all scaling fast, lots of ideas are developing and you can help improve the playbook!

Introducing the MoJ Digital Accessibility Team

Posted on:15 July 2021 

This financial year, the MoJ has created a Digital Accessibility team, to start embedding accessibility across the justice system. Through a 6 month accessibility profession project and on-the-ground learning, combined with looking at the cross-gov accessibility landscape, we realised that we had a gap. People were aware of accessibility and very keen to build accessible services, but needed a bit more support and structure around it. So, after a successful proposal to the Central Digital Senior Management Team, we were set up!

Who we are

The MoJ Digital Accessibility team is currently made up of two people - Xxxxxx Senior Product Manager, and Xxxxxx, Accessibility Lead. We’ll be expanding out to include a Delivery Manager and an Accessibility Specialist.

What are our goals?

We have three main goals for the year:

1. Enhance capability and knowledge across teams delivering products and services
2. Embed accessibility considerations into our processes, like recruitment and procurement
3. Create a framework for a longer term, sustainable approach to accessibility.

That’s quite a lot of things! Xxxx and Xxxx have spent a lot of time planning out a roadmap for the year, so we can closely align our activities with these goals, and track activities, and progress against these goals.

What have we been up to so far?

So far, we’ve had a couple of different focuses. One has been raising awareness about our team. We held a launch party on the 19th March, to talk about our strategy and host some lightning talks from staff across Digital and Technology, which was very popular, and started lots of great conversations. We also presented on our team at the Chief Financial Officer’s standup, to 560+ people.

We’ve then been using the network we’re building through these activities to help us gather user needs. We’ve also been analysing data from accessibility surveys run over the past 2 years, ran a breakout activity at our launch party, and have been speaking to different communities within the organisation. This has helped inform us on what structures to put in place, for people to access the services we’ll be offering.

We’ve also been baselining our digital estate, and starting to identify what the highest priority services are, so we know where to focus our efforts first. We’ve been doing this with help from service owners and the product management community across the organisation, and with support from senior management. This will help us track progress, and also identify areas where we might need to pivot and iterate on our approach.

Lastly, MoJ is not the first department to set up an accessibility team, so we’ve been speaking to the Heads of Accessibility in other departments to discuss their approaches, share our approach, and get feedback. Accessibility is an emerging profession in government, and so we’ve been keen to make sure we can learn from what other people have done, rather than starting reinventing the wheel.

What’s next for our team?

We have quite a big roadmap for the next 9 months! In the immediate future, we’ll be focusing on these things:

• finishing up hiring for our team, so we’re all in place
• rolling out a program of training sessions across the organisation, to help raise awareness and capability - this will be a mixture of general awareness sessions and profession-specific sessions
• starting up our in-house consultancy offering

We’ve got a busy year ahead of us, but we’ve been overwhelmed with the support we’ve had so far, from all areas of the organisation. Accessibility is a team sport, and we’re super excited about what we’re going to achieve together for the rest of this financial year.

--oo00oo--

There's more here:-

Introducing the service design playbook

Posted on:25 June 2021 

The service design playbook is a resource to help designers and digital teams navigate designing public services.

The goal of the service design playbook is to help designers that are new to service design in government understand how to apply service design thinking at each stage of product delivery and how to work with others in a multi-disciplinary team. It's the collective knowledge and experience of many of the service designers at the Ministry of Justice brought together to support other designers across the organisation.

Aligning the design approach across MoJ

We’ve scaled. Fast. In the last 18months, we have grown by 500% to a community of nearly 100 designers. We needed to standardise best practice and develop consistency in approach across our rapidly growing portfolio of work.

One of my favourite descriptions of service design is working with users and delivering services, and there are many frameworks and processes that exist in helping us achieve this. The double-diamond method and the Stanford school design thinking process are just a couple of the ones out there.

The playbook doesn’t recreate existing tools, but embeds them and supports designers to know how and when to apply them. While, as designers, we might not follow a set procedure in government, we have the frameworks in the GOV.UK Service Manual and the Service Standard that acts as a great starting point in understanding the mechanics of creating and running good public services.

The Service Design Playbook builds on the theory shared in these resources and provides additional practical approaches to designers as they navigate the service stages (discovery, alpha and beta).

What if our services are non-traditional?

During my year at the Ministry of Justice, I've recognised the complexity in designing digital prison and probation services and the particular challenges our teams overcome.

Our services are not always public-facing and are often created to solve challenges for staff that work in highly pressured environments.

We have numerous prisons that all run slightly differently, and the complexity of technical constraints feels very real. We’re reminded on a daily basis that design is always political. Prisoners and people on probation serve a sentence rather than choose to use a service. Between their needs and those of the general public, our staff and our members of parliament - it’s not always easy to know which user lays at the heart of our designs and who the service is really for.

Our service users are diverse, yet a thread ties them. They are affected by, care for, or are responsible for people who, in turn, are experiencing a vulnerable and distressing period in their lives.

I designed the playbook with all of this in mind. How do we approach the design of complex services that range from web pages to monolith legacy systems? How do we navigate the creation of services that impact people and staff across various prisons?

I collaborated with designers across the Ministry of Justice through a series of workshops and gathered our collective experiences to form the guidance shared in the playbook. The playbook prompts designers at each stage of the delivery process, from exploration to beta, to think about how they can collaborate with teams and stakeholders to deliver a service.

Whether it's looking at problem space and service users, exploring the policy space, to thinking about accessibility - there are tried and tested ideas and methods available to use at each step of every design phase. They include directions of when to use them and why.

How do we describe our work to our teams?

I joined the Ministry of Justice from a mainly non-government background. It took a little time to navigate my role and understand the cross-overs of my responsibilities with others in a multidisciplinary team.

Whilst the Digital, Data and Technology capability framework is a helpful introduction to all the professions and disciplines, I recognised the gap in guidance of how these disciplines worked best together to design the service end-to-end. There are seven roles within the user-centred design family and most designers often wear many (multi-disciplined) hats. So, where did the role of a service designer fit amongst all of our wonderful disciplines? Furthermore, how do we describe our part to our team members?

It’s a critical and challenging part of our role. Our work hinges on the collaboration of many disciplines. To offer the most value, we need to articulate our methods and build trust amongst the team. Only by convincing the team to spend time and energy in the process, do we encourage them to take it with us.

The ‘ introduction to the team’ section of the playbook aims to help service designers articulate our work and give multidisciplinary teams (and us) a better understanding of our role in government. This section shares the outcome of our work, how we achieve the outcomes, and the people we collaborate within the process.

Please help us improve the service design playbook.

What we have in the playbook is just the start. We will continue to develop it as we learn.

We would welcome feedback on the playbook, which you can share via email, or through comments on the playbook via Miro. We have lots of ideas on developing this further, and if you'd like to be part of that journey - we'd love to hear from you.

Therapy - There's a Novelty

I find this opinion piece from the Guardian resonates with much of my own practice over the years and particularly the difficulty in accessing psychiatric and psychological provision for clients. As is becoming routine now, Probation doesn't get a mention and I've absolutely no confidence things will improve, not least due to our changed training, role and experience.   

Why we should be giving therapy to violent offenders

As a forensic psychiatrist I have learned that helping prisoners confront their offences is best for them, and for society.

Throughout my career, people have asked me why I do what I do. I’m a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist; I’ve spent three decades working with people in prisons and secure hospitals who have committed violent offences. I give therapy to those struggling to articulate unspeakable things and come to terms with their new identities as offenders.

This means listening without judgment to things that in any other circumstances would produce horror and revulsion. For example, a man’s account of how he killed four people and severed one of their heads to make disposal of the body more manageable, or a woman’s insistence that the victim she stabbed was possessed by a demon. A man who insists his ex-lover made him jealous relates how he strangled her; a young mother blames “useless” medical professionals for her baby’s multiple trips to the emergency room. Why should we help “those people”? Aren’t our resources better spent helping their victims or other law-abiding citizens who need treatment? Such questions reveal a great deal about the society we have created.

“Why wouldn’t we help?” is my usual reply. There is a nuance here that some people may not wish to acknowledge: in prison, the identities of victim and perpetrator are not always distinct. Most of our prison population qualifies as both; recent studies in the UK and the US confirm that most convicted offenders have an experience of trauma, abuse and violence at least four times higher than the general population.

The way a society treats the least of its members is a kind of barometer of justice. In the UK, as in many other countries, the punishment for criminal rule-breaking is deprivation of liberty. Once someone is incarcerated, we have committed to helping them change and become less risky. Aside from a small subset of extreme cases, it is reasonable to believe that most offenders can return to the community after serving their time and live productive, crime-free lives. This is a concept enshrined in UK law since the Penitentiary Act of 1779, which made the rehabilitation of prisoners a function of all prisons.

But that mission is not always accomplished. Our justice system and the programmes in prisons designed to reduce recidivism often fall short. Resourcing is insufficient; the most recent survey from the National Audit Office indicates that among prisoners in England and Wales, as many as 90% have poor mental health, including PTSD and depression. Perhaps only 10-20% of the most acute cases will ever get seen by a forensic professional like me. On release, ex-offenders contend with economic and social problems that can quickly drive them back inside. Within the female prison estate, for example, more than half of women face homelessness when released.

People grow out of violence on what is known as the “age-crime curve”: most violent offenders will desist over time, with rule-breaking and harmful behaviours dropping off rapidly after 35. Treating younger people effectively in prison makes it less likely that they will return in later life. And given the costs of keeping someone incarcerated (around £40,000 per year), providing therapy is time and money well spent – practical and compassionate in equal measure.

In my role as a forensic psychiatrist, I coordinate medical treatment within secure psychiatric hospitals, including Broadmoor, where I’ve spent much of my career. I also offer therapy, individually and in groups, to patients willing to look at how their minds work. The process can be halting and difficult. Many of my patients lack emotional vocabulary and struggle with trust.

But often there is progress, however subtle, and there is hope. I have known a jealous man who strangled his lover move from self-righteousness and suicidality to acceptance and a willingness to take responsibility for his actions. I have watched a woman go from being a victim of her mental illness to someone who reduced her risk by gaining a new understanding of her “demons”. Taking agency is the first step towards recovery, and I am constantly humbled when I see the changes that can follow.

Sometimes I work with legal colleagues to assess a person’s state of mind for the family or criminal courts. In cases before the family court, like the young woman who blamed doctors for her baby’s “mystery illness”, I will recommend treatment. But it is often unavailable for mothers who need it – another sad indicator of our society’s priorities. In criminal cases, the psychiatric evidence I provide doesn’t get people a more lenient outcome or a “cushy” transfer to secure psychiatric care. The notion that a secure hospital is better than prison reflects how little many of us know about the double stigma of being both an offender and mentally unwell.

I can attest that most prisoners recoil at the prospect of being “nutted off” (sent to psychiatric care from prison or directly upon conviction) because of the stigma this involves and because they have more autonomy in prison. Prison may be by turns boring and terrifying, but you’re generally left to think your thoughts alone. When I have run group therapy sessions for homicide perpetrators, prisoners have spoken about watching the TV show Big Brother and likened it to their lives in the secure hospital. Their time is highly structured, and people like me scrutinise their every move and thought. I wonder if that “cushy” notion derives from a general belief that anything must be better than prison. Or perhaps the word “therapy” is associated with coddling, like a massage at a spa, rather than a hard and painful look at parts of your mind that you’ve been avoiding your whole life.

Doctors go toward suffering without judgment. We do not deal in absolutes but attend to what we can discover through listening, observation, and testing. Although there will be people who can’t or won’t change their minds for the better, I’ve found that most violent offenders are interested in understanding how they got into this mess and how they can do better in future. We know so much more today about the miraculous capacities and plasticity of the mind, particularly the still-developing young mind. We also have a wealth of research evidence about what types of therapy can make a difference. Failure to use such knowledge would be a kind of madness on our part. We all want the world to be a safer place. I suggest the pressing question about the treatment of violent offenders is not “Why bother?” but “Can we afford not to?”

Dr Gwen Adshead is a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and co-author, with Eileen Horne, of The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion (Faber)

Taking Responsibility

Alternative Press Conference 12.07.21

Seeing as I long ago stopped watching or taking much notice of anything our Prime Minister or his Cabinet colleagues have to say on anything and especially Covid-19, I thought I'd put this up from yesterday. I do it in what I believe to be the public interest because in the end, all citizens must make their own decisions.   

Latest From Napo 225

Today's mailout:-

Dear Xxxxxxxxxx

Napo demands continuation of safety measures – despite Government statements

Following last week’s Government statements on the Covid crisis and speculation over the weekend, we wanted to take this opportunity to update you on concerns around future relaxation or changes to EDMs and risk assessments.

For the last two weeks it has not been possible to agree a position statement due to our concerns about the increasing case numbers and the lack of information as to the guidance that senior managers are using to make their decisions about local delivery.

It is clear there is a political push to move away from any restrictions on the 19th of July, and it is expected that this evening’s Covid update from the Prime Minister may provide further information on this and the standpoint of the rhetoric of needing to “live with Covid”.

There is a difference between learning to live with and making adjustments to operational activities by employers to take account of the risk as opposed to seeking simply to return to how things used to be. Napo continues to take the health and safety approach to recovering service delivery – all activity and work environments must have a risk assessment with mitigations for the risks identified.

Our approach

We are continuing to push for a responsible approach to protecting staff from the risks of developing COVID-19 through workplace exposure and protecting essential service delivery where significant staff absence would threaten it. Any assumptions that mitigations such as wearing of face coverings and maintaining social distancing will be ended on 19th July must be resisted. Mitigations measures that are in place must remain in place until an assessment of risk indicates they can be changed or removed.

Our work on this has been hampered by HMPPS unwillingness to accept that there has been any workplace transmission which has resulted in individuals developing COVID-19 citing a lack of evidence. We are continuing to challenge this, especially when set against the backdrop of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statement:

“Where a worker has been diagnosed as having COVID-19 and there is reasonable evidence to suggest that it was caused by occupational exposure, employers are required to report the case to the relevant enforcing authority under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)”.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/coronavirus/index.htm

The HSE published data which showed that between 10 April 2020 - 12 June 2021 they received 33,448 notifications of which there were 402 Fatal notifications. The recent TUC report also highlighted the issue of under reporting, a fact acknowledged by the HSE.

Call for representatives to update us on local developments

In order to be able to give Napo Representatives, and our wider membership as much support as possible, it would be helpful for the following questions to be answered with the replies sent to hands@napo.org.uk

1. How have reps been involved in consultations on the local decision making process regarding service delivery?
2. How regularly does this occur?
3. Have members raised any concerns?
4. Have any changes been made to mitigation measures such as social distancing, room or building capacity, wearing of face coverings or PPE without proper consultation?
5. Are you aware of any workplaces where there is a number of staff who are, or have had to self-isolate, due to contact with another colleague or person on probation?

More news will be issued from Napo HQ after we have analysed the Government statement and continued our regular engagement with senior management across all the employers where Napo is recognised.

Napo HQ team

Well Worth Waiting For

First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford was due to deliver the Bill McWilliams Memorial lecture last year, but Covid put paid to that and it had to be delivered via zoom 12 months later for the same reason. Boy it was worth waiting for though as he made a compelling case for Wales taking devolved responsibility for a Welsh Probation Service. All in the virtual audience were left in no doubt that it would be a very different beast to that operating now. 

As a former Probation Officer, academic and author, Mark Drakeford is particularly well-qualified to speak on the subject and unlike many politicians, it's quite obvious he 'gets' what probation is about and that it needs to be locally organised and focussed on acting as advocate and champion for dealing with the causes of criminal behaviour as much as getting alongside and working with clients to improve their life chances. 

He tells an interesting story from the riots that swept many urban centres of Britain in the 1990s and a pamphlet published by a northern probation service entitled 'The Dog That Didn't Bark' essentially offering humble pie for not having spoken out more forcefully regarding what they knew only too well was the plight of many clients. Just let that sink in for one moment. That is where we've come from, an independent service that has a view, a conscience, can speak up, not a bunch of brainwashed government functionaries who toe the line. 

The video will no doubt be published in due course, but I wanted to pen something before the memory fades, but I can assure you, the whole speech is so very well worth watching. 'Good government is good for you' is just one of the memorable phrases I came away with, particularly because it's so patently obvious that its been so clearly lacking for so long. 

On such an important occasion and for all those who believe passionately in the probation ethos, for the life of me I have no idea why the organising committee wasted valuable time giving a platform to former CRC CEO and current NPS management clone Alex Osler. In 15 minutes she must have recited every bloody command and control diktat and initiative that I'm sure would have had Bill McWilliams revolving in his grave. 

It was an insult in many ways to compare her 'message' and that of the occasion and pretend they were in any way similar. This virtual question to her was a belter though. Unfortunately we didn't hear Alex's answer because of course it's the MoJ official line!

"A question then for Alex. What is the impact of the tone and language used by MoJ in their communications last week that consistently used the word offender, focused on surveillance and monitoring and attempted to present practitioners as crime fighters? How can this dissonance be countered effectively?" 

Richard Garside on the other hand from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies was well 'on message' with the dissident probation view that all reasonable folk desperately hope can eventually re-emerge when we can break free from HMPPS control and the bloody civil service. On answering the question as to where the effective probation voice was nowadays and the demise of ACPO, he was particularly pointed in his remarks on the missing Napo voice, citing the sad passing of Harry Fletcher, 'although I'm sure good work is going on behind the scenes'. Yeah right. 

In winding things up, Professor Mike Nellis gave Mark Drakeford an exceptionally warm and heartfelt vote of thanks and in the process made an interesting observation. He said that although Bill McWilliams didn't say it, he felt he would have eventually made the point that probation that we would recognise as being true to its ethos can only function effectively in a socialist environment, or at least a functioning social democracy. Well of course we don't have that here in England do we and come to think of it, how can you be a Tory and a Probation Officer worth the name anyway?          

Covid as Smokescreen

As life continues to get back to something like 'normal', one consequence of the pandemic will be a growing realisation of exactly what's been going on whilst we've all been otherwise pre-occupied. There's more than a suspicion that Covid has and will be used as a convenient smokescreen for all kinds of uncomfortable and unpalatable political decisions, which brings us neatly to recent activity from the Prison Reform Trust:-  

PRT calls for open and transparent consultation on future plans for prison conditions

Prison Reform Trust director, Peter Dawson has written to Jo Farrar, CEO of HM Prison and Probation Service and Second Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, to highlight the confusion surrounding plans to reform prison conditions.

The Daily Mail reported last month that a Ministry of Justice “source” expected a White Paper on prisons to be published later this year, and offered a simplistic and misleading summary of what might be learned from the experience of prisoners over the last 15 months.

In the letter, Peter Dawson writes:

“We are only too pleased to work closely with officials as policy is developed…and in particular to help the department hear from prisoners. But we are deeply suspicious of these constructive and candid conversations being presented as a sufficient process to inform a White Paper on prisons, especially when the press is being fed what appears to be advance notice of a policy decision to reduce the time prisoners will spend unlocked."

Planning for a future beyond the pandemic is an opportunity to reset policy on imprisonment and our prison system from first principles, but a project of this importance and scale demands wider scrutiny. The letter seeks assurance from Jo Farrar that “if there is to be a White Paper, it will be preceded by a full and transparent process of public consultation, based on clear proposals about which there is a genuine desire to listen and adjust if the arguments for doing so are persuasive”.

The evidence submitted to our CAPPTIVE project, and the findings of independent inspectors, have highlighted the significant toll on our prisons over the last 16 months. It is crucial that any plan for the future starts from the recognition that, despite the best efforts of prison managers and staff, our prison system has failed to an unprecedented degree to deliver humane or constructive custody during the pandemic. Any plan’s starting point must be that such a failure cannot be repeated.

The letter sets out key principles for future prison regimes, including:

• an end to overcrowding and the enforced sharing of cells within a set time frame;
• the permanent closure of prisons and parts of prisons that are no longer fit for purpose; and
• the “principle of normality” in regime design, meaning that the prison day should be modelled on life outside prison. Specifically, people should be unlocked unless there is a good reason not to.

The letter also proposes that Governors should have the right not to accept a prisoner where they consider that their life may be at risk, and proposes a range of minimum standards to guarantee the delivery of government policies and commitments. It concludes with a number of practical recommendations, including:

• the provision of in-cell telephony, controlled internet access and in-cell ICT across the prison estate;
• privacy locks on all cell doors, so people can keep themselves and their property safe;
• sufficient staffing resources to allow for prisoners to be unlocked for the equivalent of a normal day for an adult in the community—with sufficient paid work or education provision for a normal working week of 30 hours;
• better pay to reduce prisoner debt; and
• a significant increase in the provision of specialist mental health support.

The prison service has developed an expertise in making do with the inadequate physical and staffing resources which it receives, but the consequences of that approach have been exposed by the pandemic. The ambitions the government holds for a rehabilitative system cannot be delivered for as long as it fails to acknowledge the fundamental problems which only the politicians can solve.

Click here to download a copy of the letter.

--oo00oo--

Then there is this:-

Projected 25% in prison numbers will undermine post pandemic prison recovery

Prisoner numbers in England and Wales are projected to rise by one quarter (20,000) over the next five years. But there are no plans either to reduce overcrowding or close prisons that are clearly unfit for purpose. Efforts by the prison service to recover from the impact of the global pandemic will be fatally undermined as a result, according to a new report published today (5 July 2021) by the Prison Reform Trust.

The report, Prison: the facts, highlights Ministry of Justice prison population projections that predict a rise to 98,700 people from the current level of 77,912 (4 June 2021) by 2026. This is due to the impact of inflationary sentencing policies, including proposals in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill currently before Parliament, the recruitment of 20,000 police officers, which is expected to increase charge volumes, and the recovery of the courts as Covid-19 restrictions subside.

The government itself has admitted that its punitive policies are likely to have a negligible effect on levels of offending. The impact assessment of the PCSC Bill acknowledges that there is "limited evidence that the combined set of measures will deter offenders long term or reduce overall crime.”

This predicted increase in prison numbers over a short period comes after one of the most challenging periods in the history of the prison service. For the past 15 months and counting, as a result of public health restrictions imposed as a consequence of the Covid 19 pandemic, the great majority of prisoners have been locked up for at least 23 hours a day, with almost no training, work or education and very limited family contact.

No-one knows what the toll will be on mental and physical health caused by the prolonged periods many prisoners are spending in de facto solitary confinement. However, such conditions are likely to cause lasting damage to those currently held in prison, undermining their progress made towards a law-abiding future life, weakening family links and increasing the danger and volatility of prisons. In an overcrowded, under-resourced prison system, the risk of having to return to these inhumane measures will continue.

At a time when the prison service ought to be focussed on recovery, instead its attention will be diverted by the need to accommodate the projected rise in prison numbers driven largely by the government’s own criminal justice policies.

The government expects to build a total of 18,000 new prison places, understood to comprise HMPs Five Wells and Glen Parva and an additional 10,000 places, with the remaining places to be met by the construction of four new prisons; the expansion of a further four prisons; and refurbishment of the existing prison estate.

However, these plans need to be seen in the context of the struggles of previous governments to meet much more modest prison building targets. A programme to build 10,000 cells by 2020, announced by the government in 2015, delivered just 206 spaces by its original deadline.

Commenting, Peter Dawson, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“These facts and figures reveal the devastating impact the past 15 months have had on prisoners and their families. But instead of ensuring that such a calamity can never happen again, ministers are determined to put a rocket booster under prison numbers. The government accepts that its punitive approach is unlikely to reduce crime, yet is willing to find £4bn to fund its addiction to prison. With no target either for ending overcrowding or for closing prisons that are plainly unfit for purpose, the people at the sharp end will continue to live and work in a dangerous system, as vulnerable to the unexpected as it was in March of last year.”

What Do Monitors Actually Do?

Regular readers will be fully aware of the many and varied failures of the MoJ, especially in the field of contract design and management. The Rainsbrook saga and former probation contractor MTC Novo's involvement is simply astonishing by any measure and here we have former MoJ insider and finance director Julian Le Vay spelling it out in all its gory detail:- 

RAINSBROOK TELLS US TWO THINGS. MTC ISN'T FIT TO RUN PRISONS. AND THE MoJ ISN'T FIT TO RUN PRISON CONTRACTS

The Justice Secretary has just announced that Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre, run under contract by MTC, has been treating the children it its care so badly for so long that he’s taking all the children out of it. It’s a saga that tells us that not only is MTC not fit to run prisons, but MoJ is not fit to run prison contracts.

Secure Training Centres

The Management and Training Corporation (MTC) is an American company that runs 24 prisons in the US, also training schemes for young adults. It gained a foothold in the UK with the privatisation of probation, running the service in 2 areas. Privatisation was an unmitigated disaster and has now been reversed. In 2016 the MoJ gave it the contract to run Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre, which had had a troubled history under G4S. It got worse under MTC. Three successive inspection reports were negative (jointly between Prisons Inspectorate, Ofsted and the CQC for healthcare). Despite this, the MoJ last year extended the contract to 2023.

To be fair to MTC, no company has made a success of STCs, a sort of prison for children, introduced by Michael Howard, but then carried forward by Labour. Four were built, under the Private Finance Initiative. They exemplify the perennial problem – possibly never entirely solvable – of providing in the same place both secure custody for children who’ve been convicted of sometimes quite serious crimes, and also care and education provision for children who are often seriously damaged, disturbed and disruptive. They are small units, 80 or so fully occupied, with high staffing levels and hugely expensive. Two have been closed, two remain, while the MoJ dithers about what’s to replace them. Meanwhile, as the number in custody shrinks, the remaining population has become much more difficult.

The failure of MTC

When the Inspectors returned in October last year, they were so appalled at what they found that they met the MoJ officials and wrote to Buckland on 5 November, who replied on 18 November saying that necessary action was being taken. That inspection report is here. When the inspectors returned in December, they found little evidence of progress. Children were locked in their bedrooms for 23 1/2 hours out of 24. On 16 December the inspectorate issued an Urgent Notification to Buckland, their last resort where institutions don’t just fail, but fail unacceptable and persistently (2). They said:

“Children’s daily experiences were bleak. They continue to receive a spartan regime. They receive little encouragement to get up in the mornings and there are very few efforts by staff to engage meaningfully with children…. there is no evidence of children’s’ educational entitlement being met…. senior managers were unaware of the regime.”

Whatever your views on crime, who in Hell’s name could think such a place could do other than lasting harm to deeply troubled children? Even Priti Patel might blench.

Buckland replied on 15 January, again saying that the necessary action was in hand. The inspectors returned on 26 January and found some improvement - an action plan had been drawn up - but little of it actually actioned. In March the Justice Committee held a special one off session and questioned the inspectors, Buckland, MoJ officials and MTC managers. The transcript is here.

It should be said that the Committee’s session focussed primarily on the Urgent Notification and the report made at that time. It paid relatively little attention to the brief report of the further visit in January, which noted some early signs of improvement. Nor did the Committee pay much attention to the fact that there was a COVID outbreak at the time, causing staff to be off duty and requiring newly arrived children to be isolated (though Oakhill STC managed isolation with a lot more time out of cell). MTC may well have felt aggrieved at that. And it was especially hard on the new Director, Ian Mulholland, who’d arrived only on 4 January. But clearly MTC had by then expended all credit with its critics. It had had one too many drinks in the Last Chance Saloon. The unfortunate Mulholland arrived just in time to pickup the tab.

The Committee reported on 29 March (2), saying that they were

‘shocked and appalled by what we heard’ and were ‘deeply concerned about MTCs ability to manage the Rainsbrook contract’.

What shocked them most was that not only did the MoJ and YCS not know, at the time of the inspection, the state of affairs at Rainsbrook, but neither did MTC managers on site. Indeed, when inspectors told them face to face, in their December visit, that children were still being locked up 23/12 hours a day, the response by MTC managers was first to tell the inspectors they were wrong, and then to add that the children themselves were wrong.

Here’s the Ofsted Inspector:

“When I sat…with the director and deputy director and said ‘Children are still being locked up for 23 1/2 hours a day’ and they said ‘We don’t think they are’, I do not think they were lying. I just do not think they know the basic principles of going once a day to talk to the children…they were just not doing it…it was utter incompetence.’

The inspectors pinpointed the root of the problem:

“senior managers issues instructions; they write procedures and protocols, often very detailed; but they are not implemented at middle and junior management level…. they do not have the means…. to follow through to make sure these things happen on a day-to-day basis, so they just keep repeated….”

This is a familiar problem in prison management. The task of ‘managing upwards’ is very time consuming, and more so when an institution is in trouble and there are lots of inspectors and lots of questions. But all the more important to ‘walk the walk, and talk the talk’ to ensure that you are not blinded or mislead by all the paper, and that what you said should happen is happening.

What makes this incomprehensible in this case – certainly to the Justice Committee – is the tiny scale of this institution. In a prison of 1,800 prisoners and maybe 500 staff spread out between many blocks and with layer upon layer of management, such a failure to check on reality would be more comprehensible. But this unit had, at the time of the last inspection, just 45 occupants. 45! From the Director’s office to the children’s rooms was a 2 minute walk. But they just did not do it. Moreover staff: prisoner ratio, 1:5 in some adult jails, was here more like 1:1, or even lower (3). How could managers not know the reality of something so fundamental as time out of room - something inspection after inspection had focussed on as unacceptable, and on which MTC gave assurances to the MoJ which were simply untrue?

To my mind, this alone should disqualify MTC from any further contracts for custodial facility in this country. If it gets the basics of management this wrong, under this much external pressure, in such a tiny, heavily staffed unit, how on earth could they cope with a 1,800 prisoner new prison?

The report reveals other fundamental and long-standing problems with MTC’s operation:

• An impossibly high turnover of managers – 4 different appointed Directors in 4 years, and interims in between
• Recruitment of staff with a background in adult prisons, with few having experience of the very different world of child offenders
• An impossibly high turnover rate for staff as well – the Justice Committee was told that most left before a year in the job (as I note in my book, in the past this was often seen in prisons that failed)
• A culture focussing on paperwork and meetings

I suspect there is another problem behind this all. MTC is a huge American company with a tiny UK business, that’s not doing at all well. The majority of Directors of MTC (UK) appear, from the accounts, to be Americans. I have experience of just such an environment in the IT sector. I know how difficult it is to get backing or even understanding from the US parent for the very different trading and operating environment of the UK – especially when, as is the case with Rainsbrook, they were not making a profit. (I’ve seen critics denounce MTC for making money while failing the children in its care: incredibly, it didn’t.) I suspect the UK business was not regarded at all positively by the American parent, especially after the failure of the bid for Wellingborough prison, and the collapse of the probation contracts.

Then there is another failure, equally fundamental to a good contractual relationship. Incredibly, MTCs reaction to the inspector’ comments, and (it would seem therefore) Buckland’s decision to withdraw all children from the unit, is to say that they are wrong! They said :

“Given the previous positive assessments, including Ofsted’s follow up visit in January, we were very surprised to receive Ofsted’s feedback at the end of last week’s inspection. We have a number of concerns about their approach and ultimately the conclusions they have reached. We plan to vigorously challenge this as we go through the fact checking process”

And this is MTCs’ preferred style – confrontation, not contrition. We’ve seen they told the inspectors to their face they were wrong – that the children were wrong about what they were actually experiencing. Mulholland then upset the Justice Committee by declaring that MTC would only accept Inspector’s recommendations they thought ‘fair and grounded in evidence’– an exceptionally foolish thing to say, in the circumstances. Likewise, in the recent competition run Wellingborough prison, when their bid was unsuccessful, they immediately threaten legal action against MoJ. (Again I suspect this comes from the very different American background, where there are many possible customers, so you can afford a fight – here, one only, and you can’t.)

The relationship between a prison contractor and its customer is a subtle one. Relying just on the formalities of the contract is not enough. These contracts are long term – typically 15 years for prisons – and inevitably, in prisons, there are problems, inevitably, requirements change, and inevitably, sensitivities to be managed with ministers, with the media. So there has to be some sense of partnership, and partnership must be based on mutual trust and understanding of each other’s position, without of course losing sight of their fundamentally different roles.

MTCs track record of assuming such an adversarial role – and so quickly and so publicly – suggests to me that it will not be possible for them to enter into the right sort of long-term relationship with MoJ as customer. I am not, God knows, saying MoJ is always right. And in fact, I have sympathy for the stance that what is to be done in an institution should be determined by MoJ as customer, not by an outfit whose role is inspection and which is not charged with considering the resource consequences, feasibility or effectiveness of its recommendations, nor considering other approaches. But it’s the bull-headed way MTC charge at its critics frontally and publicly that is so unacceptable.

For all these reasons – the failure over many years to provide a decent environment for children, the failure over a long period to do what they said they’d do, the failure in the basic management grip on what is going on in the institution, the high turnover of staff and mangers alike, the lack of understanding of work with children, and the ready assumption of a legalistic, adversarial relationship with MoJ and the inspectorates – it seems inconceivable that MoJ can now ever offer MTC a contract to run any custodial institution.

MTC is currently on the MoJ’s framework agreement to enable it to bid to run new, 1800 place adult prisons. It should now be removed. MTC has no prospect of significant further business in the correctional services of the UK. And that means, looking at its accounts, it would then no longer be viable in the UK. It is finished.

The failure of the MoJ

A truism to which I often return, so often ignored by those criticising the private sector, is that when a service is being supplied under contract, failure by the contractor very often reveals failure by the customer also. Failure to properly appraise the supplier before contract, failure to specific the service properly, buying a service too cheaply, failure to get the commercial terms or performance sanctions right, failure to manage the contract properly, failure to deal with failure, failure to ensure a competitive market. As I note in my book, most of these have applied at one time or another to the market in corrections in the UK.

And this applied in spades to the Rainsbrook saga. Something the Justice Committee understood:

‘The Ministry of Justice, Youth Custody Service and HMPPS are equally responsible for some failings at Rainsbrook because of significant and fundamental failings in the way they have overseen what happened there…. the YCS and MoJ manifestly failed to understand what the conditions were at Rainsbrook…and it is a question that goes wider than..…one custodial institution.’

The inspectors also understood this. They told the Committee:

“You cannot lay this solely at the door of the provider. The YCS when it contracts for a service does not absolve itself of responsibility for making sure the service is delivered…”

I set out here different ways in which the MoJ, in which I include the YCS and HMMPS, failed to do their job as customer for Rainsbrook and for youth custody services generally.

1. They did not know what was going on

This is perhaps the most extraordinary thing: that MoJ did not know that children were being locked up 23 1/2 hours a day. Of course, MTC consistently misled them. But – here’s the thing -the great strength of contacting for prisons in the UK, unlike the US, is that the customer has a permanent staff of monitors within the prison. At Rainsbrook, there were three YCS monitors working fulltime inside the institution. Three, full time! With just 54 children! Their failure to notice what was happening is even worse than that of MTC managers, because the monitors were there only you monitor what was actually happening. What on earth did they do with their days – in this tiny, tiny institution – is beyond comprehension. (MoJ’s response on this is a Civil Service classic: to appoint a fourth monitor!)

2. They extended the contract in 2020 - despite MTCs serious failures documented by inspection after inspection

The Justice Committee were perplexed by this, but, as with so much of this story, never got an answer from the MoJ. It is surely linked to MoJ’s other failure, their endless dithering over the future shape of youth custody, see 4) below. MoJ were perpetually ‘planning’ to replace STCs, having already closed 2, but are still years way from doing so. In those circumstances, no other provider would take on the poison chalice of Rainsbrook, two operators already having failed. Nor could the Prisons Service step in, because the whole point of STCs was to be an alternative to mainstream prison culture (and the absorption of that culture into Rainsbrook was part of the reason it failed).

3. The YCS failed to use the contract to push MTC into doing better

As I’ve said, a good contractual relationship doesn’t rely solely on contractual sanctions when dealing with persistent failure. But a time comes when they should be used: they get the attention of senior management in the company because it’s all lost profit (4). My book showed this in relation to earlier failures by prison providers. And in the case of an institution which has failed so completely for so many years that the customer withdraws all business, you’d expect significant financial penalties. Well, the grand total for the 5 years of MTC’s contractual failures at Rainsbrook is…£76k. Against a total contract value of £50 million. An irrelevance. I’ve FoI’d the details, but expect to be stonewalled – this Government has set up a unit specifically charged to obstruct FoI requests. So, I can’t say whether the fault was in the way the contract was written or the way the contract was managed, but either way, it makes a mockery of contracting. (By comparison, the operator of the now closed Medway STC was fined nearly £1 million.)

4. MoJ have dithered for years about the future of youth justice

Following the Taylor report in 2016, the Government accepted his recommendation to replace STCs with ‘Secure Schools’ and proposed two pilots would be opened, one in the north, the other in the south of the country (see Justice Committee's summary in their report on the future of youth custody, here ). They said the one in the south would open in 2020. That was then postponed, to 2022. And postponed again, to the end of 2022 (‘working towards’ December 2022, so let’s be clear, 2023). Seven years after the report. Never mind the points made by critics, that 1 or even 2 are not remotely enough, that there are still huge questions about what they will be like. This timetable means that STCs cannot be fully replaced for the best part of a decade after Taylor’s recommendations were accepted (certainly a decade after Grayling announced 'Secure Colleges' would be the future of youth custody, in 2013 - on which he spent some millions before cancelling 2015). And still MoJ cant spell out how they will be different from STCs (5).

The reason for the delay isn’t, as often with prisons, finding a site, nor planning consent – they are using the site of an old STC, it’s ready and waiting – but because MoJ let the contract to a charity only to find that….. a charity can’t legally run such an institution. They seemingly hadn’t thought to check.

This delay echoes the truly pathetic failure of the MoJ to deliver on the promise of 9 new prisons with 10,000 new places, originally made in 2016, of which 5 were to have opened last year. In actuality the first will not open til 2022. That delay was also self-inflicted. MoJ believed they could only afford the programme through Private Finance. But HMT had decided to drop PFI. That meant a long and – of course! -doomed paperchase to persuade HMT change its mind.

5. The original choice of MTC to run Rainsbrook

As I say, MTC is an American company. When I was FD, we were dubious about appointing an American company as prison contractor, because of the very different culture of American prisons. MTC has since tried several times to enter the prisons market here and has consistently been rejected, most recently for the Wellingborough contract. Yet the YCS nevertheless appointed them to the far more specialised, notoriously sensitive job of looking after troubled children, of which the MTC had seemingly no experience, certainly not in the UK. (This is why, in my book I argued that an STC should never be a new operators first experience of running a custodial facility). Of course, G4S had already failed with its STCs, it is possibly that none of the other UK custodial operators – Sodexho, MITIE - wanted to get involved. Nevertheless, appointing MTC turned out to have precisely the consequence one might have predicted, a failure to understand the specialised work of STCs.

6. Organisational complexity

I do not know, but I suspect another factor is the labyrinthine structures and relationships with the MoJ. When I was FD of HMPS, things were blissfully straightforward. We held all the prison contracts; we had the procurement people and the contract managers and the operational managers; we decided, subject to ministers, what prisons should be asked to do: we decided on the shape of the make and how and when it should move forward. And, I may say, we made a fair success of it (little of that down to me, I should say – I had just very able procurement people).

As far as I can see for youth custody, the contracts are held by the Youth Custody Service, they rely on MoJ for procurement, someone in the MoJ decides on policy and on development of new operating models, the YCS answer to the head of HMPPS even though HMPPS also supply custodial services to the YCS….plenty of opportunity there for accountability to diffuse.

Note: what is the difference between the failure of MTC, and the failure of MoJ?

Come on – you know this! It is of course that people at MTC will lose their jobs, while no one in the MoJ will suffer the least consequence. That, Buckland has already made clear, at his appearance before the Committee. They never, ever do.

Why I've changed my mind on contracting for custody

My book, published in 2015, argued the case that competition for running custodial institutions worked to the public good. I think I now have to revisit that conclusion. Not because I think contracting out inherently wrong, nor because the private sector always does badly – in fact, at present, privately run adult prisons are doing better than publicly run ones. But because I have come to the conclusion that the MoJ is institutionally incompetent as customer. And as I’ve said before, an incompetent customer sooner rather than later leads to failure by the supplier.

As it has with contracts for probation, with Birmingham prison, with facilities management, with electronic tagging, now with Rainsbrook, and with the replacement, Secure Schools.

The catch 22 of outsourcing : a Government that isn't good at managing services is probably not good at managing outsourcing.

Afterword: the curious incident of the dog in the night time

And what of Barnardos, paid to supply an advocacy service for these children on site? It seems it did not bark…

UPDATE 22 JUNE

MoJ has just published here a further letter from Ofsted which explains why Buckland had to act to remove all children from Rainsbrook immediately. So much for MTCs extraordinary decision to publicly challenge Ofsted's findings. I doubt I've ever seen a more damning report, and that's certainly saying something.

Julian Le Vay

NOTES

1. About £160, 000 per occupant per year, or 4 times the cost of a place in an adult jail, PQ, 23 May 2018. Secure childrens' homes cost even more, around £180,000 - £200, 000 a year per place. Most bizarre thing is, no one has ever properly evaluated either of them, despite these eye watering amounts.

2.The Committee's report contains the correspondence on the Urgent Notification. 17th report HC 1266, Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre. Can be found here.

3. MoJ wont let us know actual numbers. Commercial secret. Or that’s what they say now – in the past they freely published these figures. See

4. For those who accuse MTC of profiting through maltreating children: it appears from what they said to the Justice Committee that MTC are making a loss on the contract.

5. For those who appreciate the ebb and flow of history, a mordant account of the endless circling of policy on youth custody round 'punishment' or 'care' can be found at: Hagell, A., and Hazel, N.: 'Macro and micro patterns in he development of secure custodial institutions for serious and persistent young offenders in England and Wales', Youth Justice 1 (1), 2001

A New Dawn?

Having been freshly reappointed to the post for a further two years, here is the latest blog post from HM Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell:-  

01 July 2021 – A new dawn for probation?

This week marks a fresh start for probation and a welcome one, as private sector and public sector colleagues come back together as the unified, public sector Probation Service.

I pay tribute to the team that has led this major transition programme in HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and to the regional probation directors who have helped to implement it. Having led a major change programme in my past life, as a Director at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), I know just how many moving parts there are to keep track of as thousands of staff and tens of thousands of cases – not to mention buildings and ICT systems – move into a new organisation. And this one has so far (fingers crossed) gone remarkably smoothly.

This is the fourth major structural reorganisation probation has gone through in 20 years. In the longer arc of history, it marks the final step from probation being an entirely locally run and funded service to being an entirely national one, with probation staff now all government civil servants. Whilst that may have its advantages in terms of a standardised operating model and job roles, there is a danger that local innovation and initiative may get squeezed out too. Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) leaders I spoke to had welcomed the greater autonomy they had been granted to experiment with new ways of doing things and had responded with some significant and welcome innovations. For example, in introducing opportunities for people who had previously been on probation becoming staff and volunteers, and by using community venues for appointments with people on probation. It’s important that regional directors and local heads of service retain the ability to experiment and build local partnerships.

As I have said previously the Transforming Rehabilitation model was fundamentally flawed. Many feared this from the start, and our inspections over six years only confirmed these concerns. Squeezed budgets meant falling probation officer numbers – staff under relentless pressure and unacceptably high caseloads. This inevitably resulted in poorer quality supervision, with over half of the cases we inspected in the private sector probation companies being unsatisfactory on some key aspect of quality.

Merely lifting and shifting large volumes of cases from the private sector into the public sector won’t improve the quality of work that probation staff are able to do. Vacancies for probation officers must be filled and staff properly trained for their new responsibilities. Structural change needs to be backed by sustained investment for there to be true improvement. After many years of cuts – a 40 per cent real terms reduction in probation funding per case supervised by 2019 – the injection of £150m of extra resource this year and last has been welcome but that needs to continue into the next Spending Review period. Real transformation is a long-term commitment, and unification is just the beginning of that journey – but it’s a very welcome first step.

--oo00oo--

We might as well publish the following from the bumper Napo 'reunification special' here:-

JUNE 26 2021 - A MILESTONE FOR PROBATION

As we reach a huge milestone for probation – June 26th -the date we unify the system, welcome over 8000 colleagues, and together, create our new Probation Service Amy Rees and Sonia Flynn share their thoughts on the future of the reunified service. 

The new Probation Service will take the best from the old system, stabilise the probation landscape, ensure core services are properly delivered whilst also seizing the opportunity these changes present to innovate and improve the way we work to ensure we can better achieve our key aims. A huge amount of work has gone in to making the transition happen smoothly and on time involving many people from across the NPS and CRCs. Once these structural changes are complete, our focus will then be upon our path to delivering excellent probation services, implementing our Target Operating Model and ensuring our highly skilled probation staff have the right tools, training and support to assess, protect and change people on probation.

Amy Rees, Director General of Probation and Wales said:

“I am really looking forward to June 26th and welcoming everyone to our new Probation Service. I am confident that through our reforms, we are creating a stronger, more stable probation system that will deliver excellent services to protect the public, reduce reoffending and support victims of crime. This last year has presented unprecedented challenges for us all and I am extremely grateful to all our probation staff for their continued hard work, commitment and professionalism which has enabled our core services to continue whilst we also progressed with reforms and our organisational recovery. I am so proud of our incredible staff across the NPS and CRCs and I know that together we are going to create a truly brilliant new Probation Service”

Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer added: 

“We are simplifying probation delivery, making it easier for those we work with and bringing together probation staff and resources to deliver effective reform. We have got over 8,000 passionate and dedicated people joining us and a key part of our new probation service is ensuring all our staff feel fully supported, while investing in their skills, capabilities and ways of working to enable them to do their jobs to the highest standard. I would echo Amy’s thanks to everyone for all they have done during a very challenging period against the backdrop of the pandemic and I am really excited to see what we can achieve together as a new unified service”