This afternoon I will introduce a debate in Westminster Hall to challenge ministers on their Transforming Rehabilitation programme. In June last year the government abolished the probation service we have had for over 100 years. Probation trusts around the country have been replaced by 21 privately owned community rehabilitation companies and a diminished National Probation Service with responsibility for high-risk offenders.
This far-reaching change, introduced in a rush, without trialling or piloting, was brought in not because the probation service was failing – every single probation trust had been assessed as good or excellent according to the Ministry of Justice’s own measures. Ministers said it was necessary because of high rates of reoffending among offenders completing short custodial sentences, to enable new arrangements for their supervision on release. But, while that proposal is welcome, the probation service never had responsibility for the supervision of those offenders, so failure in relation to their offending behaviour cannot be laid at its door.
Yet ministers proceeded to split the probation service in two, with Community Rehabilitation Companies supervising low-and-medium-risk offenders, and the National Probation Service retaining responsibility for high-risk offenders, ignoring warning that such fragmentation of the service will lead to confusion and put public safety at risk.
A recent report from the chief inspector of probation has revealed a host of early operational difficulties, backing up what staff and offenders have been telling members of parliament for months. There have been reports of staff shortages, IT problems, records going missing, and staff supervising offenders ‘blind’, with no information about their offending history or personal circumstances.
Probation officers have talked to me about an overwhelming workload, of IT systems that do not speak to each other, and of random allocation of staff to the new Community Rehabilitation Companies or the National Probation Service. Morale has suffered, staff are stressed, and communication to staff about the changes has been haphazard and often late.
But these are not mere teething troubles. The whole concept of Transforming Rehabilitation is based on the fragmentation of offender supervision, adding layers of bureaucracy, and increasing the risk of communication breakdown. There is a complex escalation process when a low-or-medium-risk offender is deemed to have become high-risk. The system depends on the Community Rehabilitation Companies identifying and escalating a case where there is a perception that risk is increasing, but the determination of the risk is made by the National Probation Service. How will the National Probation Service carry out an effective risk assessment of an offender with whom they have not previously had any contact because they have hitherto been managed in the Community Rehabilitation Company?
There is a worrying lack of transparency surrounding the whole process, yet with an upheaval on this scale the public has a right to know that it has been worth it, to know whether the contracts are working effectively, that we are being more effectively protected, that reoffending is reduced as result of the changes, and that money is being well spent. A Labour government would extend Freedom of Information legislation to ensure Community Rehabilitation Companies are covered – but the government opposed this during the passage of the Offender Rehabilitation Act last year. Shamefully, the government has made it impossible for a future government to reverse the contracts except at great cost to the taxpayer, despite knowing Labour’s strong opposition to the plans.
All these concerns should of course have been addressed before this wholesale, high-risk, evidence-free reorganisation of the probation service went ahead. It seems that ideology not evidence has characterised the government’s approach.
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Kate Green MP is shadow minister for disabled people and a former magistrate. She tweets @KateGreenSU
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An excellent summation of the situation with priority correctly being given to the danger to us all caused by splitting #Probation at the local level and the consequences of introducing inevitable extra costly and energy sapping and risk increasing administration.
Not mentioned is the wider issue of a lack of LOCAL governanace of Probation services which is bound up with a wider overal centralisation of Government – but no longer are the local Justices of the Peace at the heart of matter with support by folk appointed by elected local authorities. That set up meant that when I was appointed first in 1975 I was truly an “officer of the court” which was also my actual employer, even if that was (then) part funded by the Home Office and tax rather than “Rates”. That meant that like the Magistrates (Functioning since 13th Century) my first duty was to aid the keeping of the peace locally and then nationally as Magistrates were initially directly appointed (I am almost certain) on behalf of the monarch.