Written evidence from the Probation Association
(PB 11)
1. The Probation Association is the membership
organisation representing the interests of the 35 probation trusts
which employ the 21,000 probation staff in England and Wales.
2. Trusts are Non Departmental Public Bodies
sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, comprising a non-executive
chair and at least four other non-executive members appointed
by the Secretary of State. Each trust board is contracted by the
Secretary of State to deliver services within a defined geographical
area. Each trust employs all local probation staff. Trust boards
are expected to demonstrate leadership and good governance and
to take a commercial approach to their business.
3. The Association:
— undertakes
national collective bargaining on terms and conditions of employment
for all employees of probation trusts;
— promotes
the interests of the 35 trusts to central government and other
partners; and
— provides
advice and guidance to trust on their employer and governance
responsibilities.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
4. The intentions of the Offender Management
Act 2007 have not been reflected in the way probation trusts are
enabled to operate. This Government's aspirations for probation
could substantially be met by implementing the spirit of the existing
legislation.
5. Current arrangements for commissioning probation
services are too complex and neither stimulate the commercial
and innovatory potential of trusts nor reflect trusts' dual lines
of accountability to the Secretary of State and local authorities.
Commissioning arrangements should be revised to eliminate the
current regional tier and to require all local commissioning to
take place through trusts.
6. The Ministry of Justice should identify the
"What" required as national policy outcomes and leave
the "How" to trusts to deliver locally by whatever arrangements
produce best value for money within required standards.
7. Probation trusts have a track record of performing
well against performance targets, and courts have access to a
world class range of offender supervision programmes which are
intensive and challenging, cost efficient and effective in reducing
reoffending. While there is always room for improvement, orders
and licences are generally well managed and enforced.
8. There should be no limits to the use of the
voluntary or private sectors as providers of interventions
with offenders. In deciding who provides, the only issues should
be effectiveness and cost. However, all provider commissioning
should be undertaken directly by trusts to provide qualified oversight
of standards of service delivery.
9. Probation trusts would welcome a reduction
in the use of short prison sentences and are confident they can
manage the professional challenges posed by this "revolving
door" population. However, at a time of budget reductions
and downsizing, redirected resources would need to be provided.
10. Restorative Justice (RJ) should be a standard
option within community sentences.
11. Probation supervision reflects the diverse
needs of all groups of offenders.
12. The training arrangements for staff are broadly
adequate, but more attention needs to be given to the development
of senior staff, including chief executives, and to succession
planning for the most senior posts.
Are probation services currently commissioned
in the most appropriate way?
13. The current system of commissioning has three
tiers—national, regional and local. Probation is a relatively
small "business" and such multiple layer commissioning
processes carry the risk of fragmentation and disconnection in
provision. This is already a problem in relation to national contracts
for estates and facilities management, where probation trusts
must use services commissioned by NOMs and the Home Office from
private sector providers who deliver on a sub-national structure.
The poor value for money of these contracts has been recognised
and NOMS is currently taking remedial action. We would not want
similar experiences with other provision, for example, direct
work with offenders where the public may be at risk from commissioning
failures.
14. The current system frustratingly fails to
take advantage of probation trusts, created by the Offender Management
Act 2007, being enabled to operate in a competitive environment
in which the public sector is no longer a monopoly provider. At
the heart of the legislation is the principle that commercial
flexibility leads to efficiencies, innovation, effectiveness and
value for money. The Government's aspirations for probation could
substantially be met by implementing the spirit of the legislation.
15. Trusts have a unique governance structure
within the criminal justice sector. Appointed by the Secretary
of State and drawn from the local community, non-executive board
members hold executive managers to account. Chosen for their commercial
awareness, business and governance skills and experience, they
have the position and authority to blend national and local interests
into effective service delivery. However, currently NOMS acts
in a quasi-line management relationship to trust boards. The potential
for trust boards to exercise clear local leadership remains unhelpfully
curtailed.
16. Trusts urgently need more business freedoms
and flexibility and less costly regulation so that they can realise
their full competitive and innovative potential in line with the
spirit of the Offender Management Act 2007. It makes little sense
to replace the public sector monopoly in the provision of probation
services with an environment based on the virtues of competition,
yet grant probation trusts no more operating freedom than they
enjoyed as probation boards when they were in a line management
relationship with the Ministry of Justice. See attached document
Enabling Effective Probation Trusts.
17. Trusts are currently expected to demonstrate
compliance with numerous regulatory processes. This is costly,
time consuming and distracts trust boards, managers and staff
away from a focus on front line delivery.
18. The impact on front line staff of complying
with the demands of monitoring, audit and inspection is one contributing
factor to the time spent in face to face contact with offenders:
only 24%, or the equivalent of one working day in four, according
to a recent survey.
19. Recommendation: The current national
regulatory framework of audit, inspection, performance reporting,
etc., should be reformed so that it provides efficient independent
assurance to the public and Parliament with minimum bureaucratic
demands on trusts.
COMMISSIONING STRUCTURES
20. The Probation Association supports a "lead
provider" model, in which the Secretary of State contracts
with each trust for all offender management in an area and the
trust provides these services itself and/or through sub-contractors
or partners. Such a model does not require a regional infrastructure
and savings will be made by eliminating the regional commissioning
tier.
21. There must be a mechanism for the Secretary
of State to commission services from (ie contract with) trusts
and other providers. We are interested in the potential for Police
and Crime Commissioners to act on behalf of the Secretary of State,
as this would help reinforce local multi-agency collaboration
on rehabilitation and community safety. Alternatively, we would
support the Secretary of State's commissioning function being
located in a single probation unit in the Ministry of Justice
(see below). Either approach could provide a cost-effective, light-touch
means of ensuring national priorities were delivered through locally
accountable services.
CONTRACTING ARRANGEMENTS
TO SUPPORT
COMMISSIONING
22. The contract between the Secretary of State
and trusts should incentivise trusts to deliver high quality services
at the lowest possible cost. We believe the contract between the
Secretary of State and the trust should be based principally on
required outcomes, leaving the trust to assess how best to deliver
them within regulation and required standards.
23. Therefore the Probation Trust Rating System,
the current framework for national targets, must be modified so
that it contains only key national policy outcome indicators.
Otherwise trusts must continue to focus on the current plethora
of centrally set input and process targets which add little to
the delivery of effective outcomes such as reoffending rates.
24. Probation is a local service. In April 2010,
trusts became Responsible Authorities under the Crime and Disorder
Act 1998. The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health
Act 2006 introduced the LSP/LAA local partnership frameworks within
which the local probation trust commissions and co-commissions
services and performs against local partnership targets. Together,
these Acts introduce a radically different operational and strategic
environment. Probation trusts now account both vertically through
the Ministry of Justice/NOMS and horizontally to local communities
through local authority scrutiny arrangements.
25. Magistrates represent their local communities
in deciding how best to sanction offenders. Consideration should
be given as to how their sentencing requirements can better inform
the content of each contract.
26. The contract between the Secretary of State
and the trust consequently must:
— be
outcome based;
— reflect
trusts' dual accountability; and
— reflect
the needs of local communities and sentence expectations.
The current arrangement of a centrally prescribed
standard contract based on national targets is not fit-for-purpose
in this environment.
27. Recommendation: The framework of the
contract between the Secretary of State and trusts should be redesigned
so that it can explicitly address both national policy requirements
and local agreements and give due weight to the views of sentencers.
A supporting contract development process must be created.
How effectively are probation trusts operating
in practice?
28. Trusts have demonstrated their ability to
rise to successive performance challenges. Each probation Board
was required to achieve a "green" status in relation
to performance against current national probation targets to successfully
move to trust status from 1 April 2010. All 42 boards (since
reduced to 35 trusts through agreed mergers) met the necessary
elevated levels of performance. The Government has signalled its
intention to explore more commercial, results driven approach
to commissioning of probation services. To enable trusts to respond
they must be granted the business flexibilities and operating
freedoms referred to above.
29. National policy and standards of service
delivery and professional practice will, by definition, always
need to be set centrally. Since its inception in 2004, NOMS, which
brought the prison and probation services together within one
Departmental Agency, has not fully reflected in its operations
the separate governance arrangements, structures, priorities and
culture of probation.
30. In particular, the Probation Association
has been pressing for adequate attention at national level to
be given to the strategic development of probation's local partnership
responsibilities under the legislation referred to at paragraph
24 above. See attached document Local Partnership Strategy.
31. Recommendation: There should be a
separate, dedicated probation policy unit within the Ministry
of Justice to ensure the specific requirements of probation trusts
receive appropriate attention. The unit should be headed by a
postholder of sufficient seniority and probation service experience
to speak authoritatively on probation matters at the highest levels.
Are magistrates and judges able to utilise fully
the requirements that can be attached to community sentences?
How effectively are these requirements being delivered?
32. On any one day there are approximately 85,000
offenders in prison and 240,000 under probation supervision. With
over a dozen "rehabilitative" programmes and numerous
"restrictive" conditions available, there is a plethora
of options for magistrates and judges to include in community
sentences and for offender managers, through prison governors,
to include in post release licences or parole orders. All programmes
must have been accredited by the Ministry of Justice. All staff
delivering programmes are appropriately trained to deliver that
programme.
33. Not all programmes are available in every
Petty Sessional Division as priorities will have been agreed with
local courts based on the prevalence of particular offences and
assessments of offence causation.
34. While trusts seek to manage demand from sentencers,
they must accept whatever orders are made and from time to time
this creates backlogs when the number of orders made exceeds the
capacity of the trust to supervise them safely.
35. Effecting change in offender attitudes and
behaviour takes time, patience and focussed intervention, often
from a range of professionals and contracted organisations. Programmes
are designed to be demanding and rigorous so attrition rates within
some programmes, such as drug rehabilitation, can consequently
appear relatively high but probation staff manage orders and licences
effectively. Overall, 82% of orders are successfully completed
and 95% of "failures to comply" result in breach action
through a return to court or to prison.
What role should the private and voluntary sectors
play in the delivery of probation services?
36. Probation has worked with providers in other
sectors for many years .We support the Big society approach and
believe there should be no limit to the use of voluntary or private
sector organisations as providers of interventions with offenders.
37. Staff qualified to the standards set by
the Ministry of Justice remain best placed to provide the core
offender management duties of assessment (for courts, prisons,
Parole Board and Safeguarding Children Panels) and case management.
Public protection responsibilities are addressed through Multi
Agency Public Protection Arrangements.
38. In order to avoid the risk of fragmentation
of services and to preserve proper professional oversight of the
quality of services delivered, the need for trusts to retain responsibility
for all sub-contracting and commissioning is paramount. For this
reason, while we support the Government's interest in exploring
greater use of the private and voluntary sectors in the rehabilitation
of offenders, we strongly recommend that any testing of potential
arrangements should be carried out in the closest collaboration
with trusts.
39. Recommendation: the Payments by Results
proposals in the Ministry of Justice Structural Reform Plan should
be tested through a collaborative project initiated by the Ministry,
in conjunction with the Probation Association and Probation Chiefs'
Association.
Does the probation service have the capacity to
cope with a move away from short custodial sentences?
40. In principle, probation trusts would welcome
a reduction in the use of short prison sentences and are confident
they can manage the professional challenges posed by this "revolving
door" population. However, at a time of financial stringency,
many trusts are faced with reducing staffing complements. A transfer
of resources from prison to probation should underpin such a change
in sentencing.
41. Recommendation: The Probation Association
would welcome involvement in preparing a business case for the
reduction in use, or abolition, of short term prison sentences
which would include the transfer of resources from prisons to
probation.
Could probation trusts make more use of Restorative
Justice (RJ)?
42. In principle, every offender should be brought
face to face with the consequences of his or her crime(s) and
should, where possible, be offered the chance to make amends to
the victim. Elements of RJ have already been ad hoc features of
probation supervision for many years. Subject to the resources
and capacity to innovate in this way, trusts would welcome the
opportunity to formalise the provision of RJ, possibly as part
of a revised set of national standards. As part of their current
statutory duties, probation victim liaison units already have
relationships with partner organisations and this approach could
capitalise on these arrangements.
43. The mainstreaming of RJ into practice would
provide a more equitable balance between the right of victims
and the obligation on offenders. It would complement the work
already being done by probation victim liaison units to support
the victims of the most serious crimes of violence.
44. Recommendation: the Ministry of Justice
should facilitate a pilot approach to the mainstreaming of RJ
in a range of probation trusts to assess the resource implications
of full internalising of RJ principles into probation practice.
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?
45. The probation service has been in the forefront
of development of a national approach to diversity for staff and
offenders. In relation to offenders, each sentence plan must consider
how best to address the needs of women and minority ethnic offenders
and bespoke offending behaviour programmes have been developed,
supervised by specially trained staff.
46. All trusts operate a "tiering"
system which categorises offenders according to the risk they
present to others and their rehabilitation needs. Programmes of
supervision are then delivered in accordance with this 'triage'
approach. The highest risk "dangerous" offenders have
extra resources directed to them, and are managed through Multi-Agency
Public Protection Arrangements.
Is the provision of training adequate?
47. The recently implemented Probation Qualifications
Framework provides broadly adequate training for operational staff.
It was only implemented on 1 April 2010 and needs time to "bed
in", but there are three areas in which we think positive
action is needed now:
— the
up-skilling of all Probation Services' Officer grade staff will
take more time to deliver than is desirable;
— senior
management professional development has been seriously neglected;
and
— today's
chief executives trained as probation officers and many have had
little or no significant business or strategic leadership training
or development unlike, for example, their counterparts in the
police service.
48. Currently the resources for management and
leadership development rest with NOMS. Henceforth these responsibilities
should be transferred to probation trusts to manage corporately.
49. Recommendation: We would propose that
this transfer is achieved through the Probation Association as
the trusts' "trade body".
September 2010
| 
