Written evidence from Excalibur Procurement
Services Limited (PB 76)
1. I have been closely following the oral evidence
currently being provided to the Justice Committee on the Role
of Probation. We have been working with Probation and NOMS since
2006 and have been closely involved in the transition from Probation
Boards to Trusts as well as advising Ministers during the passage
of the OM Act through parliament and project managing the introduction
of the first wave Probation Trust contracts. We are currently
working with 10 Probation Trust as well as providing commissioning
support and training to many others through a collaborative partnership
with the Probation Association.
2. Although we have not been called to give evidence
to the Select Committee, I felt our in depth knowledge on the
commercial capabilities of the Probation service may be useful
in informing the Committees understanding of the issues that will
influence the development of a more commercially astute and fully
integrated probation service in local communities.
3. I have attached a report for the Select Committees
information that we published in October 2010.(not printed) This
provides and assessment of probations commissioning capabilities
at that time. I am pleased to say that our prediction in the report
that Trusts commercial capabilities would continue to develop
at pace is proving to be correct with most now taking a more hardnosed
business approach to service delivery and commissioning strategies.
4. However as a businessman with significant
experience in the commissioning of community based services, I
am extremely concerned that the NOMS and MoJ approach to market
testing probation services is driven by the need to save money
rather than ensuring efficient and effective services that are
sustainable. There is a danger that people within NOMS and the
MoJ are treating community based offenders as a form of commodity
and that these offenders exhibit a similar compliant nature to
those offenders in prison. Even more worrying is that the larger
private sector providers also adopt the same approach and have
based their whole commercial business strategy on this rationale.
This is a dangerous assumption and the risks of not understanding
the true dynamics of this offender group will not only end up
costing more through higher levels of enforcement but also result
in a degradation of quality and increased levels of reoffending.
Those who work in probation know that they are dealing with a
chaotic group of individuals who are not contained and require
very different management to those offenders in prison.
5. The voluntary sector is also in my view culpable
in fundamentally misunderstanding the role of the probation service
and I am increasingly concerned at the number of larger voluntary
organisations who are actively seeking to take over the delivery
of a whole service. What they are not taking into account is the
stringent conditions that a Probation Trust has to operate both
in terms of reporting but also in the lack of business flexibilities
and maintaining high quality standards. They are assuming that
they would run a probations service in a similar way to their
own operation which would not be the case. One needs to question
whether they would be as interested if they had to meet many of
the requirements imposed on a current Probation Trust or whether
a Trust freed of some of the constraints would in fact be able
to deliver services in a very different way.
6. I would like to assure the Committee that
I am not advocating that Probation Services remain in the public
sector, in fact the ten Trust I am working with are using our
services primarily to help them introduce a mixed economy delivery
model that sees services delivered by providers best suited to
meet the need. What I am advocating (as recognised as best practice
in commissioning) is that the commissioning decision is taken
as close to the point of delivery as possible, which means at
a Trust level. The benefits of this approach are that Trusts become
true commissioners of services, pooling resources and making commercial
decision in collaboration with local partners from all sectors
that are designed to meet local offender needs. This will ensure
that offenders undertake and complete the appropriate punishment
issued by the Court but are given the necessary support in the
community, by the community to ensure they do not reoffend. National
contracts by their nature will distance the local involvement
and lead to high central procurement and contract management costs,
poor governance and increased risk, which in a probation environment
is likely to lead to public protection issues.
7. I and many other commentators recognise that
historically Probation Trusts have been seen as the "delinquent
child" of the criminal justice sector and that the proposed
MoJ market testing strategy is a thinly disguised mechanism designed
to finally get rid of the service altogether. I would however
urge caution in adopting this approach because it is clear that
many really do not recognise the level of complexity in delivering
probation services. It is also clear that some politicians favour
moving probation back under the control of local government (the
Scottish model) but one only has to look at the current problems
in social care to soon see that probation services would soon
become a small cog in a big wheel and offender management would
likely suffer accordingly.
8. The natural commercial evolution currently
underway in Probation Trusts is testament to their renewed commitment
to become more businesslike. This and the reduction in their budgets
together with an insistence (thorough their contract with NOMS)
that they themselves market test offender services, would in my
view be enough to see a mixed economy in service delivery as well
as a much more integrated local service. It would also be less
costly than implementing a significant central programme of market
testing.
1 October 2010
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