Written evidence from Mike Guilfoyle (PB
08)
Are probation services currently commissioned
in the most appropriate way?
The arrangements set in motion by the Offender Management
Act (2007) contained provisions which if properly enacted could
provide the right kind of framework for a more streamlined commissioning
role for the Probation Service at the local level. However there
appears to be too little attention paid by Trusts to ensuring
that smaller independent organisations that aim to offer tailored
services to offenders and communities are enabled to enter the
field. If Probation Trusts are meant to be arms length organisations
operating by contract with the Secretary of State. Removal of
the regional quasi-managerial Noms/Doms offices would most likely
make for greater autonomy over local commissioning options? There
is a clear imperative to seperate responsibility for Probation
& Prison policy in the MoJ/Noms. Even though Noms has been
in existence since 2004 very few front line staff really meaningfully
grasp what it is!! Two thirds of supervised Offenders are only
ever managed by Probation. Active arrangements that foster better
levels of trust between organisations are more important than
competitive contractual working. A Stand -Alone, Locally based
and properly resourced Probation Service needs to be higher up
the Criminal Justice Agenda?
How effectively are probation trusts operating
in practice? What is the role of the probation service in delivering
"offender management" and how does it operate in practice?
With pending efficiency savings aimed at reducing
the deficit now in motion. The committee will have regard to Napo's
briefing paper on the MoJ cuts. Delivery of "Offender Management"
could be adversely impacted if front line Probation jobs are lost.
Offender Management risks fragmenting continuity of contact (a
central thread of the OM model) if too many contractual providers
enter the field in a market led free for all. There is an absence
of the Offender "voice" in service determination. The
committee may well have some regard to Professor Eileen Munro's
governmental review on cutting wasteful bureaucracy and enhancing
service delivery in Social Services departments. Too much time,
money and resources have been squandered by Noms on failed IT
projects (C-Nomis) and this has resulted in cumulative losses
in confidence and engagement by staff as well as the erosion of
professionalism. Probation Trusts appear to be constrained by
too many restrictive practices on being able to deploy their income,
if this remains in situ, it requires more of a radical rethink
of what "localism" means and how to best to resolve
the conflicting priorities in terms of national and local targets
in the context of local area agreements and Crime reduction partnerships.
Are magistrates and judges able to utilise fully
the requirements that can be attached to community sentences?
How effectively are these requirements being delivered?
The Magistrates Association will be providing its
own submission to the committee, but there appear to be local
and regional variations on the ability of Probation Trusts to
respond to judicial demands due primarily to levels of differential
resourcing between areas. As an example, London Probation issued
"guidelines" to court staff that Curfew Orders (Stand
alone Requirements) for breach of Community Orders in dedicated
magistrates courts should be the "only" proposal, which
conflicted with professional discretion and sentencing fairness.
This was cited as being due to organisational pressures to fulfil
Unpaid Work/Community Payback quotas and insufficient staffing
ratios. How to address "mode of case disposals" will
clearly impact on rates of re-offending. The removal of sentencers
from Trust boards will no doubt weaken accountability and make
communication pathways that much more problematic.
What role should the private and voluntary sectors
play in the delivery of probation services?
The nature of the contracting environment needs to
change so that greater levels of accountability are in evidence
and better scrutiny of commissioning decisions are available.
Better partnerships at the local level with independent providers
need to be fashioned and developed. Faith sector organisations
like the St Giles Trust should be encouraged to expand its range
of provision in the resettlement of prisoners. But which services
could be better run needs closer scrutiny especially when cost
reductions and value for money proposals are so prominent. The
Probation Service had a commitment to ensure that "ex-Offenders"
were represented on Boards (now Trusts) This appears to have dissipated
as the "users" voice is low on the priority list of
most areas?
Does the probation service have the capacity to
cope with a move away from short custodial sentences?
The scope for offering adequate levels of supervision
across the board is likely to be greatly attentuated by planned
cuts in budgets. Initiatives to handle increased workloads by
offering services to those sentenced to short custodial sentences
is at this juncture a significant challenge that the Service would
not have the capacity to manage. Successful local initiatives
like the Diamond Project need to be pump primed (and recommendations
contained in the committees Justice Reinvestment Report need to
be re-energised) A serious review of breach practices to obviate
unnecessary recalls to prison should be considered (many of these
proposals were contained in the Centre for Social Justice's landmark
report-Locked Up Potential)
Could probation trusts make more use of restorative
justice?
The extension of restorative justice programmes should
be considered on the basis of the impartial evidence of its effectiveness.
Pre -election pledges by Labour/Lib Dems/P Cymru cited significant
cashable savings for RJ and the current Prison/Probation Minister
noted that "RJ had an historic opportunity" within Criminal
Justice. Probation Trusts should scale in RJ as a vital and workable
solution to identified areas of Offender/victim intervention in
addressing the harms of offending and victimisation.
Does the probation service handle different groups
of offenders appropriately, eg women, young adults, black and
minority ethnic people, and high and medium risk offenders?
Probation work at its best is well suited to provide
a culturally sensitive and potentially restorative role in marginalised
communities. But due to the absence of effective top end leadership
(No Director General of Probation) and the deleterious impact
of some of the more malign managerialist projects imposed from
above. It appears to have lost some of the potential for good
in appearing to many at the front line as no more than an arm
of the prison service, struggling to accomplish end to end management
and fixated on targets which pays only limited regard to individual
difference and downplays the statutory requirements of the impact
of its policies on minority groups. It often pays lip service
to equality and diversity when pursuing performance driven agendas.
Is the provision of training adequate?
The Probation Qualification Framework launched in
April 2010 and broadly supported by Napo is still work in progress
and may well be better amplified in the Napo submission to the
committee.
The Probation Service has become unbalanced within
the Criminal Justice System and has changed almost beyond recognition
over the last decade for many inside and outside the service.
There needs to be a better dialogue between criminal and social
justice and an agency like Probation is arguably well suited as
an organisation charged with the responsibility to assist sentencers
reach decisions based on an informed and critical understanding
of the circumstances of offenders and the families and communities
in which they live.
The advent of Noms has unbalanced the relationship
between Probation and Prisons, many staff regarded this as a "
hostile take over" .Probation is seriously unrepresented
at the strategic centre of Noms (described as the New Agency in
2009!) and as such the Probation voice has been stifled and marginalised.
This has meant that the principles and values long associated
with the Service have not be properly heard or duly respected.
The primary tasks of both services are different and different
skills are needed. Of course there are points of interface when
prisoners are released but the Noms organisational project has
been unwise, poorly understood and a massively costly enterprise.
The third sector (a trojan horse for Probation?)
is very close to the Noms agenda and may well offer in many respects
a re-humanising of the Justice system if Faith and other communities
are enabled to work with offenders and victims in a more integrated
and holistic way set against the fiscal imperatives of MoJ savings?
Yet within the lexicon of most Probation staff the values of support,
help, reform, decency and respect still loom large. If Probation
is to remain a vital part of the "Rehabilitation Revolution"
it will need to have the capacity to avoid the "meltdown"
many fear may well happen if severe cuts go ahead and the services
ability to provide "public protection" within a re-balanced
Justice System (see the Probation Chiefs briefing 2010) is not
to be irreversibly damaged.
September 2010
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