On Probation
Innovation lost in reunification of probation
Institute for Government praises MoJ for reunifying probation on such a tight schedule but flags up loss of innovative practice.
22nd August 2022
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Institute for Government praises MoJ for reunifying probation on such a tight schedule but flags up loss of innovative practice.
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.
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.
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.
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…
