Tags are keywords. I put tags on every post to help you find the content you want. Tags may be people (Dominic Raab, say), organisations (The Howard League, PRT), themes (women offenders, homelessness) or specific items (heroin, racial disparity, ROTL). If you’re looking to research a particular issue, they can be invaluable.
What works? One of the positive side-effects of the Transforming Rehabilitation project (launched in earnest yesterday) has been the debate it has provoked about what
19 September 2013 may prove to a momentous date in probation history. Minister of Justice Chris Grayling announced the formal launch of the competition for the 40% of the probation service which is being outsourced/privatised. Today is also the day that probation staff are told about their (limited) options of moving into the new National Probation Service or…
TR provokes strong feelings with some seeing it as an opportunity to improve the quality and effectiveness of work done to reduce reoffending and others maintaining that it is mainly about privatisation and will result in a poorer service. This fundamental difference of opinion has led to a somewhat stagnant debate in recent months. So, I decided to try to liven up the debate, and widen its scope by engaging some new participants…
The latest MoJ reoffending rates show that probation trusts continue to reduce reoffending even under the pressure of the proposed wholescale changes under the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation agenda. This overall good progress does, however, conceal a considerable variation between trusts.
I’ve never really understood why right-wing think tanks have been such strong advocates of Police and Crime Commissioners expanding their powers at such an early stage in their existence. Reform published a report before PCCs were even elected which advocated that they should be in control not only of local police and criminal justice agencies but the fire and rescue and ambulance services too. Yesterday, Policy Exchange published Power Down: A plan for a cheaper, more effective justice system which again placed PCCs at the centre of change.
Like a young child writing to Santa, I don’t quite know where to begin with my wish list of all the things I’d like to know from NOMS before the Transforming Rehabilitation procurement process starts in earnest. Perhaps the obvious first request is to know when the PQQ process is going to start and end? And will it be the rumoured “light touch” process to ensure that most new entrants, including probation mutuals, will have a good chance of getting through? Or will it be the (also rumoured)…
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
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.
