8. Memorandum submitted by
the Howard League for Penal Reform
The Howard League for Penal Reform is interested
to see that the Committee is undertaking a special session on
the government's proposals for restructuring the Probation Service.
We are in the process of preparing a full response
to the formal Home Office consultation but in the interim we hope
that the points made and questions raised in this letter will
prove helpful to the committee.
JUSTIFYING THE
RESTRUCTURING
The Howard League for Penal Reform does not
believe that the government has made the case for a further seismic
change in the way that probation services are delivered. Such
a change would come only four years after the last major reorganisation
established the National Probation Service (NPS). The Howard League
for Penal Reform considers that the current proposals sound the
death knell for a publicly accountable probation service.
The recommendations of the Carter report, on
which these proposals are based, was unquestioningly accepted
by the Home Office without any consultation, debate or testing.
This is a very fragile base for a major restructuring. As a result,
the whole process of establishing the new National Offender Management
Service (NOMS) has been marred by confusion, waste of public money,
lack of consultation and secrecy. Despite these problems, a business
case for the establishment of NOMS has never been made. It is
no surprise, therefore, that the latest proposals for the probation
service are a reversal of the position initially adopted last
year. This does not inspire confidence in NOMS to achieve what
it was set up to do, namely a reduction in reoffending.
The consultation document wrongly draws on the
experience of the NOMS pathfinders to justify the proposals for
introducing "contestability" and expanding the role
of private providers. These pathfinders, which have achieved some
impressive results, are piloting integrated offender management
between prison and the community. It is sadly ironic that much
of what has already been achieved in respect of partnership and
community links may be fractured or lost entirely if the new proposals
are introduced.
The Minister has acknowledged in her foreword
the achievements of probation areas, which have been increasingly
successful at meeting Home Office targets. Why not build on this,
rather than embark on further massive organisational change, a
new and expensive layer of bureaucracy and threaten the gains
that have already been made?
ROLE OF
PROBATION "TRUSTS"
The Howard League for Penal Reform is troubled
by the proposals for the composition of the probation trusts.
The government claims to want to devolve power
back to local communities. If enacted, the proposal to sever the
existing statutory requirement for a member of the probation board
to have links with the local area, would not further this aim.
Similarly, the proposal to transfer the statutory duties placed
on local boards to the Regional Offender Manager (ROM) would result
in the further diminution of a local service. Does a regionally-based
civil servant (the ROM) really know more about local needs than
their counterpart in Whitehall?
We think that the regional commissioning structure
will not provide a level-playing field for the three sectors,
private, voluntary and public, that the government wishes to see
involved in the provision of probation services. We question whether
the voluntary sector, being mostly locally-based, would in reality
be in a position to compete with national (or international) private
corporations.
We believe that the selection criteria as stated
in the consultation document for appointment to trusts are too
narrowly drawn. We are concerned that there are no references
to experience of the criminal justice system, sentencing, dealing
with offenders, or a commitment to the aim of rehabilitation.
The consultation paper makes no mention of magistrates,
which is an extraordinary omission given their central role in
imposing short prison sentences and the bulk of community penalties.
The experience of the National Probation Service is that the more
remote a court feels from its local probation service, the less
likely the court is to seek or trust their views. Clearly, a loss
of confidence from the courts in probation services would have
significant negative consequences. It could, for example, result
in an increase in short prison sentences at the expense of community
penalties which would serve only to undermine further the stated
purpose of NOMS to reduce reoffending.
PUBLIC SERVICE
VALUES
The consultation document refers to the "exciting"
opportunities available to staff from the proposals. It is silent,
however, on the values behind the provision of probation services.
The Howard League for Penal Reform is not an
apologist for poorly performing public services, but we do strongly
believe that the values that drive a public probation service
are different to those governing a private corporation bidding
for contacts. We are extremely concerned that the proposed restructuring
amounts to an effective abolition of the probation service as
a nationwide service. We would ask what happens to that public
service ethos embodied in that service if this abolition takes
place?
The lessons of the Youth Justice Board are that
it has been much more effective through its partnership arrangements
that through its commissioning role. The Home Office should learn
from this, and seek to strengthen existing partnership working.
The Howard League for Penal Reform remains unconvinced
of the need for further large scale structural changes in both
the probation service and the services delivered. We remain of
the view that this change is driven by the need to sustain the
ill-thought through and hasty decision to create NOMS. We believe
that these latest proposals for the probation service represent
the last desperate throw of the dice to try to maintain the fiction
that NOMS is the only solution to the crisis in our penal system.
Frances Crook
Director
18 November 2005
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