Key findings

The report is based on a survey of 132 voluntary sector organisations working with offenders and comes to seven main conclusions:

1: Voluntary organisations have not been involved

“We invested huge amounts of time engaging with TR over two years but, in spite of being told we would be contracted, eventually were not.” – Survey respondent

• Only 35% of the 132 organisations we heard from had any funding from CRCs, and only two organisations got funding from the NPS.
• Voluntary organisations with an annual income of over £10 million were the only group more likely to be funded by a CRC than not.
• Smaller organisations are providing vital support to offenders with no funding from probation services.

2.      Services for offenders are unsustainable

“The objectives of TR in terms of increasing supervision after custody and support for resettlement were laudable, but we have yet to meet anyone who believed they would be achieved at the same time as cutting costs.” – Survey respondent

• 50% of CRC funded voluntary sector services are reported to be unsustainable
• 1 in 3 think their funding agreement is at risk of failure before the end of the contract or within the next 6 months.
• One third of all CRC funded services are using charitable funds to subsidise their services – primarily to improve their quality.
• 44% of services that are not funded by probation services consider their services for offenders to be unsustainable.
• 30% of CRC-funded services have reported a decrease in their funding during 2016-17.
• 37% of voluntary organisations that are not funded by probation have reported a decrease in their funding during 2016-17.

 3.      The probation system is propped up by the voluntary sector

“Some CRCs are great and others are very poor. We provide over 2000+ placements for CRCs with no financial return.” – Survey respondent

• 65% of all the voluntary sector services we heard from are not funded by probation.
• Up to 70% of all voluntary sector services we heard from think they should be funded by probation.
• Many voluntary organisations felt they were being ‘used’ by the system to meet targets; organisations not in receipt of any probation funding got referrals from the NPS (58%). CRCs (64%), and prisons (71%). 

 4.     Poor policy is restricting The National Probation Service from working with voluntary organisations 

“… Nobody seems to know whether NPS can commission services directly with us. I have no idea what the budgets are for purchasing interventions.”

• Transforming Rehabilitation introduced a mechanism called the ‘rate card’ to enable the NPS to buy services from the CRC. But all this bureaucratic system has done is to tie the hands of the NPS, actively discouraging them from working with voluntary organisations.
• As a result the NPS don’t have the specialist services that are required to help rehabilitate people who pose a high risk of harm to the community.

  5.      Voluntary organisations believe Transforming Rehabilitation” has a negative impact on their service and service users

“We are being asked to deliver more hours with a skeleton staffing. We are now covering four counties with two staff working four days per week, trying cover seven community locations and four prisons. This is simply not possible.” – Survey respondent

• Only 15% of voluntary organisations thought Transforming rehabilitation had a positive impact on service users, compared with 60% who thought the reforms had a negative or very negative impact.  
• Even though 65% of voluntary organisations believe that the services being commissioned by CRCs are of a high quality, only 26% felt that the level of funding provided by CRCs allowed them to deliver a high quality service.

 6.      A volume based and target driven culture is eroding good will

“…we have lost the quality resettlement work that was previously being carried out. The approach is not individual focus but process focused. It is admin heavy which prevents face-to-face contact.” – Survey respondent

• Voluntary organisations blame the erosion of their relationship on unhelpful targets that are focused on the volume of work they can do, rather than the difference they make to people’s lives.
• Less than half (41%) of voluntary organisations believe their values and ethos align with those of the CRCs they are funded by.
• The voluntary organisations that have the closest relationships with CRCs – those funded by them – have become increasingly pessimistic and negative.

 7.      Confusion about Transforming Rehabilitation could be leading to disinvestment

“It has become very hard to secure funding… Funders believe that the TR model is providing the relevant support, however at the grassroots level this is not happening for the most chaotic individuals.” – Survey respondent

• Transforming rehabilitation has negatively affected the level of funding for voluntary sector-led rehabilitation and prison resettlement services.
• Many said that funders, primarily charitable trusts and foundations or local authorities, are withdrawing funding from the sector in the belief that probation services should be investing or funding the services they previously supported.