Victory and Demands

To coincide with the launch of the new Probation Service, Napo published a bumper 'Reunification Special' and this is what the leadership has to say:-

 

Reunification leaves little time to look back

A new era for Napo 

In decades to come let us hope that the 26th June 2021 will be writ large in the annals of Probation Service history. It’s a date that signifies the final victory over a disastrous privatisation policy perpetrated by a Government whose Ministers believed that they knew the price of everything but, in reality, appreciated the value of nothing. The egregious politically driven attack on a gold standard public service against all conventional wisdom, was destined to cause our members much pain, the British taxpayers a fortune, and see the fragmentation of Probation into a parody of its former self. But it’s time to recognise that the brave campaign by Napo members is over; now recent history that we will celebrate one final time when we hopefully meet in Newcastle at our 2021 Annual General Meeting.

A new build in progress 

That is why this special edition of Napo Magazine will rightly focus on the long road ahead for Napo and our members as we take the rebuilding process that has been underway for nearly two years into its next phase. Putting the new foundations in place will be no easy task; as we seek the necessary investment in people and training, and the money to pay Probation service staff the salaries that properly reflect their professionalism. In the many engagements to come with senior leaders and politicians on these and many more issues you can be assured that we will never lose sight of our ultimate objective: a fully funded public Probation service, freed from the constraints of the Civil Service and restored to local control and accountability. As the next big campaign goes, it presents something of a test; sadly, it will not end in another victory any time soon, or before a great deal of hard graft has been put in.
Given that Napo and our loyal members, have come through the right side of the biggest challenge that any of us could ever have imagined, you can be rightly proud of what your collective efforts have achieved. It’s now time to look forward and embrace the future.

Ian Lawrence

Napo General Secretary

--oo00oo--

NAPO’S DEMANDS FOR THE FUTURE OF PROBATION

In July 2019 Napo, following the first announcement about reunification (which still allowed for letting of contracts for the provision of unpaid work and programmes) Napo set out our demands for the future of Probation. Now that we have moved even further than this we re-visit those demands to see what has been achieved and what we have yet to work on. 

Fully integrated service provision 

Reunification delivers on this demand; core functions needed to deliver and manage the sentence of the Court will be now contained within one unified service. Let the folly of TR be a salutary lesson to guard against any future attempts to split the service and make profit from this vital area of work. 

In the public sector and never for profit but out of the civil service and released from prison

Removing the profit motive is a crucial step for Probation but the contracts for ‘commissioned rehabilitation services’ retain a risk that some of the organisations losing CRC contracts will see the new contracts as a way to recover losses. 

The new unified Probation service will be in the public sector but remains in the Civil Service and deep in the shadow of the Prison Service. Being in the Civil Service brings its own challenges, as does the seeping across of the prison service ‘command and control’ operational style. In an organisation with a strict hierarchy this may well be warranted but Probation people should be constantly questioning and be free to criticise the system in which they work. 

Most crucially Probation people need to be able to take an approach to work with their clients that recognises and names the structural inequalities that they face – including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism and all other forms of oppression that exist in all of our societal structures. Unless we can recognise the oppression that our clients face, and unless we can work with them to understand it’s impact on their lives, we are doomed to perpetuate that structural oppression. Being Civil Servants limits freedom to criticise the state and the command-and-control hierarchical structure places all of the power in the centre with those on the frontline unable to question why they are being instructed to work in a certain way. Add to this the endless bureaucracy that frontline workers face for even the most simple of tasks and Probation work becomes more about ‘feeding the machine’ than working with people. 

Being part of HMPPS is a little like having a very famous sibling. When people talk about your family your name is forgotten and everyone wants to know more about them than you. How many times do those working in Probation mutter “and Probation” when HMPPS is described as “HM Prison Service”. How many times to we shout “and Probation” when the Minister tasked with overseeing Probation is described as “Minister for Prisons”. How many times do we despair when senior appointees to the department have to start from scratch to learn about Probation because they have come from a Prison background.

Probation is a key part of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and works in conjunction with other departments such as (and not limited to) Police, Courts, Prisons, Youth Justice, Secure services, the OPD pathway and the Parole Board. Our work with each element is no more or less important than others. The work that Probation staff do has a positive and beneficial impact on all of the other elements of the CJS but should never be seen as part of any one of them. Freedom from the prison service would not diminish the important link between the two services or the value that each brings to the other. Instead separation of the two services would enable Probation to have a voice and profile distinct from prisons ensuring that each organisation has the priority and focus needed. 

Built on evidence based practice 

Sometimes developments are based on evidence of best practice, sometimes they are based on saving money, sometimes they are based on a whim. It will come as no surprise that the first of these options is preferred. In the first version of Napo’s Demands we noted that staff were leaving due to pressure to work in ways they felt were wrong or even dangerous. We highlighted that the Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) model builds in multiple changes of ‘Offender Manager’ contrary to everything we know about consistency of worker relationship being key to desistance. Similarly recent changes outlined in the new Target Operating Model (TOM) for the unified Probation Service appear to be contrary to what evidence suggests is best practice, especially in terms of work with people convicted of sexual offending. 

It is yet to be seen if the new commissioned rehabilitation services will adopt models based on evidence and if they will integrate with the new Probation Service in a way that supports best practice throughout the system. It is crucial that all future plans are developed with evidence based practice at their heart. 

Rooted in the local community and partnering with local specialist providers 

The move to a regional structure is a step closer to a local focus. Splitting some of the largest divisions down into smaller chunks is welcomed however many regions are still very large, with one (Wales) covering an entire nation. While contracts for Commissioned Rehabilitation Services (CRS, the new name for the dynamic framework providers) are split down into PCC (Police and Crime Commissioner) level some organisations have contracts for several services across much larger geography. Letting contracts centrally does not meet our demand for partnership with local specialist providers and so far there is little sign that Probation regions will be rooted in local communities. 

We have a long way to go to rebuild the connection to community that is so important for Probation practice. This goes much further than the contracts for the CRS providers. The Probation Service must become a service which is visible to the communities we serve. We must break out of the centralised structure and make sure we are accountable to those communities. Probation practitioners work to support people to change their lives, and by doing so to protect the public and prevent further victims. All of the parts of the Probation system should be working towards this aim, whether they are working with people on probation or with people who are victims, whether they are in support functions or leadership and management functions. If you have no connection to the community you serve, how do you know what they need? How can you support someone to change their lives if you have no understanding of the context in which they live? This demand is possibly one of the most difficult to move forward on. Perhaps if we move out of the Civil Service and away from our colleagues in the prison service we will have more success at re-localising? For now there is much more work to do to repair the Probation system, and more work for Napo to do as the voice of the profession.

Katie Lomas 

National Chair

Probation Worries For Voluntary Sector

The official government-funded cheerleader for the criminal justice voluntary sector is Clinks and they also gave evidence to the Justice Select Committee last week. Their somewhat scarily-named 'Director of Influence' writes on the Clinks website:-

Probation reform - the view from the voluntary sector   

Today I will be giving evidence to the Justice Select Committee’s inquiry into the future of the probation service. Clinks has already submitted written evidence to the committee which you can read here. This is based on feedback from a wide range of organisations across the voluntary sector and raises many of the issues highlighted in my last blog including the voluntary sector’s concerns on the complexity of the commissioning, the need for costly IT infrastructure and for credit reports not suited to illustrating the financial health of voluntary sector organisations. In my last blog I also highlighted ongoing questions around the contract values and the predicted number of services users these are based upon.

As transition towards the new model progresses and now that we are half way through the competition process for the commissioning of services to be up and running alongside the National Probation Service (NPS) from day one of the new model (Education Training and Employment (ETE), Accommodation, Personal Wellbeing and Women’s Centred Services), I will be reflecting to the Justice Committee Clinks’ views on whether the model offers sufficient opportunity for voluntary sector organisations.

Is there sufficient resource and opportunity for the voluntary sector?

Overall HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is investing a significant amount of money, probably more than ever before, in the kinds of services that our sector has the expertise and experience in providing. By year three and four of the new model onwards it is forecast that £120m will be spent annually on resettlement and rehabilitation services.

Although the total overall investment that will be made in future years is sizeable, not all services that can be commissioned through the Dynamic Framework in the future are being commissioned to be in operation from day one of the new model. This means that in the early months the amount spent on commissioned services will be considerably less and there are only opportunities for some parts of the voluntary sector.

That said the investment in year one is still greater than Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) data indicates is currently spent annually on resettlement and rehabilitation services. However, the contract values also need to cover more than just service delivery with substantial requirements around having offices in certain locations where services can be based, IT infrastructure and also the need to be able to cover future pension liabilities for staff transferring from CRCs.

Organisations are feeding back to us that for the competitions that have gone live so far, these requirements mean they are having to shave service delivery to the bone, have limited ability to involve the range of partners they would like and are sometimes struggling to make contracts break even.

We have also heard that as a result of this, some larger providers including private primes, are looking to the multi service contracts of personal wellbeing and women’s services as more likely to represent opportunities for economies of scale. This could have a negative impact on the ability of small specialist organisations to compete for these contracts.

Cancellation of Probation Delivery Partner contracts

The cancellation of the Probation Delivery Partner Contracts for the delivery of unpaid work and accredited programmes raised some concerns in the sector that less investment would flow to charities. In reality, the cancellation of these contracts makes little difference to the majority of the small and specialist organisations in the voluntary sector who would have been unable to bid for contracts of that size. Some have questioned how the funds for those contracts will now be spent - but HMPPS is clear that these will now be utilised in service delivery by the NPS and that there was little additional resource for contract management.

One potential implication of this, is that the larger organisations who had seen an opportunity in these contracts are now more likely to be competing with small and specialist organisations for the opportunities presented by the Dynamic Framework.

Is the sector able to engage with the commissioning process?

The issues regarding the complexity of the commissioning process raised in my previous blog remain, and present a significant challenge to the sector. At the end of August over 370 organisations had registered interest in the Dynamic Framework. Over 150 organisations had completed Selection Questionnaires (the supplier qualification form) and at least 60% of those were voluntary organisations. Over 70 of those 150 had already qualified onto the Dynamic Framework. These numbers represent a small proportion of the 1700 organisations estimated to be in the sector, two thirds of which work with people under probation supervision.

As with everything, the complexity of the commissioning has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has meant that both the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the voluntary sector are engaging in a complex commissioning process with reduced resources and in a reduced period of time.

At the first meeting of the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) Probation Special Interest Group, members recommended that for the sector to engage in commissioning at this time all information should be clearly available at the beginning of any call off. However, this has not been the case and voluntary sector organisations are having to individually ask huge numbers of clarification questions. At Clinks we find ourselves not just influencing on overarching policy issues but having to understand and question significant details of the contracts.

Do the proposed services meet need?

Covid-19 has also reduced HMPPS and MoJ resources in such a way that they had to take the decision to commission less services for day one, leaving out Alcohol and Dependency and Finance, Benefit and Debt. For the remaining day one services the competition was restructured to commission Accommodation and ETE across regional probation areas rather than Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) areas. This has further reduced the day one opportunities for the sector overall and as the Accommodation and ETE contracts are larger, there is less scope for the involvement of smaller organisations with more local footprints or delivering specialist services to certain cohorts. These organisations can now only get involved in the delivery of these contracts through partnerships and sub-contracting.

As well as commissioning a more limited set of services for day one, the service specifications in each of the categories are different to that which are currently commissioned by CRCs. There are substantial changes to the Through the Gate model which means that the sector will likely be delivering a more limited amount of pre-release support. This has raised concerns that the learning and benefits of the current Enhanced Through the Gate model which allow for collaboration and closer working between the voluntary sector, CRCs and prisons will be lost.

There is also an assumption inherent in the commissioning model that services will take a while to ramp up and as such the number of service users would be lower in the first couple of years than in later years. Given the needs the voluntary sector knows to exist amongst people under probation supervision, this does not make sense. In part as a result of Clinks and RR3 influencing, these issues have been addressed in the accommodation contract.

We are also engaged in ongoing discussions to understand the contract values for women’s services. As multi service contracts there is added complexity in ensuring it is costed appropriately given that an individual woman may have multiple co-occuring needs that the service will be required to address.

Raising our concerns with HMPPS

We have raised these issues with Amy Rees, Director General of Probation at HMPPS and the probation reform team have engaged positively with us in trying to mitigate these issues. We are currently exploring with them options for providing support to organisations around the IT requirements of the contracts and we hope that we might see the remaining call offs address some of our other concerns.

We hope that this will mean that the forthcoming competition for personal wellbeing and women’s services will avoid some of the challenges around contract value that we have seen with accommodation and ETE, however we are concerned that the questions around estates, and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) liabilities will remain. In addition, the challenges around the complexity and structure of the commissioning model are to a large extent challenges with the cross-government procurement model than with policy choices made by the probation reform team.

Conclusion

We continue to be concerned that despite the increased investment in rehabilitation and resettlement services presented by the new model, the contracts for day one services do not provide significant enough opportunity for the voluntary sector. Where the voluntary sector is successful in the procurements, they may find themselves subsiding contracts in order to deliver quality of service, just as our research found is the case with current Transforming Rehabilitation contracts. We may also have to wait some time before Regional Probation Directors feel the NPS is sufficiently established to turn their attention to commissioning services for day two and beyond. All this threatens the sustainability of the criminal justice voluntary sector and is brought into sharper focus when we consider the impact of Covid-19.

Clinks wholeheartedly believes, that the probation service needs the expertise and experience of the voluntary sector to achieve improved outcomes for the people under its supervision and the communities they live in. For this reason I’ll be raising these issues in my evidence to the Justice Committee this afternoon and we will continue to highlight our concerns with the probation reform team as well as HMPPS, MoJ and the government more widely so that the voluntary sector is able to continue to work alongside probation and across the wider criminal justice system.

Jessica Mullen

Director of Influence and Communications 

Say Hello to TOM

Here it is, hot off the press:-

Introducing the Draft Target Operating Model 

This model is the blueprint for a strengthened probation service – one that keeps the public safe through the effective supervision of offenders in the community, providing credible alternatives to custody for sentencers. It looks to help those subject to probation services by identifying the right rehabilitative support to address offending behaviour, whilst supporting victims to access high quality, timely and effective support to help them cope and, as far as possible, recover from the effects of crime and rebuild their lives. This Target Operating Model comes at a time when the Prime Minister has placed public protection and safer communities among the Government’s top priorities. 

The model is built on two guiding principles. First, our people – probation practitioners in the NPS workforce – will be central to achieving this. By giving probation practitioners the right tools and support, we will help them to assess individuals’ risk, protect the public and change the underlying behaviour of those they supervise to break the cycle of re-offending. Second, to achieve the outcomes we are seeking, we need leadership that is grounded in our local communities, orientated towards their needs and able to convene the local public, private and third sector partners.

A strengthened service will place probation as the catalyst for systemic improvement across the criminal justice system – our courts, our prisons and our communities – to: 

▲ Assess those charged with a crime so our courts can be advised of the often-complex factors at play in an individual’s circumstances. By getting this diagnosis right, probation can make sure the best interventions are being deployed that can divert the right people from prison by delivering safe and viable alternatives to custody. 

▲ Protect the public and victims of crime by managing the ever-changing needs and risk profiles of individuals subject to probation services, working to ensure they fulfil the conditions of their sentence and that swift action is taken when they do not. 

▲ Change people’s lives by delivering the right interventions to support people and provide the rehabilitation required to prevent future crimes. The Government is now putting reforms in place to reinvigorate the probation service and ensure it can reliably deliver its essential services, and continue to develop and innovate. Probation service staff will have their professional skills respected and developed, operations will be simplified, and the estate and technology will be modernised. 

With a need to prepare for the insights our data-rich world offers, and the desire to better design and tailor public services to the end-user, the reforms will allow probation to forge partnerships or jointly commission services with local partners enabling us to draw upon the experience and innovation that sits in other sectors.

What is changing? 

To learn lessons from the probation service’s recent past, and to build on its historic strengths, each element of probation’s work has been reviewed with potential changes consulted on with the delivery partners, external stakeholders, staff and professional leadership. 

These changes fall into five main areas: 

▲ Unifying how sentences are managed so all individuals are case-managed within the same organisation, the National Probation Service (NPS). This provides greater clarity on the responsibility for cases, and improves continuity for those under supervision. Probation practitioners managing the post-release licence, or sentence on behalf of the court, can focus on this and engage other interventions or sources of support. 

▲ Creating new regional probation leadership structures that enable greater local accountability and direction setting. We are creating a new leadership role to lead 11 new probation regions in England as well as a Director in Wales. Our 12 Regional Probation Director roles have been created to give senior managers autonomy to commit resources alongside other local decision-makers and partners. These regional roles provide visible leadership, accountability at the right level, and responsiveness to scrutiny or challenge. They provide confidence that the service can also adapt and drive national change when required by shifting circumstances or events. 

▲ Enabling partnerships to deliver effective rehabilitation services. We will commission and co-commission specialist services from other providers in the commercial, voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors, where their services offer greater capacity, better value, or specialism and innovation. As devolution has pushed powers and decision making out of Whitehall – with PCCs, devolution in Wales and the emergence of influential Mayors – probation will be able to contribute to local problem-solving and respond to regional challenges. New regional leaders will focus on bringing together other parts of the justice system at a more local level under shared objectives. We have designed the competition and commissioning processes to create greater ability to co-commission services, and to give more direct opportunities for national and local voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to deliver services. 

▲ Modernising probation’s estate and technology so that it better supports the service’s work by providing the right physical space for working with individuals or groups, a high-quality working environment for staff and, where possible, encouraging collaboration with those working with the same individuals through co-location. Technology will be upgraded to enable better recording and sharing of information, and better analysis of data to inform effective decisions and planning. 

▲ Enabling staff to be their best. There is considerable evidence on reducing reoffending that confirms the importance of the quality of the face-to-face relationship that sits at the heart of sentence management. While working in probation is frequently seen as a vocation, the role still demands and deserves a clear framework for professional development. Our workforce strategy will be driven by the aim to retain and recruit the best people from diverse backgrounds, ensure our staff have the right support and skills they need, and provide them with professionally rewarding career paths.

Next steps 

The Draft Target Operating Model describes in more detail how we are shaping the service in its next evolution. We are approaching this reform eager to learn as we implement, iterating our approach to achieve the best design to keep the public safe.

The full 196 pages of bedtime reading can be found here. 

There Could Be Trouble Ahead

As always, the Daily Mail proves to be the perfect place to run a flag up the pole and make sure enough people are keen to salute it. Here's Rob Allen's take on word of Priti Patel's plans for a return to the Home Office:-  

Back Home? Why Sentencing, Prison and Probation Should Stay in the Ministry of Justice

The Johnson government is reportedly considering a shift in responsibility for sentencing, prisons and probation from the Ministry of Justice to the Home Office. I’m not altogether surprised; before the 2016 referendum, I heard Michael Gove tell an Oxford seminar he’d like to disband the MoJ (of which he was then Secretary of State), because it was a European type of institution unsuited to British traditions.

There may be a superficial attraction in combining responsibilities for crime and punishment - not only to those who favour a more punitive approach to offending but by those who hope that any Home Office plans for a crackdown would be tempered by the need for the Department to pay for its penal consequences.

But while the MoJ’s governance of criminal justice over the last 12 years may have earned it few friends, progressive reform is much less likely to emerge from our Interior Ministry – famously described by Whitehall-watcher Peter Hennessey as the graveyard of liberal thinking since the days of Lord Sidmouth.

For one thing, according to a book she co-authored in 2011, Priti Patel the current Home Secretary believes that we need to “reverse the tide of soft justice”, ensure that persistent offenders are imprisoned for long periods of time and make prisons “tough, unpleasant and uncomfortable places”. After the Coalition- a Conservative Agenda for Britain written with four other current government ministers argues that “the primary purpose of our justice system is to protect our society, not to act as a welfare service for convicted criminals”. Current proposals to increase the severity of sentences may not go far enough to satisfy their desire for harder penalties.

Not all Home Secretaries are so firmly in the Michael Howard Prison Works tradition of course, but responsibility for security and the reduction of crime will often produce penal policy which is at best risk averse and at worst unnecessarily harsh. The Ministry of Justice, whose centre of gravity includes human rights and the rule of law ought to tend to a more balanced approach to the use and practice of imprisonment. Home Secretary Theresa May's joke to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke., “I lock ‘em up, you let em out” says something about the departments as well as their ministers.

Consolidating crime and punishment in the Home Office would raise questions about the Parole Board - increasingly a judicial body that would not sit well in Marsham Street; about Youth Justice which many think belongs in the Education department; and about the role of Police and Crime Commissioners.

Ms Patel and her colleagues argue that the role of PCCs should be extended so they are responsible for commissioning custodial and non-custodial sentences for those who are convicted. There could be some benefits to such a devolved approach if it creates a dynamic to encourage the development of better alternatives to prison and measures to reduce re-offending. But the government’s belief that public confidence in criminal justice will be restored by longer prison terms make these Justice Reinvestment outcomes unlikely in the current climate.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the new democracies of Eastern Europe who wanted to join the Council of Europe had to meet certain conditions including abolishing the death penalty and moving their prison systems to the Ministry of Justice. The latter was to encourage the "civilianisation" of highly militaristic and security focused approaches to detention. The MoJ is now responsible for prisons in all 47 countries of the Council of Europe, except Spain.

In their book, Ms Patel and her colleagues have deplored the fact that an increasing human rights agenda and increasing interference from Europe discourage prison sentences, decrying the Council of Europe’s belief that prisoners should be treated in a way that reflects the normal life of freedom that all citizens generally enjoy.

Moving prisons to the Home Office could mean much more than an administrative change. It could be a fast and slippery slope to people going to prison not as a punishment but for a punishment.

Rob Allen

Death Knell of Probation 3

Thanks go to the reader for pointing us in the direction of the latest Probation Change Bulletin which sets out where we are with the MoJ plans to gobble up probation under the dead hand of civil service control:- 

1. Introduction

An update from the senior team

Welcome to the September update on the probation reform programme. The common theme that runs through this update is that we are moving from design into delivery - from talking about the future of probation to making it happen.

We have begun the process of moving to the 12 new probation regions (11 in England, plus Wales) and have started recruitment for the six regional director vacancies. We hope that all regional directors will be in post from April 2020, allowing a phased transition to the new structures.

Consultation with staff in Wales is well underway and we aim to transfer offender management from the CRC to the NPS later this year. To support this process we’ve finalised guidance on how we will fairly and transparently assign CRC staff to either the NPS or to new contracted providers.

We have also reflected on the language we use to describe contracts. We have replaced Innovation Partner with Probation Delivery Partner. We think this is a clearer description of the purpose of those organisations and, importantly, it anchors them to the probation service of which they will be a key part.

We plan to launch the competition to appoint a probation delivery partner for each region later this year. 

Update from Wales

Seetec in Wales is currently engaged with staff and trade union consultation. This consultation process will formally end on 19 October 2019.

More information on the detail of the proposed Wales transition will be available after this consultation process. Our priority is to make sure that staff are fully informed at all stages.

Services will be commissioned in Wales at the same time as in England. We are working closely with HMPPS Wales to make sure that unpaid work, accredited programmes, resettlement and rehabilitation services are designed and commissioned in a way that meets the specific circumstances and needs in Wales. If you want to contact the programme team in Wales or have any questions please email futurepsw@justice.gov.uk

2. Service design

The design of future probation services

We have been sharing and refining our design with key stakeholders to build the first version of our Target Operating Model (TOM) for future probation services and we plan to publish it later this year. We will publish multiple versions of this TOM as the design work progresses.

2.1 Key features of the new system

• A high-quality service to protect the public - reducing reoffending and improving outcomes for offenders
• More support for our workforce to secure the skills needed to deliver effective probation services
• Delivery that is responsive to local needs, creates the right conditions for a diverse range of providers and ensures a clearer role for voluntary and private sectors
• Stronger engagement with stakeholders so that we can better influence levels of demand across the Criminal Justice System and improve sentencer confidence in probation delivery.

2.2 The role of the probation practitioner and the intervention providers

We are carefully designing a system based on a known evidence base, both for probation practitioners and specialist services, so that we can address specific needs and behaviors. We are using this information to more clearly define the roles and interfaces in the system, especially between the NPS and contracted providers. Here are some key facts:

• The relationship between probation practitioners and those serving a sentence is key and the evidence base confirms their central role as an agent of change
• Probation practitioners are likely to be more effective as agents of change if they can access specialist services to address specific needs - attempting to address practical needs can detract from building positive relationships
• Interventions that build social capital are likely to be better delivered by specialist local providers
• Our aim is to support probation practitioners by making sure interventions are available that meet frequently occurring needs
• The focus will be on interventions that build skills and secure appropriate outcomes for the individual
• Our approach should ensure we make best use of the opportunities and permissions that delivering a sentence can provide
• Our new regional leadership will champion and enable a whole system response to desistance
• The service will respond to the needs of those with protected characteristics, especially for groups where there is convincing evidence, such as women and young adults.

We thank those who have worked with us over the past month at various workshops. They have included HM Probation Inspectorate, Clinks, CRC and NPS leadership, academics convened by the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Advisory Board for Female Offenders, a working group of women’s organisations and a range of voluntary sector providers. In the month ahead we plan more workshops. For example, we will further test our resettlement model with prison governors and current providers of ‘Through the Gate’ services and we will have conversations with prison reconfiguration and Offender Management in Custody staff.

3. Transition and mobilisation

How we are changing from current to future services

We are looking very carefully at transition - taking care to manage the pace of change and work closely with local partners to deliver the transition. No area or region is the same so our approach to transition and the speed of transition will be different across England and Wales. To support this work we have established transition boards across England and Wales - one for each new probation region.

These transition boards have representation from both the NPS and CRCs. In addition, we are establishing sub-boards for people and estates across the country. A growing transitions team in the probation programme will support these boards. Once these boards are fully established they will be a critical part of our plans to transition to future services.

Key activities of the transition team in September have been: * Establishing the regional transition boards and sub groups * Recruiting NPS and CRC transition leads * Requesting more workforce data from CRCs (and their supply chain partners) to inform the accuracy of our workforce planning.

Key activities planned for October are: * Establishing a central transition plan and regional draft action plans * A meeting with all key transition leads to affirm roles, responsibilities and activities in the transition space.

4. Workforce

What we doing to support the probation workforce and related professionals

We are working closely with local HR partners in the NPS and CRCs to support probation staff and the employees of supply chain partners. The regional transition boards will enable effective communication to a wide range of practitioners in their local area.

These HR partners will also ensure that planning is localised and detailed enough to inform both our national direction and what we need to do regionally. They will report to their regional transition board. There will be local operational staff as well as HR specialists on the transition boards. Work will include planning the training needs across regions for all staff prior to future changes.

We are also looking at workforce needs for the probation delivery partners. This is the competition for unpaid work, accredited programmes and non-accredited red interventions.

5. Probation structures

The design and development of new probation structures

We are finalising the new regional senior management structure. As a milestone in that work we have recently launched the external recruitment process for the new regional probation director roles. The job adverts have been posted on Civil Service Jobs. (Please open this link in Firefox).

A crucial part of future structures is the work needed to ensure that the NPS operates seamlessly with contracted providers. We have been working with colleagues across the programme to run workshops with staff so that we understand the referral, commissioning, contract and performance management processes that support the delivery of interventions. We will build on these workshops so that we have the right processes in place for the new commissioning frameworks under the unified model.

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are vital local stakeholders and we will continue to work with them closely. We are organising a national event for PCCs on 21 October in London. At this event we will update on our work with them on a national level and, facilitated by the Association for Police and Crime Commissioners, we will define the role of PCCs in the future model. This includes how the NPS and PCCs will work together at both local and regional levels and how key enablers, such as data, will support this work.

6. Commissioning updates

How we are planning to purchase and manage commissioned or grant funded services

The commercial team have been working alongside service design leads to develop the right approach to buying services in the following areas: * Unpaid work * Accredited programmes and non-accredited structured interventions * Rehabilitation services * Resettlement services.

We have continued to work closely with the market and stakeholders to develop our approach across all these areas.

6.1 Probation delivery partners (unpaid work, accredited programmes and structured non-accredited interventions)

Following feedback from the market we have decided to amend the title ‘innovation partner’ to ‘probation delivery partner’. This better reflects the services that future providers will deliver while including our aim to work in partnership with future providers.

The competition for probation delivery partners has entered the market-warming phase prior to the launch of competition in November 2019. You can read the first set of draft documents published on the Government website on the probation reform consultation events and materials page.

6.2 Dynamic framework (rehabilitation and resettlement services)

We will make the dynamic framework available to other public sector commissioners and we are engaging with other Government departments and commissioners to seek feedback on: * Proposed categories of need areas and cohorts * Key principles of the framework and how other commissioners will be able to use the dynamic framework.

We are also engaging with the market by holding smaller scale workshops. At these events we will seek detailed feedback on our approach to ensure that we are proportionate and reduce barriers to entry wherever possible. We expect that the qualification phase for the dynamic framework will open in December 2019. Dynamic framework bidders will be able to qualify at any time during the life of the framework. But please note that call-off competitions for day one services will start in early 2020 so bidders are encouraged to participate from December 2019.

7. Links and further information

Response to the consultation on future probation services Draft blueprint on future probation services Event materials If you have any questions or would like to contact the programme team please email strengthening.probation@justice.gov.uk

MoJ Give Evidence

Last Wednesday the House of Commons Justice Committee had the opportunity of grilling the new man at the MoJ, along with Jim Barton, Sonia Crozier and Amy Rees. As on previous occasions, although somewhat lengthy, it's important that what was said is examined in some detail, but in several chunks:-   

Q375 Chair: Minister, thank you very much for coming and bringing your officials. You are well known to us. All of us have met your officials in the past, but perhaps they could introduce themselves for the record. 

Jim Barton: I am Jim Barton, the director responsible for delivering the probation reform programme. 

Sonia Crozier: I am Sonia Crozier. I am chief probation officer of the National Probation Service. I also have responsibility within HMPPS for women.

Amy Rees: I am Amy Rees. I am the interim director general for probation and Wales. 

Q376 Chair: Let me kick off. There have been some important announcements about the future of probation, welcome ones as far as this Committee is concerned. What changed the Government’s mind from last October? 

Robert Buckland: First, can I pay tribute to the work of the Committee, which has taken a long and informed interest in this? I am grateful to all members for having considered the matter and helped inform the process. 

I am fairly new in post, but, as you know, Mr Neill, I have had a long involvement with the system and have worked with probation officers for the better part of 30 years, so I know their worth and value. I think we acknowledge that, although there has been important change brought about by transforming rehabilitation, we needed to make further changes. There had been a process during the TR regime from 2014 onward where we had made adjustments. Most notably, the decision to end the CRC contracts earlier than planned was a major adjustment, but we based our decisions on the evidence and the information, and as a Department we are not frightened to acknowledge when change is necessary. 

This was one of the key moments when both the Secretary of State and I felt very strongly that we needed to streamline responsibility for provision in the area to make it clearer and more straightforward, in particular to understand the important role of the National Probation Service. These reforms will give the NPS a stronger and clearer role in managing all offenders. We believe that the system we are going to develop will enhance and encourage voluntary sector involvement in rehabilitation to a greater level than we have seen previously. 

I have described the scenario as a mixed economy. I believe that very fundamentally. It is important that we retain the voluntary sector, and indeed the private sector, in helping us to make that provision, but the overarching framework within the NPS and the creation of 11 regions will underline the importance of allowing each part of the sector to play to its strengths and deliver more investment in further enhancing the role of our probation staff. That aspect of our proposed reforms has perhaps been somewhat overlooked. 

For me, it is absolutely vital not only that we increase the number of probation staff, which is happening, but that they feel valued and understood by wider society as a vital part of the system, whose judgments are to be relied upon by sentencers and whose assessments within the community are an important part of offender management and rehabilitation. As part of that process, your Committee played its role, but the observations of the former chief inspector of probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, also played a very important part in influencing the thinking that has brought us to this position. 

Q377 Chair: It is Keynesian; the facts or evidence have changed, and you have changed your view. 

Robert Buckland: To condemn TR out of hand and say that it was a failure is unfair to many aspects of it: for example, the increase in the overall number of people supervised; some of the really good projects that we saw in the south-east relating to stalking; and the work done on unpaid work requirements. I do not think it would be fair to write off the past four or five years as a blind alley, because it certainly was not. A lot of what we have learned from that will be taken forward in the new model, but the end of the division between serious offences and less serious offences will help us, most notably not just with overall accountability but with the workload of probation officers. Perhaps we can explore that as we go into questions. 

Q378 Chair: You have come into post recently. Have you had the chance to meet many frontline probation staff since you have been there? Perhaps you would tell us what you have found in terms of their response. 

Robert Buckland: In the few weeks that I have been in office I have already visited a probation centre in Greater Manchester, together with senior probation staff, but, most importantly, to meet probation officers working with offenders on the ground in an innovative way. In the particular probation office I visited they were managing quite hard-to-reach offenders with a particularly innovative programme that involved therapeutic and support services to understand the underlying reasons for offending. For me, it is reacquaintance with a profession I have worked with and been impressed by over nearly 30 years. 

Q379 Chair: I understand and agree with what you are saying. I think we would all endorse what you say about probation staff. 

One of the things that troubled us was what seemed to be a diminution of confidence on the part of the judiciary and sentencers in the way they could rely on the follow-up to sentences. Can you talk to us specifically about how that is going to be addressed in the new system? The decision was that the people who wrote the reports were NPS staff, but in the past the follow-up was done by CRCs. How is the confidence of magistrates and judges going to be addressed? Bring in your officials by all means. 

Robert Buckland: Absolutely, but can I lead off on that basis? I come to this job in the sense that I will take the position of the sentencer. Having done it myself and sat in the judge’s chair and looked at the options when sentencing, I understand that the confidence sentencers need in their options is absolutely vital. We are already seeing some important examples of work being done to improve the options that have existed for a very long time in statute but which, in reality, have proved somewhat different. 

Let’s take mental health treatment requirements as part of a community order. A number of pilots are now being undertaken in Milton Keynes, Northampton and a few other centres—I think London is piloting two. We have not yet seen the outcome evaluation or the process evaluation, although we will, by the way, have some idea shortly from the Department of Health as to the process evaluation, but we are already seeing a tailored approach to individual need. I accept that that can be a challenge and there is always a resource issue with these options, but it is my aim to try to make sure that sentencers have a proper choice, that the words on the page in the 2003 Act become more and more of a reality, and that by improving that choice prison is not the only staple in the diet of sentencing, if I can use that phrase. That is well understood. I am happy for officials to come in to develop those points. 

Q380 Chair: I understand that and agree with it, but I am interested in the nuts and bolts of how we give the sentencer reassurance that there will be a better follow-through than appears to have been the case in the past. Who would like to deal with that? 

Amy Rees: To add to what the Minister said, in July we launched our probation consultation document called “Building Confidence”. As part of that, we trialled the new model in Wales, which looks very similar to the model we are now going for in England and Wales, so we were able to gather quite a lot of detailed feedback about what people thought about that model, including the judiciary, and they were very supportive of what we were planning to do in Wales. 

It comes down to some quite simple things. There will be one person responsible for probation in a region. If you have issues that you want to follow through, you will be able to go directly to one person. The system will have an owner in a region that gives a point of interface with the judiciary that we think has been missing over the last four or five years. 

Q381 Chair: A resident judge at Chelmsford, Maidstone or somewhere has a specific person they can go to. Is that what it comes down to? 

Amy Rees: And who manages the whole system. 

Q382 Chair: That can be followed through, and the recorder, Mr Buckland or I, is in the same position to do that. 

Robert Buckland: Indeed. I think the relationship between the judiciary and the probation service is absolutely vital. The judiciary need to have confidence that the authors of pre-sentence reports are people who have the experience, authority and understanding to reach judgments that can be relied on. I am not a nostalgist, Mr Neill, but we are looking at building those relationships in a stronger way. With technology, there are many other ways in which it can now be done just as effectively. The relationship—the liaison—is strengthened so that resident judges, circuit judges and recorders can have confidence. 

Q383 Chair: I understand that. Does anyone want to add anything to the details and specifics of that? 

Jim Barton: I acknowledge that the model we are now proposing to implement removes the disconnects you have referred to, Mr Neill, in terms of the person offering advice to sentencers not necessarily working for the organisation that is then responsible for those cases. Under the new model, that disconnect is simply removed. 

Q384 Chair: There will be a direct link between the author of the report and those who do the administration. Similarly, if for any reason there is a breach and people are brought back, do you think you can give better assurance under the new system that it will be joined up? 

Robert Buckland: Yes. 

Q385 Chair: That is helpful. How does it differ from the old probation trusts? The Secretary of State says it does not, and I can understand why to some extent. Eleven regions are a bit different. What would you say are the key differences? 

Amy Rees: There is obviously a size difference, which we have acknowledged, and that is important. Beyond that, there are some more important differences. As I just referred to, there will be a single director responsible for probation services in a region. That means both the directly delivered part and the commissioned part, but that responsibility is through a civil service relationship so the Minister will still be able to have a line of sight, not just on the direct delivery but on the commissioned services. 

Jim Barton: Perhaps another point of difference with probation trusts is the size of the market involvement. I know that the Committee has followed the history of probation very closely over many years since the creation of probation trusts in 2010. You will remember that there was always an intent that probation trusts should commission out potentially up to 20% of their services. From my anecdotal memory of that time, having worked for one of those trusts, I think only one or two got anywhere close to that level, despite a considerable push from Ministers through successive Governments to try to achieve it. What we are committing to under this model is that there will be an absolute requirement that the National Probation Service commissions the provision of interventions from market providers, whether they be private or voluntary sector organisations. 

Sonia Crozier: The other obvious difference is that we have become a national probation service in areas where it is important to have a greater degree of consistency. We have pursued that very hard and have taken out some of the differences that we inherited from 35 trusts—for example, in the use of our approved premises and the targeting of that. The benefits of being a national service will be taken forward into the new regions but will be combined with the kind of flexibility at local level around commissioning and engagement with the voluntary sector that Jim Barton has just described. It is about taking the best of what works nationally but combining that with new opportunities to have a greater focus on local engagement. 

Q386 Chair: One of the criticisms of the previous regime was that, whatever the intention, in practice some voluntary groups were involved, maybe not as many as had been hoped, but that one thing the old trusts had was a fairly direct link into the local community through representation and membership of the trusts. That seems to have been very much lost. 

Given that a lot of the folk who will be dealt with by probation will have housing and social services issues, potentially education issues and health issues, how will you get a meaningful say at local level as well as national level rather than everything being referred up the line to the Minister, as I found when I was in a health authority, and becoming very centralised? How are you going to avoid that? 

Robert Buckland: We are already having active dialogue with police and crime commissioners. There was dialogue prior to the announcement, as you would expect and hope, and that has carried on. I met a representative sample of PCCs only last week to discuss ways we can jointly commission local services. 

It seems to me that the “and crime” element of the PCC model is one that comes into play when we are dealing with prevention and rehabilitation. Therefore, it is an entirely logical step to use that network as an important framework, below regional level, to identify some excellent examples of local provision so that we can, as you say, have a direct link with the small charity that might be working with veterans in Wiltshire, for example, or an organisation that might be working with a particular cohort of vulnerable offenders in another part of the country. There will be a direct link in terms of how the relationship with the NPS is maintained. As Sonia says, the local being blended with the national is where the balance needs to be struck. 

Q387 Chair: It is local knowledge, isn’t it? Some of the key decision makers being involved is critical. What are the practical means by which you can achieve that, Ms Crozier? 

Sonia Crozier: As we take forward future design, we want enough well-informed local managers who are working to a common set of principles engaging with local partners. That is different from the position we have been in previously where you might have managers from the NPS and the CRC combining two voices locally, which can be confusing, or perhaps there are no voices because one thinks the other is doing something. We will have a unified approach, with leadership flowing down and sufficient local managers on the frontline doing all the things you have just described, building relationships with local charities at a very local level in small towns across the country. 

Q388 Chair: You signed MOUs with both the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Greater Manchester in relation to elements of justice devolution. Many of us would say that some elements of probation work are pretty obvious examples of areas where you could devolve a lot of the delivery of these matters. How will that fit together under the new set-up? 

Amy Rees: We are in active dialogue with both of those Mayors and both regions. We already work quite closely with them. For example, in Greater Manchester we have had an intensive alternative to custody pilot running for some time, so it is building on a dialogue that already exists. We think the new model will be much better placed to allow us to work much more closely with those kinds of partners and others. Why? Because we are directly commissioning from a framework that will both allow much smaller organisations to be part of that framework and enable us to commission together with all sorts of organisations—PCCs, metro mayors or local authorities. 

Q389 David Hanson: I will take you back to the National Audit Office, if I may. In its report in March this year, it said that the part-privatisation of probation services had been extremely costly to the taxpayer. What is your current estimate of the cost? 

Robert Buckland: Where we are with the overall cost is that the net figure, in fact, is somewhat more encouraging when one takes into account the fact that we will have ended the contracts early. 

Q390 David Hanson: What is it? 

Robert Buckland: The projected spend? The overall non-spend on the contracts is £1.4 billion. The net figure is £800 million in terms of money actually not spent, so there is still an overall excess, if you like, rather than a deficit. 

Q391 David Hanson: There is a figure of £171 million in the National Audit Office report as the cost to the taxpayer. How do you account for that? What is that for? 

Robert Buckland: That figure is included very much in the net figure. I can break that down. That £171 million consists of £113 million that the Department agreed with 20 of the 21 CRCs with regard to changing the baseline. You will remember that there was a frequency of reoffending baseline assessed as at 2011. What happened was that that was not reflected by the reality of the number of cases being dealt with by CRCs, and it was remodelled to a figure based on the 2015-16 year. 

Q392 David Hanson: There was £467 million put in 18 months to two years ago. Where has that gone? 

Robert Buckland: I am just trying to explain, if you will bear with me. A figure of £1.8 million was allocated to the Merseyside CRC. There was a particular issue there because they had overseen quite a significant improvement in the frequency of reoffending in their area and were making some progress. There was a request made by the parent company for the original baseline to be maintained because they were performing. 

A figure of £30.2 million was agreed by the Ministry with regard to some technical variations with providers, which related to the source of the data used to calculate the volume of casework by CRCs, and £43 million was agreed with CRCs to deliver an enhanced through-the-gate specification right through to the end of 2020. There was £213 million that was a marginal adjustment factor change; in other words, that was the change to the contracts made back in 2017. That payment was made to rectify the original assumptions that we know have been looked at carefully by the PAC and which I know you understand. 

There was an £82.2 million additional fee for service payments made to CRCs in the financial years 2016-17 and 2017-18, but, as I have said, because of the underspend of £1.4 billion, you take that into account and, although that money has been significant, the overall net sum that we are not spending—it is a bit inelegant—or the net money we have avoided spending because we ended the contracts earlier is £800 million. 

Q393 David Hanson: But by ending the contracts early you are still going to spend that money in some form or other in the next couple of years, but not with the current CRCs. 

Robert Buckland: Yes, but it is an important point— 

Q394 David Hanson: As a taxpayer, Minister, what I am interested in is that the National Audit Office has said that the cost to the taxpayer is £171 million. I want to hear from you whether you agree with the National Audit Office or whether you can publish figures that show a different form of defence. I would appreciate that.

Robert Buckland: With respect, I have gone through the figures with you because you deserve particularity. I know you would insist on nothing less as a former Minister for Prisons yourself. 

What I am saying is that the projected overall spend on the contracts was going to be £3.7 billion. By ending them, we spend only £2.3 billion. You then add on the £470 million I have talked about. I am not giving you a conservative estimate. There are other rounding figures that mean an overall £800 million underspend. 

Q395 David Hanson: Has it been a good deal for the taxpayer, Minister? 

Robert Buckland: I have acknowledged that there have been problems with TR. That is why we are making these reforms. I am sitting here telling you frankly that we think we can do better, of course; but it would be wrong to say that overall, looking back on this period, we will have ended up spending more than the projected £3.7 billion. In fact, we will be spending £800 million less than that, which I think is an important overall framework in understanding where we are financially. 

Q396 David Hanson: How much additional money have you put into the current CRCs for 2018-19? 

Robert Buckland: I do not know whether Jim has any more granularity on that. 

Jim Barton: You will appreciate that this is a reasonably confused figure, because, within the £467 million total, some payments, essentially, are backward looking because they correct assumptions in the original payment mechanism; some of them reflect adjustments to the ongoing monthly payments that we make—the changes to the fee for service mechanism that we made in 2017—and some of them are straightforward top-up payments to buy new services. 

On the specific question about 2018-19, the changes we have made previously that will impact this year are the £22 million additional spend on a significantly enhanced through-the-gate service. That service is now live in all bar four resettlement prisons, with 500 additional staff in post delivering improved support for offenders pre-release. The changes that we made to the frequency baseline that the Minister referenced previously mean that as a result most CRCs would, if we had not made those changes, have been paying us because of underperformance on the frequency measure. Most CRCs are now in a position where their frequency payments hover around a zero figure. 

As the Minister pointed out, we believe that the change in the frequency baseline was, with the benefit of hindsight, absolutely the right thing to do, because the deterioration in performance between 2011 and 2015 happened before the CRCs existed or were under private ownership. If we had our time again, we probably would not have signed a contract that linked frequency payments to a baseline in 2011 that we and providers did. Last year, we made the choice that to enforce that element of the contract would have meant that contracts would have been underfunded. The consequence of that is a poorer probation service. That is not in our interest. 

Q397 David Hanson: What is the plan for payments for 2019-20 until the contracts expire? 

Jim Barton: We will apply current contractual terms, so it will depend on the volume of work that CRCs do and their performance under the PBR mechanism. 

Q398 David Hanson: What is your rough estimate of the net cost to the Department of that contract for 2019-20? 

Jim Barton: That is included in the figures you cite. When the NAO rightly says that the cost of those contract changes is £467 million, that extends from the date we made the changes to the end of the contract. For example, through-the-gate is £22 million a year, and £43 million in total between the point when we made that change and the end of the contracts. 

Q399 David Hanson: In a previous session with Richard Heaton, we asked for a breakdown of the costs for each CRC, and the net plus or minus figure for each CRC. I have a letter from Richard Heaton dated 8 April in which he says: “You also asked for a breakdown of costs for the financial year… We are still finalising our year end position, so are not yet in a position to provide this data. We will provide you with an update as soon as we are able.” Do you know when that will be? 

Robert Buckland: I will take that away and make sure that the Committee is furnished with that information as soon as possible. 

Q400 David Hanson: This is the final question from me on financing. In May this year, the permanent secretary, Richard Heaton, required a ministerial direction to process payments to CRC subcontractors because he could not reconcile those payments with his duty as accounting officer. Why could he not reconcile those payments? Why did the Minister overrule the decision of the accounting officer? 

Robert Buckland: I do not have the information before me with regard to that particular decision. I accept that the procedure is not one that is commonly used. 

Q401 David Hanson: It has not been used generally in the last 10 years. 

Robert Buckland: I accept that, Mr Hanson. It is a matter on which I will want to furnish the Committee with full information. I do not have it to hand. 

David Hanson: I am grateful for that, Minister. Could we have an explanation as to the reasons why the accounting officer’s decision to rule out payments to subcontractors was made by the Minister, unless anybody at official level can help?

Q402 Chair: It will be helpful to have that. 

Mr Barton, you talked about proceeding on current contractual arrangements until they terminate. Is there a risk of any further payments being necessary? You are working on the current volumes and assumptions until the end of the contract. Those assumptions of workload proved erroneous and unreliable in the past. Is there still a risk that we may need further bail-outs for some of those firms? 

Amy Rees: As Jim outlined quite clearly, the contracts will operate in the way we have now set out. The package to which we have been referring in terms of the £467 million was one that we designed in order to take us to the end of the revised contract period. We believe, from the best knowledge we have, that that will be enough to stabilise as we go forward. Having said that, in the way we have just described, the contracts are built on changing metrics. Did they reduce reoffending? Is that binary or is it among the reoffending group? What happens to fee for use? What happens to the rate card? Lots of elements can change over the next two years, so it is impossible to say it will be exactly as this, but in good faith we negotiated those contract changes in the belief that they would take us to the end of the contract period, and that would be sufficient to stabilise the system. 

Q403 Chair: I think the Committee is rather in favour of the change you made. There remains a risk, but your view is that it is a manageable one. 

Amy Rees: There are lots of changing numbers, and multiple parts and frequencies, which mean that it is difficult to say, when you take all of that, that there is no risk at all, but we believe we have taken steps to eliminate the risk as far as we can. 

Q404 David Hanson: Can I get a commitment from the Minister, helpfully, for the Committee? When the period with the current CRCs has been finalised and completed, will you agree to publish a cost analysis of the final package for the costs of CRCs and the changes from 2011 to 2020? 

Robert Buckland: What we can do is provide as much information, with as much granularity as possible, for the Committee, so that we understand the whole period. What that will look like precisely I cannot tell you now, as Amy has said, but in terms of learning we have had to deal with a number of issues—for example, Working Links and what has happened in Wales as well. We have the learning and experience of the model now to deal with any contingency issues that might arise between now and the end of 2020. 

Let’s not forget that the issue was the profile of offences and the unforeseen outcome that was the increase in serious offences that had to be dealt with by the NPS. The workload of the NPS increased in a way that perhaps had not been foreseen, which meant that there were fewer of the less serious offences that would have been dealt with by the CRCs. 

Understanding that fundamental reality can perhaps inform as fully as possible not just members of the Committee but the wider public about the scale of the challenge that CRCs faced.

Jim Barton: On the question about further contractual changes, you will have noticed in previous evidence that we had planned to end current contracts on 4 December 2020, but in our announcements on the future direction of travel we are referencing transition happening in spring 2021. We think we need to take the time to manage transition well. That is a hard lesson learned from transforming rehabilitation. To provide us with the small number of additional months needed to do that, we have an option to extend CRC contracts into the first half of 2021. We have recently published, through the Official Journal of the European Union, notice that we have that option and that we intend to make that contract change. That would be on amended contractual terms. 

Q405 Chair: I understand that. Perhaps hard-wiring anything by an absolute fixed date is never wise. 

Robert Buckland: That’s right, Mr Neill. As Jim said, the pace of change is different from the period prior to the introduction of TR in 2014. We will be developing our business case by late summer and looking to move on to the next stage, the competition stage, in the autumn. You are looking at a clear set of milestones within which there will be a lot of work that I will be keeping a very close eye on, because I get the point that we have to get the commissioning right. You will be bearing down upon me very hard if we do not, so it is very well understood. 

Chair: That is fair enough.

(To be continued)