Updated supplementary written evidence
from the Probation Association (PB 68)
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. On behalf of the trusts 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 trusts on their employer and governance
responsibilities.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
4. There is clear evidence from the Total Place
(TP) pilots that the devolved governance of public services located
at the right spatial level results in better value for money.
Place based budgets (PBB) are part of this coherent, tested concept
whereas payment by results (PBR) is as yet an untested tool. However,
PBR and PBR are not mutually exclusive and PBR could become a
selectively valid feature of a PBB model.
5. PBB has more to offer than payment by results
in the drive for better outcomes in relation to reduced reoffending.
Crime is caused by many inter-related factors and these are most
effectively tackled when all agencies in a locality work collaboratively,
drawing on their respective strengths and pooling budgets to deal
with the problems that are prevalent in their area. PBR should
be reserved to tackle very specific issues and be commissioned
through local agencies as part of their place-based approach.
6. The probation trust is the obvious vehicle
through which reductions in reoffending should be achieved. Trusts
can do this most effectively when they work to an outcomes based
contract with the Secretary of State and collaborate with local
partners. Best results will be achieved when trusts are freed
from current over-regulation and financial disincentives.
7. To maximise locally prioritised outcomes,
deliver value for money and minimise risk, only probation trusts
should hold court orders and be responsible for their supervision.
Introducing new players as "lead providers" will create
fragmentation and critical gaps in communication and liaison.
A reward system should be introduced to keep trusts motivated
to seek best results at least cost.
What are the relative merits of payment by results
(PBR) and place-based budgeting (PBB) models as means to encourage
local statutory partnerships and other agencies to reduce re-offending?
8. There is clear evidence from the 13 TP pilots
(see HM Treasury's report Total Place: a whole area approach
to public services) that the devolved governance of public
services located at the right spatial level results in better
value for money. PBB is a fundamental element of the TP methodology
which has now iteratively developed into pilots focussed on Families
with Multiple Needs based from 1 April 2011 in 16 Places covering
31 local authorities and 11 probation trusts.
9. Seven of the TP pilots were focussed on aspects
of crime reduction with probation staff playing a major part in
their implementation. The concept of "Place" has in
a very short period resonated through probation trusts giving
substance to the reality of probation as a national service delivered
locally working collaboratively with other Responsible Authority
(RA) and co-commissioning services.
10. The Local Government Association publication
Place-based budgets: the future governance of local public
services provides a summary of the potential of PBB.
11. PBB:
— enables
responsibility for commissioning to rest with locally accountable
bodies, increasing the likelihood that services will be responsive
to the communities they serve;
— allows
the geographical dimensions of the place for which the services
are provided to be determined according to what makes most sense
locally;
— encourages
all services in the place to work together to deliver results,
drawing on their diverse resources and strengths for the collective
good;
— focuses
on the place and its needs, rather than organisations and their
activities, creating a solutions and outcomes orientation;
— promotes
the flexible use of pooled budgets to deliver outcomes;
— can
be responsive to changing needs. The local partners can by agreement
adapt their activities and targets, albeit respecting accountability
requirements, as local circumstances change; and
— supports
a holistic approach to problem solving. The causes of crime are
rarely one-dimensional and PBB enables integrated, multi-agency
solutions to be developed. Criminal justice agencies need help
from other partners to be fully effective.
12. Its disadvantages are:
— the
risk that activity rather than outcomes dominate because of the
need to coordinate and direct many agencies in working together;
and
— that
there may be few penalties for not achieving outcomes unless the
bodies to whom the partners are accountable are prepared to be
robust in holding them to account. It may be difficult to pinpoint
where the responsibility lies for a failure to produce results.
13. PBR is designed to deliver pre-set outcomes
through a contract. It thus has the advantages of:
— clarity
about what is required;
— outcomes
which have to be tangible and measurable;
— payment
only being made when contracted for outcomes are delivered;
— possibly
being more likely that PBB to attract investment from the private
sector because of the clarity of how financial rewards can be
earned; and
— makes
delivering results an over-riding imperative because of the "no
win—no fee" basis of the contract.
14. Its disadvantages are that:
— the
complex causes of offending and what works to prevent it are difficult
to reflect in a contract-based, cash-for-results relationship.
Only the easiest to achieve outcomes may be amenable to PBR because
providers will only risk entering a PBR contract where there is
a reasonable likelihood of securing payment;
— as
with other approaches that are heavily target-based it may drive
perverse behaviour as the need to produce evidence of results
dominates;
— it
is relatively inflexible and unresponsive to changing requirements;
and
— it
tends to focus on a single issue in order to enable targets and
rewards to be clearly expressed.
What results should determine payment in applying
such a model to criminal justice?
15. Measures of success in criminal justice are
of three types. Each is measured in relation to individual offenders
and data aggregated to report results for chosen populations:
— the
headline outcome measure of reduced reoffending. This is
problematic to measure absolutely but the proxy measure of reduced
rates of reconviction (usually after 12 months following the end
of a community order or licence) is used instead. Refinements
include reduced seriousness and/ or reduced frequency;
— probation
staff regularly measure offenders' progress against those factors
known to have a causative association with offending and desistance
from it, e.g. educational or vocational qualification, employment,
accommodation, substance misuse; and
— changes
in attitude measured through self-reporting
and/or professional assessment.
16. Probably only the first two are capable of
measurement through PBR. The Probation Association and the Probation
Chiefs Association are about to publish a joint report setting
out a recommended framework for the measurement of probation performance
(Contract Outcomes—facing the right direction?).
The near final draft is attached for information. As well as summarising
an approach it discusses some of the technical issues around measuring
progress and achievement in reducing reoffending: these would
apply particularly to PBR.
17. We believe there is a place for PBR. However,
PBR based programmes should be managed within multi-agency PBB
arrangements, enabling local partners to target specific issues,
where they lend themselves to a PBR approach, in support of their
overall aims.
18. We also consider that probation trusts should
be rewarded for achievement against the requirements set out in
their contracts with the Secretary of State. Our original submission
to this Committee discusses our position and see also paragraph
21 below.
What freedoms would probation trusts like to have
to enable them to manage offenders and reduce reoffending more
effectively?
19. Probation trusts should be contracted to
deliver outcomes, leaving probation staff to decide what professional
practice will produce the right results. The current contract
between the Secretary of State and trusts consequently needs reform
so that it deals less with inputs and process and focuses more
on required results. The joint paper from the Probation Association
and the Probation Chiefs Association (referred to in paragraph
16 above) sets out our recommended framework.
20. Trusts need to be freed to be efficient,
entrepreneurial and innovative. In addition to a revised contract
they need:
— the
ability to retain income earned from sources (eg local authorities)
other than the Secretary of State;
— the
ability to carry forward unspent money at the financial year-end;
and
— a proportionate
regulatory regime. The Probation Association is publishing a report
on the regulatory burden on trusts (Hitting the Target, Missing
the Point), which contains recommendations for improvement.
A copy is attached.
The Government proposes a lead provider model and
suggests that commissioning for the delivery and enforcement of
sentences and for efforts to reduce reoffending will not be separated.
What is the appropriate role for probation in such a model?
21. The State should be responsible for the delivery
of justice, including the implementation of court orders. Efforts
to reduce reoffending and enforcement of sentences are most successful
when one body is responsible for all delivery, commissioning and
enforcement in a locality. Therefore the Secretary of State should
contract only with public sector probation trusts (using
an outcomes based contract—see paragraph 16 above).
22. A criticism of such a "public sector
monopoly" type approach is that it provides insufficient
incentive to be more efficient or effective. A reward model for
trusts would drive a robust local commissioning approach: trusts
would be spurred to provide services in the most cost-effective
way, either themselves or by sub-commissioning locally. Trusts
should therefore be rewarded through a "core plus" model,
in which the Secretary of State pays a guaranteed sum to enable
trusts to meet central costs and agreed baseline performance with
"top-up" payments for extra volumes and better outcomes.
23. Though providers to the Secretary
of State trusts should, at local level, therefore primarily be
commissioners. The advantages of this approach are that
it:
— enables
probation services to remain totally integrated at local level,
managed as a cohesive, inter-related whole;
— reflects
and supports a place-based, multi-agency approach to public protection,
reducing reoffending and community safety (see above);
— encourages
trusts to explore new models of service delivery such as mutuals
and other partnerships; and
— leaves
intact existing arrangements for the sharing of sensitive information
around high risk offenders, which depend on mutual trust developed
over time.
24. The disadvantages of a model in which the
Secretary of State commissions from multiple providers are that:
— it
fragments provision;
— extra
systems have to be created to join up the resulting fragmented
provision eg re offenders subject to supervision by more than
one provider, or between public sector offender managers and providers
in other agencies contracted by the Secretary of State;
— it
introduces new players into the sensitive arena of public protection
with the risk that police, in particular, may be very cautious
about sharing information with them; and
— trusts
will become weaker strategically and financially if they lose
business, less able to engage as strong local partners in the
often complex multi-agency environments, and less flexible internally.
25. An effective local commissioner model depends
on trusts taking a very active commissioning stance in relation
to all aspects of work (apart from services to courts which are
reserved to probation trusts or other public sector bodies by
the Offender Management Act 2007). Trusts must be willing to test
whether even core services might better be delivered by another
provider under contract to the trust. Instead of investing in
competition at national level, resources therefore should be devoted
to helping trusts continuously develop as commissioners. Trusts
should also be supported to further develop alternative models
of provision such as social enterprises and other partnership
arrangements with local public, private and not-for-profit organisations.
26. Thus we support competition and diverse models
of provision but they must be managed at local trust level
by trusts themselves.
27. The imminent competition for the provision
of community payback (CP), formerly known as unpaid work and before
that as community service, will, if any one of the six contracts
is won by a private sector provider, introduce the weaknesses
set out above that arise in a multiple provider environment.
28. It will also erode local accountability,
conflicting with the Government's localism strategy whose effectiveness
was endorsed by the TP pilots. CP is a local sentence whereby
local offenders make amends for their crimes to local communities
but, for example, any organisation, public or private, winning
the contract for CP in the lot covering Wales, Cheshire, Greater
Manchester and Merseyside (an area covering 42 principal local
authorities) is unlikely to be able to be held to account locally.
We are concerned the "big is beautiful" approach mitigates
against the validated benefits of locally commissioned services,
locally accountable organisations and place-based budgets.
29. We will support our members in their bids
to win the contracts, but we believe there are better, less risky,
ways of introducing competition into the justice arena.
January 2011
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