Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Napo
EVIDENCE FOR
THE JUSTICE
REINVESTMENT INQUIRY—SUPPLEMENTARY
REMARKS FROM
NAPO THE
TRADE UNION
AND PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATION FOR
FAMILY COURT
AND PROBATION
STAFF
Since submitting evidence to the Inquiry in
February 2008 there has been a significant deterioration in the
resource situation of the Probation Service.
A letter from Roger Hill, the then Director of Probation,
dated 27 October 2008, states:
"Our headline budget including the £40
million and budget exchange for 2008-09 was £914 million.
That is the starting point for 2009-10 on the basis of flat cash.
There will be a nationally required saving of £20 million
reducing this flat cash budget to £894 million nationally."
"In the third year of the current Comprehensive
Spending Reviews—2010-11, the Probation budget of £894
million will be flat cash again and reduced by a further £50
million."
"Although we cannot predict the budget for
2011-12 until the next Comprehensive Spending Review has taken
place, your general planning assumption should be a further reduction
of another £50 million."
This will equate to an overall cut of between
15% and 25% by 2011-12. During the same period crime will rise
significantly because of the recession. The service will not be
able to fulfil its statutory responsibilities. In justifying the
cuts, Ministers have claimed that the Probation budget grew by
over 70% during the last seven or eight years. The budget was
reduced by 9% in 2005-06 and by a further 2% in 2006-07. The vast
majority of the increase therefore did not reach the front line.
On 5 February 2009 the Ministry of Justice produced
its Strategic and Business Plan for the period 2009-11. It sets
out strategic priorities to 2011 and outlines means of improving
efficiency and effectiveness.
The document goes on to outline a major prison
building programme, to develop strategies for more efficient use
of resources, to improve contract management and more. The paper
states that the Ministry of Justice will be using "robust
service level agreements and contract management" to "incentivise
high performance" and "to identify and tackle poor performance
by prison and probation areas".
The document also contains the resource budget
for offender services through to 2008. It is extraordinary that
expenditure on NOMS HQ has now reached £1.012. The expenditure
on the prison service is £2.2 billion and on probation £909
million. Expenditure on NOMS HQ therefore exceeds that on the
entire Probation Service for England and Wales by £130 million.
Indeed, the expenditure on NOMS grew from £860 million in
2006-07, when the Probation budget was £880 million. More
is now being spent it seems on monitoring probation activity than
on the entire frontline supervision in England and Wales. If cuts
have to be made then Napo would argue that ways be examined of
drastically cutting bureaucracy, fees to consultants and advisors
and other unnecessary expenditure.
DISAPPEARING PROBATION
PRESENCE
Napo is alarmed at the virtual absence of Probation
personnel in senior positions in the NOMS' hierarchy. They are
also grossly underrepresented at all grades in the structure.
Recently the post of Director of the National Probation Service
was abolished, and not replaced with anything vaguely similar.
The Prison Service has been traditionally managed
on a centralised command and control model for years. In Napo's
view it is a model which has in part contributed to poor industrial
relations within that service. However, it is a cause of concern
that that model is now being imported and introduced into the
Probation Service. The NOMS' hierarchy, who all have a Prison
Service background, have described at various meetings the need
for "crunchier management". They have also stated on
several occasions that the Prison Service is managed by "iron
levers", but Probation by "rubber ones". There
appears to be a failure to understand that the Probation Service
is managed on a model which involves consultation, consent and
motivation. The use of so called "iron levers" would
lead to destabilisation and demoralisation.
IMPACT ON
CRIME
Last year 48,000 offenders completed Accredited
Programmes. The re-offending rate is 35% compared to 50% for ordinary
supervision. Assuming that Programmes will be cut by 25%, which
is a reasonable and logical conclusion from the above, 12,000
offenders who hitherto have had a re-offending rate of one third
will now have a re-offending rate of one half. In other words,
12,000 re-offending at 35% would mean approximately 4,000 further
offenders while 12,000 at 50% would be 6,000. Assuming they are
committing one crime a week, which again is a reasonable conclusion
given that 70% have major problems with drugs, that would be 100,000
additional crimes per annum.
There are a further 90,000 offenders on probation
supervision in the community and the standard of supervision of
this group will also drastically fall as a result of the cuts.
The average re-offending rate of this group is currently 50%.
On the assumption again that the service to this group reduces
by 25%, we can also expect an additional impact on further crimes.
Assuming that the rise in the rate is modest and reverts to the
pre-2000 figure of 55%, that would be a further 4,000 individuals
again committing an additional offence per week, giving a total
of another 200,000 offences. That would therefore round-up to
300,000 extra offences per annum.
CONCLUSIONS
The Probation Service faces meltdown if the
current cuts go ahead and crime soars in the recession. An average
cut of 20% will lead to the loss of up to 3,000 posts. The majority
of the loss will be at the front line and will compromise service
delivery. This is certain to result in an increase in re-offending.
This coupled with additional crimes as a consequence of the recession
will leave the Probation Service in an untenable position. Napo
is not convinced, because of an absence of a probation presence
in the new Agency head office, that the consequence of these matters
are fully realised. Napo believes there is no new NOMS strategy
for ensuring that the probation perspective is heard at the centre
or conveyed to ministers. Napo is unconvinced that there is a
balanced representation from staff drawn from custody and the
community at all grades including senior management within the
Agency. Yet the proportionate realities are that most offenders
are supervised in the community on orders that do not have a custodial
element, offender behaviour programmes run in the community are
significantly cheaper and more effective, and the amount of accredited
programmes in the community far exceeds the number delivered in
custody. Napo believes that based on the above analysis, staff
with a probation background should be key players throughout the
whole structure of NOMS including senior management.
Harry Fletcher
Assistant General Secretary
February 2009
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