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PbR Question Time

Published on 17 February 2012 by in Payment by Results
Interview

There has been growing media coverage of Payment by Results schemes since the New Year, both here and abroad (particularly the USA, Canada and Australia). I’ve updated the free to download PbR resource pack three times this week already. There has been a proliferation of schemes with many scheduled to start delivery in 2012. The PbR approach brings fundamental changes to the way Government Departments commission and pay for public services. This has led to speculation and discussion of a wide range of issues on this Blog and elsewhere, particularly around payment mechanisms and potential private-statutory-voluntary sector partnerships. However, blogging has one main drawback – most visitors are much more interested in reading posts than commenting on them with the majority of debates taking place offline. This blog is pretty typical. It’s had over 5,000 different visitors since its launch in September

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Paying for your drink

Published on 14 February 2012 by in Offender/Drug user health, Payment by Results
Sobriety bracelets

“Offenders with drink problems face US-style tagging“ “London’s Drunk Criminals Wear Tags That Track Sobriety“ “Sobriety bracelets’ to fight crime in London“ Just a selection of some of the newspaper headlines this weekend, typically accompanied by pictures of Lindsay Lohan, reporting the latest populist schemes to tackle alcohol-related crime – tagging offenders with “sobriety bracelets”. The bracelets monitor blood alcohol levels electronically and transmit results to a base station every 30 minutes. If offenders wearing the bracelet drink alcohol, they are liable for arrest. The stories themselves are confusing because they mix up details for two different schemes: one in London, one in Scotland; one aimed at repeat low level offenders and one at those convicted of more serious alcohol-related crime. Even a careful reading of Boris Johnson’s official press release fails to clarify the details of the London pilot. I

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Could your Facebook profile get you acquitted?

Published on 9 February 2012 by in Social Media Innovation
Facebook-Arrest

Facebook has become a key tool in police investigations. Police routinely access suspects’ Facebook pages to look at recent activities and establish connections between offenders or offender and victim. Facebook helps police make arrests. Tracking on Facebook can often help police anticipate a wanted person’s whereabouts and expedite arrest. Facebook is the reason for collapse of a growing number of prosecutions. However, the use of Facebook by victims and witnesses has resulted in many identity parades being declared inadmissible in court. Facebook is a mixed blessing for law enforcement All new technologies prompt a renewal of the battle between law enforcement agencies and the criminals they seek to detect, arrest and prosecute. The advent of social media has resulted in a period of rapid adaptation in both detection and avoidance techniques. So powerful has Facebook become as an investigation tool

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Second Commandment of PbR: First do no harm

Published on 6 February 2012 by in Offender/Drug user health, Payment by Results
hippo_oath_detail-wide

The interesting thing about PbR schemes is that they are supposed to be all about finding creative solutions to entrenched social problems which actually work. But when you look at most of the articles and opinion pieces, you find they are much more preoccupied with how to measure the results accurately and prevent provider organisations from gaming the system. That’s why the First Commandment of Payment by Results schemes is “thou shall not pay twice”. PbR schemes are carefully designed not to pay for outcomes that would have happened anyway. Sometimes this preoccupation goes too far and the concern about measuring outcomes accurately interferes with the operation of the project itself. To my mind the Kent Drug Recovery PbR pilot is a case in point. The pilot has been thoughtfully designed so that only one quarter of the provider’s income

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Don’t delay! Post 999

Published on 1 February 2012 by in Digital Engagement
facebook_emergency

The recent publicity campaigns promoting the new 101 Police telephone number have all been at pains to emphasise that the number should not be used in an emergency. But 999 (911 in the USA, 000 in Australia) is not the only way to contact Police in an emergency. Indeed, the US Government has started to put in a place a system which allows members of the public to text or send multi-media messages to call for help. Recently, I have come across a number of stories of people using Facebook to contact the police in an emergency. Some of these stories are bizarre, as Facebook police stories often are. For instance, a 29-year-old woman in Minnesota posted to Facebook in January this year that she was being threatened with a gun. Her Facebook friends picked up on this and called

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Talking about the iPlod generation

Published on 25 January 2012 by in Digital Engagement
Twitter cop

The last time I blogged about the police use of social media, I was amazed that so many police officers were active users of Twitter – there were 556 back on 19 September 2011. I was so surprised at what was a new phenomenon to me that I coined a new phrase – #Twoppers – for Coppers who tweet. Just four months on and the speed with which police forces across Britain have adopted social media has continued to accelerate. The #iPlod generation, as I now think of them, (thanks @TheCustodySgt) currently numbers 779. @NickKeane, the digital engagement adviser at the National Policing Improvement Agency, is the man who keeps score. So comprehensively have police services embraced Twitter that Nick  maintains eight different lists; in addition to UKCOPs who Tweet, there are City Centre Cops, Helicops, Corporate Force Twitter Accounts, not forgetting spoof accounts (of whom @SirIanBlair is my favourite). But

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It’s Payback time

Published on 27 January 2012 by in Digital Engagement
Community payback

For most organisations, websites are their shop window – the face they show to the world. Most of us now, when we need to find out about any sort of business or company – private, public or voluntary – head straight to Google and search for their website – often in the expectation that it will show up in the search bar before we have finished typing. I have at least a couple of conversations a week when I am urging Probation Trusts to overhaul their websites, update their content and make it more interactive and online-friendly; the critical first step before integrating social media so that website visitors can disseminate Trusts’ work for them. Sometimes, I get an uninterested response: “What’s the point – we’ve analysed our hits and most of them are people looking for a job or wanting to

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Shining a light on the potential of Payment by Results

Published on 18 January 2012 by in Payment by Results
flashlight-PbR-MoJ-for-web

It’s indicative of the high level of interest in payment by results that last night’s seminar at the Academy for Justice Commissioning attracted a full house who stayed till the end  despite a light breaking through the Ministry of Justice conference suite ceiling where it remained, dangling over the MC’s head, for the duration of the event. The presentation focused on the design, financing and operation of the ONE Service, the PbR scheme which seeks to reintegrate short term prisoners released from HMP Peterborough into the community without reoffending. The speakers were: Toby Eccles founder of @SocFinUk, who arranged the Social Impact Bond which finances the scheme. Rob Owen, Chief Executive of @StGilesTrust, who run the ONE service. Roger Hill and Liz Diamond from @Sodexo_UK who operate the prison. Despite most of the audience being very well versed in Social Impact Bonds and

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How a new smartphone app can save lives

Published on 17 January 2012 by in Offender/Drug user health, Social Media Innovation
Uturn App Featured image

I am writing this post to celebrate the launch of the new @UTurntraining smartphone app which is dedicated to preventing deaths caused by opiate overdoses. The app was launched on 16 January 2012 and is available for download from the Android marketplace for the sum of £1.99. The iPhone version is already under development. Back in October, I wrote a post speculating on whether a smartphone app could be developed to tackle drug overdoses. My idea was based on the fact that people who overdose on heroin or other opiates often have drug using friends with them who are too scared to call 999 for fear of police involvement. I wondered whether an app could be developed which used a smartphone’s GPS capacity to dial emergency services and direct paramedics to the location of the overdosed person. Within a couple of

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What Linford Christie can teach us about social media

Published on 10 January 2012 by in Digital Engagement
sprinter

Linford Christie was a great sprinter, winning Commonwealth and European gold medals on a regular basis. However, it wasn’t until late in his career that he stepped up to the very top level and became world and Olympic Champion. When he won the 100m Gold at the Barcelona Olympics he was 32 years old – four years older than all previous winners. According to athletics folklore, one of the main reasons for this was that he dramatically improved his starting technique after his training partner Colin Jackson (also World and Olympic champion at 110m hurdles) told him to start on the B of Bang! Christie was able to shave  a tenth of a second off his start, enough to convert Silver and Bronze medals into the coveted Gold. To use social media successfully, you have to be equally quick off

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© Russell Webster 2011/12