On Probation | Russell Webster

Paying for the wrong results?

The MoJ published their initial payment mechanism for the Transforming Rehabilitation contracts back on 3rd June and asked for feedback. They are currently developing a final version which should be published before the procurement process starts – scheduled for 23rd August. Last week, the Social Market Foundation published a paper by its director Ian Mulheirn which analysed the payment mechanism in forensic detail and came up with the devastating conclusion that : The payment mechanism encourages providers to cut spending on services and allow reoffending to drift marginally upwards.

13th August 2013

Relationships and ongoing assessment are key to reducing reoffending

The authors noted that assessment of some needs (particularly “Attitudes” and education and training) tended to be more accurate later in the community sentence, when the Offender Manager had developed a relationship with the person they were supervising. Similarly, offenders’ feedback on their Community Order was particularly positive when they perceived that the Offender Manager understood their needs. There seem to be two key lessons to be drawn from this research for those planning new models of service delivery…

8th August 2013

What can Transforming Rehabilitation learn from the Work Programme?

Once again, the intensely party political shaping of public policy makes for uncomfortable results. It takes a politician with the drive and uncompromising approach of Chris Grayling to effect change within a five year cycle. But there is not sufficient time to establish a properly thought-through model which has a decent chance of delivering improved public services. In some ways Transforming Rehabilitation crystallises this problem – the payment by results pilots were cancelled in order to focus on a rapid roll-out of a completely untested model.

1st August 2013

The latest on re-offending rates

Last week the MoJ published the latest data on re-offending rates. These figures will be scrutinised more closely than ever given the upcoming privatisation of the probation service via the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation project.
Proponents and critics of TR will seek to find ammunition for their cause. And those seeking to win the new reoffending contracts will be delving into the small print. I’ve done some very basic analysis to try to identify key trends…

31st July 2013

Will the new Transforming Rehabilitation market work?

The Institute for Government identifies four key challenges to Transforming Rehabiliation – the probation outsourcing project. It argues that the MoJ needs to improve its stewardship of the market and slow down the pace of change. There are major concerns that the outsourcing of prisons, probation, electronic tagging and court enforcement services simultaneously means that none of these will be well managed in the public interest.

30th July 2013

What is the state of the reducing reoffending market?

The IfG makes two very critical findings of the current commissioning of reducing reoffending services. Firstly, local commissioning is ineffective in most areas. Seondly, neither NOMS nor Probation Trusts has a systematic way of knowing whether commissioned services are effective.

26th July 2013

Justice Secretary says Transforming Rehabilitation is a real opportunity for the voluntary sector

Will we see a real mixed economy with genuine local partnerships which include probation mutuals and voluntary sector providers of all sizes?
Or will a small number of large private providers win most of the reducing reoffending contracts by their ability to discount on price?
We should know the answer by the end of 2014.

24th July 2013

What will happen to the prison population under Transforming Rehabilitation?

One of the key changes under the Offender Rehabilitation Bill currently working its way through Parliament is that short term prisoners will receive mandatory supervision on release. Although this development is broadly welcomed, one of the consequences will be that some of these prisoners will not comply with supervision and therefore will be breached and returned to prison. The recently updated impact assessment of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill estimated that 13,000 short term prisoners will be returned to prison because they will breach the new mandatory period of supervision on release. I can see two other factors which will drive up the custody rate…

1st July 2013

The 5th Commandment of Payment by Results: Thou shall not pay for deadweight

Payment by results is about driving improvement, so no self-respecting PBR scheme will pay for results that will happen anyway, known in the jargon is “deadweight”. The proportion of deadweight in a PbR funded initiative varies markedly across different spheres of operation. Despite all the adverse publicity about reoffending rates which has accompanied the debate about the Rehabilitation Revolution, 65.8% of those supervised in the community and 53.1% of those released from prison do NOT re-offend in the first year. However, when we look at the Work Programme…

27th June 2013

Don’t write off probation in the rehabilitation revolution

There have been better times to be a probation officer. It’s not the easiest job in the world at the best of times and, like every other public service, probation trusts have had to implement year-on-year financial cuts for the last few years. But 2013 is the toughest year yet. 70% of probation’s work is being outsourced and a wide range of large private and voluntary sector organisations are seeking to take over the work. Recently the MoJ has acknowledged that probation trusts could spin out public service mutuals and bid for their “own” work.

24th June 2013

How are the reducing reoffending prison payment by results pilots doing?

Yesterday the MoJ published interim reconviction figures from the reducing reoffending PbR pilots at Peterborough and Doncaster prisons. The final results for just the first year’s cohort from these pilots won’t be available until 2014 but the MoJ have decided to publish these interim results because of the “high level of public interest” which has been created because the new reducing reoffending contracts will be let on a PbR basis. The results aren’t especially promising…

13th June 2013

Straw Man: The Ministry of Justice’s payment by results mechanism

The Ministry of Justice procurement team yesterday published its proposed payment mechanism for the new reducing reoffending contracts and invited feedback. There are three elements to the payment mechanism: Fee for service; Payment by results and Penalties for underperformance.

4th June 2013

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