1 The rationale and evidence base
for the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms
Introduction to the Government's
Transforming Rehabilitation reforms
1. The Government's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms
involve a substantial recasting of the way probation services
are provided, and are both radical and controversial. There are
sharply differing views about this among our witnesses and among
members of this Committee. Some members see them as the only available
way of achieving the important policy objective of extending post-release
supervision to offenders on short sentences, and as providing
an opportunity for innovative work on rehabilitation by the private
and voluntary sector while introducing a national probation service
to handle those posing the greatest risk to the public. Other
members of the Committee believe that so large a transfer of functions
away from the public sector is either undesirable in principle
or too risky, unlikely to deliver better results than the present
system and, if it is done at all, it should only be after it has
been piloted in part of the country. We do not seek to resolve
that difference in this Report: our approach has been to collect
evidence from a range of those with experience or knowledge in
this field and to question Ministers and officials in order to
clarify how the system might operate and how risks will be mitigated.
In doing so we have also recognised that, as well as the risks
involved in change, there are also risks involved in not taking
action to deal with the gaps and weaknesses in the present system.We
hope that this evidence and our analysis of it will assist the
House.
2. The Coalition Agreement set out that the Government
would introduce a "Rehabilitation Revolution".Paid for
by the savings it generated and provided by independent providers,
this would seek to tackle the root causes of offending, including
homelessness, drug and alcohol dependency, mental illness and
unemployment.[1]The Government
announced in May 2013 that it would proceed with its Transforming
Rehabilitationprogramme: a package of reforms to probation
and rehabilitative services on which it had begun a consultation
in January2013.[2]Theprogramme
has four elements:
a) Extending statutory rehabilitative support
to the most prolific group of offenders: prisoners who have served
sentences of less than 12 months;
b) Opening up rehabilitation services to a diverse
market of providers of probation services to low and medium risk
offenders, while introducing a new payment mechanism to focus
on reducing rates of reoffending;
c) Creating a national public probation service
focused on public protection; and,
d) Reorganising the prison estate to manage the
flow of offenders from within prison, through the gate and into
the community, reforming rehabilitation services and the designation
of prisons to focus release into specific areas.
Through the reforms the Secretary of State for Justice,
Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, explained that he seeks to achieve:
more flexibility in delivery through greater professional freedom;
extension of the scope of rehabilitation to short-sentenced prisoners
and "through the gate" from custody to community; more
efficient services; greater diversity of providers; andcollaboration
with partners.[3]
3. We took evidence on the Transforming Rehabilitation
proposals from the Secretary of Statein a one-off session on 27
February, shortly after the consultation closed. In April we commenced
a wider inquiry entitled Crime reduction policies: a co-ordinated
approach?as part of whichwe sought to consider the proposed
Transforming Rehabilitation reforms in terms of their cost-effectiveness
and sustainability in the context of the Government's strategies
for punishment and rehabilitation. In response to concerns expressed
to us in written evidence about the pace and nature of change
being brought about, we decided to expedite our consideration
of the subject within our wider inquiry in order to produce this
interim report. We took oral evidence from probation representatives,
voluntary sector representatives, public policy experts and othersspecifically
on Transforming Rehabilitation on two occasions (2 July and 12
November) and received an informal briefing from Ministry of Justice
(MoJ) officials on 26 November.The Secretary of State and the
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Jeremy Wright
MP, gave evidence on 4th December.
The rationale for reform
Extending supervision to short-sentenced
prisoners
4. The principal
grounds for introducing these reforms are to use efficiencies
in the delivery of existing probation services to extend statutory
post-release supervision to those who have served prison sentences
of fewer than 12 months: an extra 50,000 offenders. This feature
of the Government's plans is intended to rectify a long-standing
anomaly in the system—that those offenders who tend to be
the most prolific and have particularly high reconviction rates
receive no statutory support—and was welcomed unreservedly
by our witnesses.[4]Richard
Monkhouse of the Magistrates' Association observed:
People who are on short-term custodial sentences
need that help because they lead dysfunctional lives; they have
accommodation, health and family problems; and simply leaving
them at the prison door is not assisting any of that, so we are
quite happy that that is happening. [5]
5. Most of the wider Transforming Rehabilitation
reforms can be undertaken under powers to arrange provision of
probation services already available to the Secretary of State
under the Offender Management Act 2007, but legislation is required
to extend rehabilitative services to short-sentenced prisoners.
Consequently, the Offender Rehabilitation Bill was introduced
in the House of Lords on 9 May, and when we considered this Report
it was awaiting report stage in the House of Commons.
6. Such a reform has the potential to reduce the
costs of reoffending. An NAO report on short term offenders in
2010 concluded that NOMS' inability to achieve its goal of reducing
the risk of short-sentenced prisoners re-offending generated economic
and social costs amounting tobetween £7bn and £10bn
annually.[6] Since then
Integrated Offender Management (IOM) schemeshave been established,largely
using existing resources, and are now "almost universal".[7]These
schemes provide a partnership approach, between the police and
probation, to dealing on a non-statutory, and therefore voluntary,
basis with persistent offenders, many of whom serve repeated short
prison sentences. Some are demonstrating extremely positive results
and our witnesses wished to see these protected, or built on,
in the new commissioning landscape.[8]The
Government have acknowledged the importance of these local partnerships—the
success of which provide supporting evidence for the benefits
of taking a dedicated approach to this group of offenders—and
will require new providers to demonstrate how they will "sustain
and develop" such schemes in their area.[9]
7. The scope for benefits to accrue from the new
provision for short-sentenced offenders in terms of reducing overall
reoffending rates is borne out by evidence that they are the most
prolific re-offenders. The latest information on comparative re-offending
rates of those sentenced to less than 12 months in custody compared
to those receiving longer custodial sentences or non-custodial
sentences is contained in the Ministry's 2013 Compendium of
re-offending statistics and analysis, which notes that offenders
sentenced to less than 12 months in custody had a higher one year
re-offending rate than similar, matched offenders receiving
· a community order, of 6.4 percentage points
for 2010;
· a suspended sentence order, of 8.6 percentage
points for 2010;
· a 'court order' (either a community order
or a suspended order), of 6.8 percentage points for 2010.
Offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody
also had a higher re-offending rate than offenders given an immediate
custodial sentence of between 1 and 4 years. The difference was
12 percentage points for 2010.[10]
Probation Trusts have pointed out that they have been having success
in reducing reoffending by those offenders whom they do have responsibility
for supervising. There is a risk that the focus of these reforms
on reducing reoffending by short-sentenced prisoners will destabilise
the progress that has been made with other cohorts of offenders.
It should also be noted, as we raised in our report Women offenders:
after the Corston report, that it does not necessarily follow
that lower risk offenders require a lower intensity of support.[11]
8. The potential for the extension of statutory supervision
to those who have served fewer than 12 months in custody, together
with the introduction of new providers,to lead to a change in
sentencing behaviour was raised by several of our witnesses.[12]
Our attention was drawn to an example in which there were unintended
increases in the use of custodial sentences. The introduction
of the detention and training order, a similar sentence for young
offenders, led to a doubling in the youth custodial population.
This indicates that the statutory extension of supervision to
those serving short-prison sentences might increase sentencers'
propensity to use such sentences, increasing demand on the prison
system when a non-custodial option might prove more cost-effective.[13]
9. We explored this possibility with Richard Monkhouse,
now Chair of the Magistrates' Association, who explained the potential
impact on sentencer behaviour:
The main risk is one of trust and confidence.
Sentencers, who deal with 95% of all cases that come into a courtroom,
need to build up a relationship—which we have done with
the Probation Service—both inside and outside court, and
that does not happen overnight. One of the dangers is that where
you are dealing with offenders who pass the custody threshold,
magistrates have been managing to keep a lot of those out. Our
custody imposition has come down significantly over the last 10
years because alternatives have been present. We do not want to
see those alternatives go, and many of those alternatives are
at local level, with local voluntary organisations.[14]
When we raised the potential for this with the Justice
Secretary in February 2013, he stated:
"It is not impossible, but we do not want
that to happen and we are going to work closely with magistrates
and judges to ensure that it does not happen. In many respects,
people sentencing will see this as a positive benefit that will
help turn lives around, but I do not want people to believe that
it is a vehicle to create shorter sentences. We have to be careful
to address that issue."[15]
10. Whilst the
addition of resettlement support might make short prison sentences
appear to the courts to be a more attractive alternative to community
orders, this should not replace the focus on using community orders
where appropriate for non-violent offenders. These are likely
to remain a more cost-effective way of dispensing justice and
avoid the disruption to families, employment, and housing arising
from a short spell of imprisonment. Care will also need to be
taken to ensure that any gains made with reducing reoffending
by short sentenced prisoners do not come at theexpense of the
supervision of offenders on other sentences. We
ask the Ministry, in its response to this report, to set out how
it intends to reduce the potential for the objectives of its reform
to be undermined by an escalation in the number of offenders given
short prison sentences as opposed to community sentences. The
Government's response to this report should also set out the projected
impact of the extension of rehabilitation to short sentenced offenders
on the prison population and on associated costs.
INTRODUCING COMPETITION TO DELIVER
MORE EFFICIENT AND MORE EFFECTIVE REHABILITATIVE SERVICES
11. The Ministry intends to fund the extension of
statutory rehabilitation services through savings released by
increased competition and the introduction of payment by results.To
facilitate this, they have decided to dividethe management of
existing probation servicesin accordance with the level of risk
posed by offenders, putting out to competition 21 "contract
package areas" to manage low and medium risk offenders, and
establishing a national probation service to manage the most serious
offenders and oversee services to the courts and aspects of public
protection. The Secretary of State described for us his vision:
I am not proposing some great new rocket-science
methodology. I am proposing a very simple principle, which is
to trust the professionals and give them the freedom to get on
with the job.[16]
He also clarified that he was not expecting great
falls in reoffending:
My goal is to get an incremental change, year
by year. This is not going to start on day one and, by day three,
reoffending will suddenly be down by half. What we want is a consistent
drop of a few percentage points at a time in the level of reoffending,
particularly for those groups where there is a high level of reoffending.[17]
12. Some witnesses were supportive ofplans to open
provision of probation services to a diverse range of providers
and of the principle of incentivising effective practice in reducing
re-offending through the introduction of a new payment by results
mechanism.[18]Despite
this, some were not convinced that the approach the Government
had adopted was the best means to achieve this. It was recognised
that structuring contracts and the payment mechanism in the right
way will be critical to incentivising the desired resultwhilst
avoiding perverse behaviour on the part of new providers. The
architecture of both of these will determine the range of providers
that are able to seek to enter the market.[19]The
first phase of competition, the pre-qualifying stage, closed at
the end of November. We discuss the intricacies of the design
of the payment mechanismin chapter3 and the creation of the market
in chapter 4.
13. The new proposals represented a significant departure
from the direction of travel in changing the delivery of rehabilitation
and probation services taken by the previous Ministerial team.That
team had consulted on opening up competition and introducing payment
by results, but had planned to do so by devolving commissioning
arrangements for community rehabilitative services initially to
Probation Trusts, and perhaps ultimately to local authorities
or Police and Crime Commissioners.[20]Weconsidered
these proposals in our probation inquiry in 2011 and concluded
that Trusts were best placed to lead local pilots for payment
by results. We also expressed concerns that the Government's broader
commitment to devolving commissioning to the local level did not
fit with its plans to commission some probation services in large
geographical lots. We argued that this would undermine links between
probation and other participants in the criminal justice system,
such as the police, courts, local authorities and local prisons.[21]These
questions remain valid in the context of these reforms and we
consider them further in chapter 2.
ALIGNING THE PROVISION OF COMMUNITY
AND CUSTODY BASED REHABILITATIVE SERVICES
14. The Government also wishes to create a "genuine
'through the gate' service", wherebythe new providers of
probation services will work with all prisoners for three monthsbefore
release as well as supervising them thereafter. The prison estate
will be reconfigured to designate 85 local resettlement prisons.[22]
New providers will be expected to deliver this pre- and post-release
rehabilitativework alongside administering the sentence of the
court for low and medium risk offenders serving community orders
who make up the bulk of the existing probation caseload.This work
serves other purposes of justice, including punishment, reparation,
and retribution.[23]
15. The view of Napo, a trade union representing
probation staff, is that while reducing re-offending is a vital
part of probation work, it does not reflect the complexity of
offender management services. They argue that reducing the risk
of harm is also vital (even if non-harmful offending still occurs)
but they fear that public protection is given no value under this
model.[24]As well as
delivering services themselves, Probation Trusts play a strategic
role in meeting both the needs of the courts and their other statutory
obligations within a complex array of local partnerships with
local criminal justice agencies and other statutory agencies,
for example, to commission, co-commission, and broker access to
a range of other services.[25]We
consider briefly the potential impact of the reforms on local
partnership work to reduce crime in chapter 2, but will return
to this subject, and the role of resettlement prisons, in more
detail in our final report.
The evidence base for the reforms
16. The Ministry's new proposals are a significant
step up in scale in the outsourcing of criminal justice services.
As a comparison, the majority of prisons are still publicly managed
even though the private sector began to be introduced to the management
of prisons through a staged process in the early 1990s.Concern
was expressed by witnesses across the spectrum about the strength
of the evidence base for various aspects of the reforms.[26]Probation
stakeholders and magistrates felt that there was no evidence that
the whole model proposed would work better than the existing system.[27]Ian
Lawrence, General Secretary of Napo, a trade union representing
probation staff, characterised the reforms as "...a recipe
for disaster. They pose a massive risk to public safety, and are
untried, untested and in our view ideologically flawed" and
"destroying what works to put in place an experiment."[28]The
Probation Chiefs Association similarly argued that "[the]
high performing Probation Trust structure would be replaced by
a system that is untested and where there is no evidence that
it will perform better or deliver efficiencies as intentioned."[29]Richard
Monkhouse of the Magistrates' Association observed "We have
no evidence that anything [that is proposed] will work".[30]Other
witnesseshighlighted in particular the shortage of evidence on
the application of payment by results to the criminal justice
arena andon what drives reoffending rates.[31]
CONTRACTING OUT PROBATION SERVICES
17. Some feared that there were risks that the contracting
element of the programme would lead to poor diversity of services,
would limit innovation, and would deliver poor value for money,
particularly in the light of the complexity of rehabilitative
services currently provided or brokered by probation Trusts and
their partners.[32]Tom
Gash of the Institute for Government said there is "a very
low evidence base about the benefits of putting things out to
contract". He explained that, at what he described as the
"simple end of services"[33],
outsourcing can generate efficiency savings of between 10 and
20 percent, with no diminution in quality, but with more complex
services such as probation the costs and overheads of managing
and monitoring contracts can be considerable.[34]
Ian Mulheirn speculated on whether outsourcing such complex services
can engender innovation, or simply risk driving out quality. He
explained: "Payment by results is supposed to be a way around
that, by uniting the two and aligning the incentives, so that
there is no divergence between quality and price for the provider
and for the commissioner."[35]
Contracting out electronic monitoring and community
payback
18. The Ministry has some experience of contracting
out probation services, and in its consultation citedelectronic
monitoring and the community payback scheme in London as examples
of this.[36]These are,
on the face of it, relatively simple interventions in the context
of the range of probation services, but both projectshave apparently
encountered difficulties.[37]The
Justice Secretary told us that the community payback contract
awarded to London Probation Trust and Serco had provided 40% efficiency
savings which he hoped was indicative of what he could replicate
in the broader reforms.[38]
However, Napo told us that their members have complained about
the quality of provision under thiscontract.[39]Of
particular relevance are criticisms about the lack of robust evidence
when cases come to court for enforcement action and about poor
record keeping. The separation of day-to-day supervision from
public protection under the contract is a similar feature to that
of the model for the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms.In order
to assure ourselves of the operation of this project, we asked
the Ministryfor performance data.They stated: "Serco's performance
has been improving month on month since the contract began in
October. They are now meeting most of the key targets and out-performing
the national average for Probation Trusts on key measures such
as enforcement, successful completions and commencement within
7 days." Reconviction rates specific to the project are not
collated.[40]
PAYMENT BY RESULTS PILOTS
19. When we considered the application of payment
by results to criminal justice in our report on probation we concluded
that:
"[…] the payment by results models
proposed are untested [...] and represent a significant departure
from existing commissioning arrangements. Nevertheless, given
the problems faced by the sector, there are compelling reasons
to test the potential of a radically different approach."[41]
The Ministry was in the process of developing various
pilots, includingtwopilot schemes involving contracting out community
rehabilitation services, when the new Ministerial team decided
to cancel those that had not commenced to review the direction
of payment by results in autumn 2012.[42]
The Secretary of State defended this decision:
On the evidence, there has been a debate. The
Opposition has said, "Why don't you do all the pilots first?"
I think that the process that they set up, initially in Peterborough
and now in Doncaster as well, will take us much of the rest of
this decade to see through to a conclusion, evaluating the data
and coming up with an analysis. We are talking about the core
principle of trusting the professionals and making them take a
bit of the risk themselves, putting together a system that catches
the best of public, private and voluntary: in the public sector,
real skills in protecting the public against harm; in the voluntary
sector, real skills in mentoring; and in the private sector, real
skills in driving up value for the taxpayer so that we can reinvest
money in the other 12-month group.
The first formal results for the prison based pilots
will not be available until mid-2014.[43]
Yet we were told by the Secretary of State in February2013 that
the payment by results approach was "so obviously the right
thing to do"[44].
The most significant change proposed is the application of payment
by results to probation services which, as we noted above, has
not been tested.[45]
Probation stakeholders and many others in the criminal justice
sector have criticised the Government's approach.[46]However,
Max Chambers of Policy Exchange, who had been involved in the
pilots as a provider, argued that despite the cancellation of
the six further planned pilots—which in his view were neither
commercially viable nor of sufficient scale to be representative—the
Ministry had already "tested to destruction" the options
for payment by results through the pilot process and had learnt
enough about how to scale it, including how to incentivise, how
to procure, how to measure and how to pay.[47]
In chapter 3 we explore this matter in greater detail.
THE IMPACT OF MENTORING ON REDUCING
RE-OFFENDING
20. There are also questions about the extent to
which there is a sufficiently robust evidence base for what constitutes
effective practice in reducing reoffending.[48]The
Ministry has been seeking to remedy this through the creation
of a Justice Data Lab—an initiative which enables organisations
working with offenders to establish their impact on reoffending
by accessing central data—and the production of rapid evidence
assessments to place in the public domain thebest information
about what works.[49]The
rapid evidence assessment on the impact on reoffending of mentoring—which
Mr Grayling told us he wishes to see more of as a result of the
reforms—was inconclusive.[50]
When we asked Mr Grayling about the evidential basis for mentoring
he did not mention this study, but referred to the emerging results
from the pilot at HMP Peterborough which he told us was now demonstrating
a "very substantial decline in reconviction rates...well
in excess of 20%."[51]
21. There is
some emerging evidence of promising results from some community-based
and through-the-gate interventions that make a concerted effort
to reduce reoffending by some short-sentenced prisoners. It should
be noted however that these schemes are voluntary in nature, have
not yet been running for sufficiently long to produce robust results,
and represent only one aspect of the model proposed. Consequently,
there is a question about how much they are indicative of the
potential of the entire package of reforms.The absence of piloting
of payment by results for delivering reductions in reoffending
by those subject to probation services means that some lack confidence
that the Government's reform programme will work better than the
existing system.
The scale and pace of the reforms
22. Our witnesses highlighted the challenges of the
proposed timetable for implementation, both for potential providers
and current practitioners.[52]
We explore the relevance of the pace of reformsthroughout our
report as we consider each aspect of the programme. In general
terms,Tom Gash characterised the Ministry's reforms as "probably
the most ambitious outsourcing programme that the Government had
ever embarked on".[53]
On the other hand, Max Chambers noted that the process did not
involve the creation of a whole new service, as the Work Programme
did.[54]
23. The Secretary of State himself acknowledged that
establishing the Transforming Rehabilitation programme was "a
more complicated process" than the Work Programme, because
of the reorganisation required within the probation sector.[55]
Nevertheless, in response to concerns about the scale of the reforms
and the absence of testing, he said:
"This is not a big bang approach; it is
an evolution, not revolution. The changes will take place over
a period of at least a year, which will allow bedding in across
the country. For example, the transition to inclusion of the under-12-month
group builds up over an extensive period of time. Over the first
six months, only offenders in the very low thousands are involved,
so there is plenty of time for that new system to bed in."[56]
He alsotold us he wished to see the anomaly of the
absence of support to the most prolific offenders resolved swiftly
as it was too important a problem to delay and unfair on those
who do not get the support they desire.[57]The
Ministry states that implementing the new system in phases will
allow time for providers to form bids, for the public sector to
restructure with "minimal disruption to business as usual"
and for new services to be set up.[58]We
note that in a different context, talking about difficulties which
had been experienced in relation to the Ministry's Shared Services
Programme, rationalising provision of corporate services, Dame
Ursula Brennan, the Permanent Secretary, told us in October 2013
that "When you have something really big and complicated,
biting it off in bite-sized chunks is now thought to be a better
way of going"[59].
24. Some of
our witnesses were supportiveofthe underlying principles of the
Government's Transforming Rehabilitation reform programme, in
particular, the extension of pre and post-release support to short-sentenced
prisoners, the introduction of an element of payment for outcomes
sought, and opening up the provision of probation services to
a greater diversity of providers. Neverthelesswitnesses, including
some supportive of the proposed changes, had significant apprehensions
about the scale, architecture, detail and consequences of the
reformsand the pace at which the Government is seeking to implement
them.
Assessment of risks
25. Much of this report is concerned with a discussion
of the risks which might, if they materialise, adversely affect
implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme.Evaluation
and assessment of risks, which informs action taken to mitigate
them as appropriate, is an essential part of the management of
any major project, all the more so in a case such as this one,
where operational failures might lead to an increase in the threat
to public safety.At the same time we acknowledge that radical
change presents more potential risks than minor change: this should
not be an excuse for inaction. Before the Secretary of State gave
oral evidence to us we asked to be provided with a copy of the
latest version of the Ministry's internal risk register for the
programme. This request was refused. When we pressed the Secretary
of State on this refusal, he explained his position in the following
terms:
It has never been the habit of any Government
to make public risk registers. It is worth saying what a risk
register is. It is simply a group of civil servants who at the
start of a project sit down and work out everything that could
possibly go wrong so that they take appropriate steps to make
sure it does not. If you produce a risk register, it is a whole
litany of potential disasters in the making, not ones that are
likely to happen but ones we are working to make sure do not happen.
This applies to every project in the public sector, whether it
is a big IT or organisational change project. It is not a true
reflection of the nature of the project; it is more a reference
point to make sure we have thought of everything that could go
wrong and have taken the steps to make sure it does not. It has
never been the custom and practice of Governments to publish that.
It is not a document on which you can base a true assessment of
the state of a project. It is an internal working tool, and I
think it should remain such. [60]
26. Evidence we have taken in this report demonstrates
that there is considerable consensus about the nature of the risks
involved in implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation
project and we have used this evidence to arrive at our conclusions
on the subject.[61]No
project on this scale is without risk, and we do not approach
the question from the naïve standpoint that all risk can
or should be eliminated. It is not satisfactory, however, that
we are unable to inform our scrutiny of the programme with more
systematic information from the Ministry about the major risks
they have identified and the steps that they have taken and are
taking to mitigate those risks. In order
to reassure us we ask the Ministry, in its response to this report,
to provide a narrative description of those risks which it considers
most significant to the success of the programme as a result of
the combination of their likelihood of occurring and their seriousness
if they were to occur, and in relation to each of them to describe
mitigations which have been put in place or are proposed.
Costs
27. When it comes to providing information about
the likely costs of its rehabilitation revolution, particularly
those arising from the extension of provision to short-sentenced
offenders, the Ministry has been less than forthcoming. It believes
it can reduce costs through competition, using those savings to
pay for its new approach. We have seen no estimate of how much
the Ministry would additionally need to save to afford the cost
of implementing its proposals, including the structural reform
required, or how quickly savings will be realised to fund the
extension of twelve month's post-release statutory support to
all prisoners. The latter will comprise two groups: those sentenced
to less than 12 months in prison, who do not currently receive
any support, and those sentenced to between 12 months and 2 years,
who are currently supervised for a period equating to half their
sentence. This will increase probation caseloads by up to 65,000
offenders.[62]
28. Some limited costs were included in a revised
impact assessment for the Offender Rehabilitation Bill after the
Government was criticised in the House of Lords about the quality
of information on which peers were to be expected to support it.[63]
In this impact assessment the Ministry states it has undertaken
detailed modelling of the likely costs but considers it "inappropriate
to release these costs, as they will be dependent on the outcome
of competing offender services in the community. If we were to
publish an estimated figure for the future costs this could put
contractual negotiations at risk and prejudice the effectiveness
of the competition."
29. We sought further information from the Ministry
on some of the costs of the programme that we did not consider
would be commercially sensitive. The Department was unwilling
to disclose the costs that had been expended on the Programme
to date but assured us that these were being met from the current
budget. As we note in chapter two, the Ministry has not yet determined
the budget allocation for the two new entities. The projected
running costs of the National Probation Service are in the region
of £400 million per annum, representing 49% of NOMS' current
probation budget.[64]
The total value of the contract packages is reported to be between
£5 and £20 billion, equating to up to £500 million
per annum.[65]
30. Properties in the probation estate make up 10%
of the current budget. NOMS anticipates that these costs will
be shared between CRCs and the NPS until at least December 2015.
The exact costs of exiting any properties that become surplus
to requirements is unknown as this will depend on future operating
models. Another large proportion of the existing budget is dedicated
to staff costs. Some efficiency savings might be made through
the streamlining of probation areas when the 35 Trusts are reduced
to 21 CRCs, although there are also likely to be associated redundancy
and restructuring costs.[66]
The Ministry has budgeted for a redundancy package but was unwilling
to disclose the size of this as they felt it would prejudice negotiations
with potential providers. It did tell us however, that £4.15
million has been set aside for restructuring Probation Trusts.
A further additional cost relates to the information technology
required to underpin the reforms. The cost of rationalising numerous
separate computer packages was considered by the Ministry to be
commercially sensitive.[67]
As we note in chapter two the twin structure of probation services
is also likely to result in some inefficiencies in terms of duplication
of effort, for example, in partnership work and case management.
31. When the Secretary of State announced to the
House the reversal of his plans for prison competition in November
2012 he explained that benchmarking would instead be undertaken
across the public prison estate to save £450 million over
a six year period which could be used rapidly to expand the payment
by results approach.[68]In
evidence to us Mr Grayling clarified that any savings stemming
from this would now be subsumed into departmental savings targets.
Prisons currently hold a number of contracts which cover resettlement
services that in the future will be provided by CRCs. We asked
the Ministry for the current cost of resettlement services across
the prison estate but were told that this is not held centrally.[69]As
we were preparing our report a Joint Criminal Justice Inspection
report on prison based offender management was published which
concluded that this wasnot functioning well and required a fundamental
review. It stated that "Th[e] lack of progress [on our previous
recommendations] is of particular concern as it casts doubt about
the Prison Service's capacity to implement the changes required
under the Transforming Rehabilitation Strategy designed to reduce
reoffending rates, especially for short-term prisoners."[70]
Mr Wright was confident that the Government's plans would resolve
the problems encountered by the Inspectorate.[71]
The question remains as to whether this is realistic within the
context of the resources that can be allocated to this aspect
of the programme.
32. The Guardian reported on 24 June 2013 that the
Ministry's internal risk register assessed at 51% to 80% the risk
that the reforms would fail to deliver the proposed level of savings.[72]
When we put this to Mr Grayling, he assured us that the fact that
the Treasury had approved the outline business case signalled
that this was not so He explained that whilst there were likely
to be small savings, the programme is "not a money saving
exercise": rather it is about seeking to change the cost
base of the criminal justice system in future by bringing down
the rate of reoffending.[73]
He anticipated that additional savings and additional reduced
pressure on the system would begin to be seen in the "second
half of the decade".[74]
33. There isalso likely to be a range of costs associated
with the broader consequences of the programme, some of which
are currently unknown. The impact assessment estimates additional
costs of between £12 and £48 million per year stemming
from increases in breaches of licence and supervision conditions.
There will also be an additional burden to the police, estimated
to cost up to £5 million per annum, as police time will be
needed to deal with offenders who fail to comply with the conditions
of supervision. On the other hand, no financial provision appears
to have been made for any potential elevation in the use of custody
by sentencers in the Government's impact assessment for the Bill—indeed
its judgment is that over time there will be a reduction in the
number of offenders returning to the system with the potential
to cut prison costs—although it states that it will monitor
closely "any effect on sentencing practice, non-compliance
and sanctions."[75]There
are other potentially unforeseen financial implications of the
reforms, including, for example, escalation in referrals to other
statutory services, the loss (or redeployment) of fundraised income
from the voluntary sector, the unknown impact on existing co-commissioning
partnership arrangements, and the risk of forfeiting the broader
value of non-statutory services which enable the courts to divert
the lowest risk offenders from community sentences.[76]
34. On the limited
information which the Government has provided, it is not clear
to us whether sufficient funding is in place to meet the costs
of transition to the new system and of statutory rehabilitation
for those sentenced to less than 12 months in custody. For the
Transforming Rehabilitation programme to meet its objectives,
substantial improvement will be needed in relation to two other
elements that are not currently working well: rehabilitative provision
in custody, including through the gate supervision for all prisoners
coming to the end of their sentence; and provision of requirements
that can be attached to community orders, including mental health,
drug, and alcohol treatment. The costs of making the structural
reforms and efficiencies necessary to support the programme are
also likely to be considerable. A key question for the affordability
of these reforms is how new providers will fund all this now that
NOMS plans to dedicate to them only the community based element
of existing rehabilitation resources.
35. The Government
is confident that over the longer term demand on the system will
be lessened through these reforms, reducing in particular the
economic and social costs of reoffending by short-sentenced prisoners
(estimated to be between £7 billion and £10 billion
a year). This would lead to the virtuous cycle of reduced reoffending
and reduced public funding that is the ultimate policy goal. But
in the absence of published projections of the likely reductions
in reoffending or estimates of how this might impact on the future
costs of the system, it is not possible to predict whether savings
will be swallowed up by increased demand on the prison system
and reduced funding of existing services by statutory partners
and other funders.
1 HM Government, The Coalition: our programme for government,
May 2010, p 23 Back
2
Ministry of Justice, Transforming Rehabilitation: a strategy
for reform, Cm 8619, May 2013 Back
3
Oral evidence taken on 27 February 2013, HC (2012-13) 964 Back
4 London
Councils (PPC 05) and (PPC 20); Probation Chiefs Association (PPC 07);
Local Government Association (PPC 11); Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13);Magistrates'
Association (PPC 17); Rob Allen (PPC 21); Q3 [Napo];Q5 [Mr Hadjipavlou];
Q59 [Ms Bourne; Ms Mountstevens]; Q113 [Mr Eccles] Back
5
Q8 Back
6
Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Managing offenders on short custodial sentences,
HC (2009-10) 431, p 4 Back
7
Q12 [Mr Hadjipavlou]; National Policing Lead for Integrated Offender
Management (PPC 08) Back
8 Association
of Chief Police Officers(PPC 08); Two Police and Crime Commissioners
cited results from examples in their areas: in Bristol crime had
fallen by 58%, and in Sussex reconvictions were 78% lower than
predicted. Q60; Qq71-72 [Ms Mountstevens; Ms Bourne]; See also
Probation Chiefs Association (PPC 07); Rob Allen (PPC 21) Back
9 Ministry
of Justice, Transforming Rehabilitation: a strategy for reform,
Cm 8619, May 2013, p 30 Back
10
Ministry of Justice, 2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis,
July 2013 Back
11
Justice Committee, Second Report of Session 2013-14, Women offenders: after the Corston Report.
HC 92, para 126. See also Magistrates' Association (PPC 17) Back
12
Criminal Justice Alliance (PPC 06); Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13);
Q7 [Mr Monkhouse] Back
13
DrugScope (PPC 12); Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13) Back
14
Q7 Back
15
Oral evidence taken on 27 February 2013, HC (2012-13) 964, Q32 Back
16 Ibid,
Q1 Back
17 Ibid,
Q13 Back
18
See for example Q42 [Mr Hadjipavlou]; Qq44, 45 [Mr Lawrence];
Q164 [Ms Hall]; Local Government Association (PPC 11); DrugScope
(PPC 12) Back
19
See for example Q42 [Mr Hadjipavlou] Back
20
Ministry of Justice, Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment,
Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders,
Cm 7972, December 2010, andMinistry of Justice, Punishment
and Reform: Effective Probation Services,Cm 8333, March 2012
Back
21 Justice
Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010-2012, The role of the Probation Service,
HC519-I, paras 228 and 229. Back
22
The Government wishes short-sentenced prisoners to serve their
entire sentence in these establishments and longer sentenced prisoners
to be in them for the last three months of their sentence. All
women's prisons will become resettlement prisons. Back
23
The purposes of sentencing are set out in the Criminal Justice
Act 2003, section 142 Back
24 PPC 31
(Napo) Back
25
See e.g. Q5 [Mr Hadjipavlou] Back
26
Q8 [Mr Monkhouse]; Q30 [Mr Lawrence]; Criminal Justice Alliance
(PPC 06); Probation Chiefs Association (PPC 07); DrugScope (PPC 12);
Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13); Howard League (PPC 16); Magistrates'
Association (PPC 17); Rob Allen (PPC 21); Mr Underhill (PPC 23)
Back
27
Q8 [Mr Monkhouse]; Q38 [Mr Hadjipavlou]; Mr Underhill (PPC 23)
Back
28
Qq3, 24 Back
29
Probation Chiefs Association (PPC 07) Back
30
Q8 Back
31
Q38 [Mr Hadjipavlou]; Q113 [Mr Gash]; Q114 [Mr Eccles]; Probation
Chiefs Association (PPC 07); DrugScope (PPC 12); Prison Reform
Trust (PPC 13); Criminal Justice Alliance (PPC 06) Back
32
Centre for Court Innovation (PPC 10) Back
33
For example, facilities management and waste management Back
34
Qq113-114. The Institute for Government had devised a series of
tests to establish the validity of public service outsourcing
under various scenarios. Probation scored highly in terms of difficulty
on most tests. Back
35
Q113 Back
36 In
2012, Serco and London Probation Trust were awarded a £37m
four-year contract to supervise offenders in the capital on probation
doing unpaid work in the community (Community Payback). The project,
which has been in operation for 15 months, has similarities with
the model for Transforming Rehabilitation as the Trust retains
responsibility for public protection. The 40% savings figure advanced
by the Secretary of State has been questioned: see Probation officers face social media gag as outsourcing row rumbles on,
The Guardian,21 March 2013, downloaded 10 January 2014 Back
37
Q4 [Mr Lawrence]; Napo (PPC 31). The MoJ's electronic monitoring
contracts with G4S and Serco ceased following investigations into
overcharging. Back
38
Oral evidence taken on 27 February 2013, HC (2012-13) 964, Q11.
When we spoke to him again in December he clarified that he was
confident that costs could be brought down. See Q179. Back
39
Napo (PPC 31) Back
40 PPC 33
(Ministry of Justice) Back
41 Justice
Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010-2012, The role of the Probation Service,
HC519-I, para 211 Back
42 It
was intended that the Probation Trusts involved would form joint
ventures with private providers. Operationally, external providers
would run these ventures and deliver rehabilitation services to
offenders. Six pilots were cancelled: two prison based pilots
at HMP Leeds and HMP High Down; two probation pilots in Wales
and the West Midlands, and two community based innovation pilots. Back
43 Final
results will not be available until this year. See Ministry of
Justice, Interim reconviction figures for Peterborough and Doncaster
Payment by Results Pilots, June 2013. Back
44
Qq21, 31 Back
45 Some
of the ongoing pilots took a broader justice reinvestment approach:
they aimed to incentivise local statutory partners to reduce demand
on courts, legal aid, prisons and probation and, consequently,
reduce the costs on the justice system. We will consider these
more fully in our final report on the crime reduction inquiry. Back
46
Qq30, 39 [Mr Lawrence]; Criminal Justice Alliance (PPC 06); DrugScope
(PPC 12); Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13); Howard League for Penal
Reform (PPC 16); Magistrates' Association (PPC 17); Mr Allen (PPC 20);
Mr Underhill (PPC 23); Ms Lawrie (PPC 28); Mr Michael (PPC 30);
Napo (PPC 31) Back
47
Q113 [Mr Chambers]; Mr Oliver of 3SC similarly viewed the community-based
pilots as "uninvestable" and "unworkable".
See Qq42-3. Back
48
See for example Q13 [Mr Hadjipavlou]; Q114 [Mr Eccles]; Criminal
Justice Alliance (PPC 06); Probation Chiefs Association (PPC 07);
DrugScope(PPC 12); Prison Reform Trust (PPC 13); Howard League
for Penal Reform (PPC 16); Mr Allen (PPC 20); London Councils
(PPC 21); Mr Underhill(PPC 23) Back
49 PPC 14
(Ministry of Justice) Back
50
National Offender Management Service, Intermediate outcomes of mentoring interventions:
a rapid evidence assessment, October 2013 Back
51 Q181 Back
52
DrugScope (PPC 12); Q114 [Toby Eccles]; Q114[Tom Gash]; Prison
Reform Trust (PPC 13); Clinks (PPC 27);Napo (PPC 31); Probation
Chiefs Association(PPC 06); Q153 [Sue Hall]; Q153 [Mr Cox; Ms
Hall] Back
53
Q114 Back
54 Ibid. Back
55
Oral evidence taken on 27 February 2013, HC (2012-13) 964, Q4 Back
56
Q178 Back
57 Ibid. Back
58
Ministry of Justice, Transforming Rehabilitation: a strategy
for reform, Cm 8619, May 2013, p 33 Back
59
Oral evidence taken on 22 October 2013, HC (2013-14), 725, Q25 Back
60
Q184 Back
61
In its absence we have drawn on a reported leak of the initial
Ministry risk register in an article in the Guardian and the joint
Probation Chiefs Association and Probation Association risk register,
as well as our evidence of the various risks of the reforms. Back
62
The Updated Offender Rehabilitation Bill impact assessment explains
that in addition to extending support those sentenced to less
than 12 months, the Bill will also extend the supervision period
for offenders released after serving custodial sentences of 12
months to ensure that all offenders will be subject to at least
12 months of statutory rehabilitation after release. Back
63
Ministry of Justice, Updated Offender Rehabilitation Bill Impact Assessment,
June 2013 Back
64
The probation budget for 2011-12 was £821 million Back
65
See Ministry of Justice, UK-London: services related to the
detention or rehabilitation of criminals - Prior Information Notice,
May 2013. The costs of the National Probation Service will be
in addition to this. Back
66
Q168 [Ms Hall]; Ministry of Justice (PPC 35) Back
67
The Guardian leaked risk register estimated 2000 computer packages
would need to be rationalised. See Privatising probation service will put public at risk, officials tell Grayling,
The Guardian, 24 June 2013 Back
68
Qq189-190 Back
69
Ministry of Justice (PPC 35) Back
70
Criminal Justice Joint Inspection, Third Aggregate Report on Offender Management in Prisons,
December 2013 Back
71
HC Deb, 17December 2013, col 603 Back
72 Privatising probation service will put public at risk, officials tell Grayling,
The Guardian, 24 June 2013 Back
73
Qq179, 187 Back
74
Oral evidence taken on 27 February 2013, HC (2012-13) 964, Q28 Back
75 The
summary of theUpdated impact assessment for the Offender Rehabilitation Bill
acknowledges that: "There will be court costs associated
with breaches of this provision, and costs of providing sanctions
for these breaches. These may include additional pressure on the
prison population arising out of offenders being recalled to custody."It
does not specify or cost the volume of increase in the prison
population anticipated. Back
76
Q7 [Mr Monkhouse]; Q22 [Mr Oliver]; Q146 [Mr Gash] Back
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