The government recently released its plans to outsource more than half of its rehabilitation services to the private and voluntary sector. Rob Allen notes that the scale and speed of the change in how services are delivered will be substantial, and that Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has not thus far had to argue for substantive new legal provisions, nor has he had to worry much about whether his plans add up or are deliverable.
September was a sad month for the Probation service with the government’s launch of a competition which will see more than half of its work outsourced to the private and voluntary sector from 2015 onwards. Almost half a billion pounds worth of rehabilitation services each year will be contracted out to Community Rehabilitation Companies in one of the most ambitious reforms to criminal justice services certainly since the first private prison opened in 1992; probably longer given the scale of the proposed changes.
Arguably, the invitation for bidders to register their interest was just as sad for our system of governance and public administration which has been unable to subject the far reaching plans to any but the most superficial form of scrutiny. Many of those who work in and support the Probation service are asking how it is that a hundred year old public institution can in effect be dismantled at the whim of one here today, gone tomorrow politician; Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.
(Credit: Work and Pensions Office)
It’s true that the Coalition Agreement promised the introduction of a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ that would pay independent providers to reduce re-offending. But it was only when Grayling replaced Ken Clarke last autumn that plans emerged not only to bring these new providers into the system but to refashion the fundamentals of the system itself. Thirty five regional public bodies – Probation Trusts – will be replaced by twenty one companies, whose owners will emerge through the competition that was announced last month. There will still be public probation – a national service which will be created to supervise the highest risk offenders and to provide advice to courts and the Parole board about their decisions – which henceforth assumes a commercial consequence.
The lack of challenge to Grayling’s controversial proposals by the Coalition partners or within Parliament may partly reflect sleight of hand. “We’re bringing in the best of the private and the voluntary sectors to reinforce what the public sector does”, Grayling wrote on the Conservative Home blog recently, in line with a narrative suggesting a modest common sense adjustment to improve effectiveness. In fact, unlike most policies which promise a transformation and deliver somewhat less, the scale and speed of the change in how services are delivered will be substantial. But through failings in our system of checks and balances, there has been very little examination of whether and how they will actually work, let alone produce any better outcomes.
One reason for the relative lack of parliamentary scrutiny is that the Government has not had to pass any new law to sell off the bulk of probation work, relying on the provisions of the Offender Management Act 2007 which were legislated during the Blair administration to open up the probation market. Labour have belatedly questioned whether these provisions do in fact give Grayling the powers he needs, arguing that what was intended to drive largely local commissioning of services cannot be used instead to underwrite a wholesale national competition. Given the significance of the proposals, the legislative basis surely needs to be tested in front of a judge.
The government does have an Offender Rehabilitation Bill currently in Parliament, but its main purpose as far as the probation changes are concerned, is to extend supervision after release from prison to those serving sentences of less than 12 months. The government is arguably jumping the gun by including within the proposed new contracts the supervision of these short term prisoners for which there is as yet no statutory basis. They might reasonably point to the clauses in the Bill which in due course would give it such a basis; but they would also need then to acknowledge the Bill’s first clause – passed as an amendment by a concerned House of Lords – which requires that no alteration or reform of the structure of the probation service can be made unless the proposals have been laid before, and approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament.
If Grayling has not thus far had to argue for substantive new legal provisions, nor has he had to worry much about whether his plans add up or are deliverable. Thanks to a leak, it is known that the Ministry of Justice consider some aspects of the policy to be at high risk of failing. As the minister responsible, he could presumably ignore these departmental concerns. But what of the Major Projects Authority set up by the Coalition in the Cabinet office at the behest of the Public Accounts Committee to blow the whistle – within government at least – on such risks? One wonders if it has given the plans the green light. In particular it would be interesting to know whether it has had the chance to consider the impact of a policy which could give multi-million pound contracts to companies being investigated for alleged fraudulent behaviour and potential overcharging on existing criminal justice programmes. What are the odds on the hapless Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice being hauled over the coals by the Public Accounts Committee long after Grayling has moved on to answer for the wastefulness emerging from what many consider a rushed and grandiose scheme.
If Grayling has had an easy ride on the legality and structures of his reforms, it’s not been much harder on the penological content. Until, that is, last week when his department’s researchers published a summary of evidence on reducing re-offending to accompany the contracting documents. It reveals that the effectiveness of mentoring offenders coming out of prison – the apparent cornerstone of Grayling’s rehabilitative philosophy – is “mixed/promising”. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. By contrast, what the evidence does show are some general characteristics of effective work with offenders, whatever the nature of the programme. These are the importance of skilled and trained practitioners, well-sequenced, holistic approaches and the delivery of high quality services and interventions in a joined-up, integrated manner. In the views of many experts, progress in all of these areas would be much more likely by building on the experience of Probation Trusts and their local partners rather than creating yet another elaborate set of structures.
Others take a different view. But should we not all agree that at the very least the arguments for and against deserve much more comprehensive and detailed examination than they have so far received.
A version of this article was originally published on the Reforming Prisons blog.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.
Rob Allen works on prison reform in the UK and internationally. From 2005 to 2010 he was director of the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King’s College London, undertaking research on imprisonment and assisting prison systems to comply with international standards.
At the time of Chris Grayling’s appointment as Justice Secretary of State we were awaiting the outcome of his predecessor’s consultation on Government proposals for the “rehabilitation revolution”. They were based on the core principle, now discarded, that probation services should be commissioned through public sector probation trusts. The response to the consultation was never published and instead the current approach was launched. The fact that Government policy can swing so dramatically from one direction to another simply because of a change in Secretary of State should in itself be of concern.
The current plan is justified as a way of reducing reoffending by ex-prisoners particulary those who currently receive no post-release supervision or support. This is a sensible policy objective. The problem is that the Government’s means to this end is to dismantle the entire, demonstrably effective, probation service and create a whole new system whose design appears not to be evidence based. The rationale for this is said to be that the new system will be cheap enough to run that it will free up money that can be used to run new services for ex-prisoners but there do not seem to be financial data to support this.
The approach is predicated on an unfounded assertion that there is a critical problem in England and Wales in our ability to prevent reoffending. However, statistics suggest we are within the “normal range” when compared internationally, insofar as it is technically possible to make such comparisons, and we have improved over time. There are some recent minor statistical causes for concern, and we could certainly do better, but there is no crisis that justifies taking apart the whole national system for assessing and supervising offenders.
The Government says that the private sector is uniquely placed to introduce the efficiencies and innovative ways of working into probation that will create the savings to pay for the new services but these efficiencies could be delivered through public sector probation. The Probation Association, which represents probation trusts at national level, repeatedly made the case over several years for business freedoms and flexibilities, outcome based contracts, less costly bureaucracy and less micro-management by the centre. There is no reason why public sector trusts, all of which are currently meeting Government targets and are led by boards specifically chosen for their ability to lead high-performing business-like organisations, could not deliver the same efficiencies as the private sector given the same freeedoms as they will have.
The new structure will erode over time the generic skills and knowledge that underpin effective probation practice. Those in the privately run services will lose touch with e.g. court work, report writing, residential work and managing high-risk offenders, while those in the new Government service supervising high-risk offenders will become detached from work with petty recidivists and with those on unpaid work orders. There is no clarity in the proposals about how future generations of probation staff will be trained.
It will also unnecessarily over-complicate local partnerships and multi-agency working. In every location in future there will be two probation services, the public and the private, both needing to work with bodies such as police, local authorities, health, the voluntary sector and so. The two probations will be also expected to provide some services through one another. This is not a model for the efficient and effective delivery of services.
All of what the Government wants to achieve is possible through a model based on its earlier intention to commission services through public sector trusts. This would obviate the need for the high risk dismantling of probation and its replacement with an untested new system. This would not preclude the delivery of services by the private or third sectors. Probation could gain from a wider range of providers and the current spotlight on one or two apparently problematic companies should not mean that all are treated with suspicion. The principle should be, though, that other providers work to public sector trusts so that justice is unambiguously “owned” by the State.
A concise and authoritative summary on the profoundly far reaching implications of Grayling’s dismantling of the probation service. The letter sent by Shadow Justice Secretary Sadik Khan MP to CG last week outlined a similar range of unanswered questions on the legal basis of these ‘ reforms’, the worrying absence of any parliamentary scrutiny and not least the dismal spectacle of probation being hawked on the European procurement market! I have endeavoured to obtain basic information on service provision on Serco -( poster child of probation outsourcing ) on its Community Payback contract with London Probation Trust : 6 months later & 6 separate requests for information have elicited no response . Maybe Rob could use some of his policy leverage on penal compliance to get Serco to come clean as Grayling still has them as a potential bidder for probation work -after they have agreed to some tardy corporate clean up ?
: 1/ How many Community Payback staff have Serco made redundant since transfer of contract from LPT ? 2/ How many pooled Vans for those on Unpaid Work to travel to work projects have been cut since the above transfer. 3/ Have any risk assessments been undertaken on the possible impact of these new arrangements, with Young Offender’s from Youth Offending Team’s such that individuals who might reasonably fear some threats to their safety affiliated gang members are not required to perform UW in areas that might put them at risk of harm? 3/ Have the breach rates since the transfer remained unaltered and who is the contracted party responsible for breach? 4/ Who makes the decision on taking UW orders back to court? 5/ How many singleton placements remain in LPT ? If these have been axed have needs assessment been undertaken. Vulnerable service users previously working in bespoke projects? 6/ Does Serco have to comply with FOI requests? Or HRA compliance? 7/ Who has overriding control on data entry if records need to be amended? 8/ Do you recognise the figure of £40m(sic) cost savings flagged up on the Serco contract by the Justice Secretary in a recent one -off hearing before the JSC? 9/ Do you recognise the remarks quoted by a Senior LPT Manager ‘ That the Serco contract must succeed at any cost’? 10/ Does Serco consult the beneficiaries of UW programmes and publish the results of such community engagement surveys? Does Serco routinely record feedback from those sentenced to UW projects in LPT?
Cui bono!