Here you can find more than 750 posts tracking every major development in probation since 2011. You can trace the rise and fall of Transforming Rehabilitation, see the latest performance figures and explore new practice developments. If you’re looking for something in particular, try the search box below.
He points out the dangers that many skilled professional staff are leaving the probation service and expresses the hope that the new Probation Institute will be a cohesive force to ensure that the same levels of dedication and professionalism are found in future versions of the probation service.
“This lack of progress is of particular concern as it casts doubt about the Prison Service’s capacity to implement the changes required under the Transforming Rehabilitation Strategy designed to reduce reoffending rates, especially for short-term prisoners.”
The NAO chooses to highlight a key challenge in managing the prison estate in the future. Many of the cost savings are due to commissioning larger prisons – the Titan Prison planned for Wrexham will be Britain’s largest with about 2,000 prisoners). Smaller prisons tend to perform better and, although, there is no evidence base, many criminal justice commentators hold the view that it is easier to help prisoners address their problems and plan for successful release at smaller jails.
However, he is very concerned about the lack of staff engagement in Transforming Rehabilitation. He thinks that probation could be improved but that improvement is most likely to happen via a process of co-production with staff and service users at the heart of it.
There are a mix of aspiring large private companies (15), probation mutuals (11), voluntary organisations (10), County and Borough Councils (3) and a further education college (1) – these add up to more than 30 since many organisations are in partnerships or Joint Ventures.
The Ministry of Justice today (19 December 2013) announced the names of the 30 successful organisations who have cleared the PQQ stage of the Transforming Rehabilitation competition for the new probation contracts. The main newsworthy topics are the withdrawal of G4S and Serco from the competition, there is no official comment on whether they were pushed or jumped themselves and the inclusion of 11 potential Probation Service Mutuals in the list.
However, the largest scheme which was assessed – the national analysis of all the NOMS CFO employment schemes with offenders who started their interventions in the community found that this intervention reduced reoffending by between 4 and 8 percentage points. The 19 individual regional schemes in this programme (which are run by different providers) were assessed in the previous month’s Lab Report and varied considerably.
The latest edition of the British Journal of Community Justice is a special issue dedicated to Transforming Rehabilitation. It is more than double its normal length and has been made available for free online. You can also order the print edition for just £5 (+£2 p&p).
Eric sees the potential that TR brings to providing help to alcohol using prisoners, many of whom serve short sentences and relapse as soon as they leave the prison gates.
However, he has serious concerns that TR may not work in practice and that probation expertise at working with offenders with complex needs could be lost.
The partner organisations have produced a Prospectus for the Institute which sets out their initial thoughts on the purpose of the organisation, its stakeholders, scope and priorities and an implementation plan and timetable. This prospectus sets out six key objectives for the Institute: 1) Providing professional leadership, enhancing the professional status of the sector
While welcoming the acknowledgement that rehabilitation is key to reducing reoffending, Savas argues that there is no need to reinvent probation, especially when probation trusts have been performing at such a high level. He points out the risks of moving away from a local system to a national one and sees the new Institute of Probation as being key to ensuring that probation staff remain a highly skilled workforce.
A proper assessment will have to wait until we have more details but these figures do suggest that Payment by Results may be a more successful approach when savings are shared between government and providers with an explicit understanding that providers will reinvest their success payments rather than merely pass them on to shareholders.
