Here you can find over 150 posts tracking every major development in payment by results since 2011. You can see where PbR has succeeded and, more frequently, where it has failed across a wide range of sectors: offending, welfare, employment, substance misuse… If you’re looking for something in particular, try the search box below.
In my view, this evaluation is further evidence that Payment by Results is a very promising approach which is best initially developed in times of prosperity as a way of driving up performance rather than, as currently appears to be the case, as a budget-cutting lever in times of austerity.
Overall the evaluation concluded that the SIB/PbR process had stimulated providers to bring together different elements of best and effective practice in an innovative manner using a “navigator” approach where a single role: “supports a client along the entire pathway from the street/point of first contact and blends direct support with wider provision brokered and coordinated to sustain long term outcomes”
So what do we make of these results? To me they represent a mixed picture, there’s no denying that reoffending has been reduced. However, we would normally expect a high level of performance from such a high profile pilot where the partners had chosen to participate and indeed championed and driven the initiative from the outset. On the other hand, there has been significant learning about how best to co-ordinate pre-and post-release activity, use mentors effectively and co-ordinate a multi-agency approach to preventing reoffending.
The Committee expressed reservations that the MoJ would be able to run an effective competition process with the required level of transparency. It noted that a number of significant components of the programme had not been finalised. This issue was related to one of the Committee’s overall findings that the whole TR programme is being implemented too fast and without sufficient consideration and, where appropriate, piloting.
There was also concern that there would be insufficient investment in TR to enable providers to reduce reoffending – particularly with the extension of probation to short term prisoners. Ideally, the payment mechanism should incentivise providers to take risks and develop new approaches to reducing reoffending. If these approaches are successful, society (through less crime), the taxpayer (less demand on services) and the new providers (PbR bonus payments) all benefit.
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).
Measuring drug recovery is problematic, to say the least. Recovery from drug dependence is, like desistance from crime, rarely a linear process and typically includes lapse and relapse over many years. Different people choose different recovery goals: some people remain abstinent from all substances for life; others continue to use occasionally; or replace drug dependence with a reliance on alcohol.
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.
A focus on reoffending could mean we miss the “teachable moments” which enable change…
PbR has great potential but only in the context of high quality commissioning, says a new NCVO/BWB report analysed here…
Clive Martin, Director of Clinks, in the latest in a series of interviews about the MoJ’s probation reform programme: Transforming Rehabilitation. Clive sees the potential that TR will be a success but he also expresses serious concerns on a number of issues…
Last week the MoJ published modelled data for the 6 years from 2005 to 2010, showing the number of offenders in each PbR cohort and the 1-year re-offending rates among those offenders. The report provides an historical picture of probation performance in reducing reoffending aimed at those organisations interested in winning the new probation contracts. It presents performance on a Contract Package Area, rather than Probation Trust, basis and it looks specifically at the group of offenders for whom the new Community Rehabilitation Companies will be responsible.
