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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…
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.
How do we overcome Twitter abuse?
The story of how hundreds of men mounted a sustained online attack on Caroline Criado-Perez, threatening her with rape and violent assault in reaction to her successful campaign to get the face of Jane Austen on British £10 bank notes has caused public outrage. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the story is how commonplace this sort of vile attack is. Most women Tweeters with any sort of public profile have experienced unprovoked online assaults. The vast majority of us want to see a fast, reliable way of the perpetrators of this sort of abuse facing the consequences of their actions.But how?
But none of us has yet come up with an effective response.
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.
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.
Making public service markets work
The Institute of Government recently published a fascinating report on how government is currently failing to ensure that the third of public services currently delivered by independent providers offer a good service. This is the first of a short series of posts on the report’s findings. Railways, Tagging of offenders, Housing for asylum seekers, Olympics Security – what do these four have in common? They’ve all been the subject of recent major investigations…
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