MoJ Tagging Scandal

The suspicion has long been held that the MoJ basically feels that tagging everyone would be a really easy and cheap way of reducing crime and 'supervising' offenders. The trouble is it's not cheap; the technology isn't that good and nobody knows if it's actually effective. Of course the MoJ has quite a track record on poor contract writing and wasting public money through IT failures, but are very effective in lining the pockets of huge private sector corporations. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies are on the tagging case though:-

Whiff of scandal over electronic monitoring

The Centre for Crime and Justice today called for the use of electronic monitoring (so-called “tagging”) as part of a criminal justice sanction to be based on proper evidence and guided by clear principles.

The call came in response to today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee, which paints an alarming picture of government failure and waste.

According to the Public Accounts Committee, nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted on the failure to deliver a new case management system. Remedial work on the current creaking system will incur extra costs. The Ministry of Justice, the Committee notes, still does not know what works, or whether tagging reduces reoffending. Yet it plans to press ahead with a £1.2 billion programme, expanding tagging to an additional 10,000 people over the next three years.

Dr Roger Grimshaw, Research Director at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said:

"Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring.

At a time when there is so much for them to grapple with, it would be tempting for criminal justice practitioners and observers to assume that the failings exist in some faraway management bubble, with few implications for people under supervision, or their families.

In reality, the expansion of EM being planned is due to create a new world of electronic supervision, supplementary to the prison system, unguided by firm evidence about any positive role in rehabilitation.

The whiff of scandal over EM should be a wake-up call for a much more informed and wide-ranging discussion, developing a platform for reform which delimits a place for EM in a modest, humane and purposeful system.”

'Transforming electronic monitoring services': for what purpose?

Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring (EM) services in criminal justice.

Its detailed analysis and criticisms are extensive: nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted on the failure to deliver a new case management system. Remedial work on the current creaking system will incur extra costs. The implications of ‘real-time’ monitoring data access for police remain to be explored.

A striking finding is the weakness of the evidence base for the planned expansion of EM.

"The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending… Despite the lack of evaluation, government is pressing ahead with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years."

As the Committee notes, these concerns are not new: the New Generation electronic monitoring programme was beset by a similar level of ineptitude. In our evidence to the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, the only written evidence the Committee published, we highlighted the systemic failings in the EM programme. We also called for the appointment of a regulator with an ethical and practical mission of ensuring that only appropriate services are provided, in the public interest.

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From the Public Accounts Committee website:-

“Avoidable” mistakes in tagging programme “wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money”

In a report the Public Accounts Committee says a “high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice” all contributed to the failure of a new case management system for electronic monitoring of offenders which has “cost taxpayers dear”.

The Committee says “avoidable mistakes” wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service “reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million”.

Even after this, the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS still “do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending”. Despite the lack of knowledge and evaluation, government is pressing ahead with a £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years.

Given the “long history of poor performance in this area” the Committee is “unconvinced” that the MoJ is equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor the “serious risks” that remain for the expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024.

Chair's comments

Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:

“The prison and probation service is reliant on outdated technology that is swallowing taxpayers’ money just to stand still. The existing system is at constant risk of failure – and let us be clear that in the case of tagging, “failure” can mean direct and preventable risk to the public – and attempts to transform it have failed.

The incredible scale of waste and loss in the Government’s Covid response should in no way inure us to this: that’s another hundred million pounds of taxpayers’ money for essential public services just thrown away, wasted, lost. We expect a serious explanation, and a serious plan, from the MoJ and Government more widely how they are going to stop this haemorrhaging of taxpayers’ money that they are presiding over. We need assurances up front over the further £1.2 billion they have already committed to the tagging programme – what will be achieved, by when, and, crucially, what will be recovered for the public if goals aren’t met.”

Summary

HM Prison & Probation Service’s (HMPPS) transformation programme for electronic monitoring (‘tagging’) has failed to transform the service as intended. HMPPS launched the programme to improve efficiency and increase the usefulness of tagging for police and probation services, but after significant setbacks and delays the failure has cost taxpayers dear. Its high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice all contributed to its failure to introduce a new case management system, which underpinned the intended benefits and transformation. These avoidable mistakes wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million.

It is unacceptable that, despite our previous recommendations, the Ministry and HMPPS still do not have sufficient data to understand the outcomes of tagging and that police forces and the Probation Service continue to lack timely access to the high-quality data they need to monitor offenders and keep the public safe. The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending. HMPPS has committed to improving access to data and evaluating its new tagging expansion projects, but appears unambitious about the level of insight that it expects to achieve.

Despite the lack of evaluation, government is pressing ahead with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years. It has harnessed innovative technology to deliver new projects—such as in its alcohol monitoring scheme and acquisitive crime pilot—where early progress has yielded some encouraging results. However, although HMPPS has identified lessons from the failure of its transformation programme, there remain serious risks associated with its expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024. Given the long history of poor performance in this area, we remain unconvinced that it is sufficiently well-equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor developments for the foreseeable future.

Only Sensible Option is Reunification

Oh look! Another report highlighting the Probation Omnishambles. This in the Guardian:-

Grayling probation changes 'took unacceptable risks' with public money

Overhaul left sector in worse state than before and taxpayer with £467m bill, MPs report.

Chris Grayling’s widely derided changes to the supervision of a quarter of a million offenders in the community were rushed through at breakneck speed, taking “unacceptable risks” with taxpayers’ money, a spending watchdog has said. In yet another damning report on Grayling’s so-called Transforming Rehabilitation strategy introduced when he was justice secretary, MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) said the overhaul had left the probation sector in a worse position than before.

The changes failed to achieve expected reductions in reoffending and left services underfunded, fragile and lacking the confidence of the courts, the MPs said in a report. Action taken to tackle the problems will cost £467m, the report said, adding: “Inexcusably, probation services have been left in a worse position than they were in before the ministry embarked on its reforms.”

Probation services deal with more than 250,000 offenders in England and Wales, including those preparing to leave jail, former prisoners living in the community and people serving community or suspended sentences. The sector was overhauled in 2014 by Grayling, who ignored significant warnings from within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and broke up 35 existing probation trusts, replacing them with a public-sector service dealing with high-risk offenders and 21 privately run community rehabilitation companies (CRC) that manage low- to medium-risk offenders.

The MoJ plans to end the existing CRC contracts early, in December 2020. Under the proposed new system, 10 probation regions would be created in England, with each containing an National Probation Service (NPS) division and a CRC. In Wales, the NPS would assume responsibility for the management of all offenders.

The PAC chairwoman, Meg Hillier, said: 

“Despite warnings from this committee and the National Audit Office over the past three years, the Ministry of Justice has failed to bring about the promised revolution in rehabilitation. Rather than deliver the savings hoped for at the start of the programme, the ministry’s attempts to address the failures in the reforms have cost the taxpayer an additional £467m while failing to achieve the anticipated improvements in reoffending behaviour. Over-optimistic initial forecasts left the Ministry of Justice fighting fires of their own making since the programme’s inception.”

The committee claimed the MoJ failed to conduct adequate pilot schemes or to learn sufficiently from similar programmes elsewhere, accusing the department of suffering from “optimism bias”. The PAC report said: “It is unacceptable that so many unnecessary risks were taken with taxpayers’ money.”

The changes failed to reduce reoffending by as much as expected, continued the report, citing figures that showed the average number of reoffences per offender increased by 22% between 2011 and March 2017. The report also noted that the number of offenders recalled to prison for breaching their licence conditions went up by 47% from January 2015 to September 2018.

While the government says the rise reflects the extension of statutory supervision to offenders sentenced to less than 12 months, the committee said the MoJ “acknowledged that it had not got post-sentence supervision right”. The PAC joins the chief inspector of probation, the cross-party justice committee and the National Association of Probation Officers in heavily criticising Grayling’s changes. 

Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, said: 

“Chris Grayling’s disastrous decision to privatise probation has been a costly failure that has left our communities less safe. The Tories must show that they have learnt the lessons of this failure and drop their ideologically driven plans to sign yet more private probation contracts. Labour has made it clear that in government we will return probation to the public sector, where it can focus on keeping the public safe – not lining the pockets of failing private companies.”

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On the day Rory Stewart decided to move on to pastures new and confirms that his hat is in  the ring for Tory Party leader, I hear that Napo have been given a 'heads-up' regarding MoJ thinking in advance of appointment of yet another Prison and Probation minister:-

Napo Official Briefing on Future of Probation as at 2nd May 2019

We have established that the MOJ has informed the market that it is looking at all options for probation going forward. This includes the possibility of rolling out the Wales model everywhere. However, nothing has been decided at this point and we will have to wait for a statement by Ministers and their formal response to the consultation paper that we now expect to be published in the middle of May.

Over the last few days, we have seen some irresponsible and poorly informed communications from one of the largest private providers and we are reliant on members keeping us informed of any statements being sent out by CRCs as the MOJ seemingly has no central [control] over what their contractors say to staff.

We understand from the MOJ that the market has given a mixed response to the various options under consideration (as listed below) including some saying that they are not interested in any future contractual arrangements other than TR Mark 2.

In the meantime, Napo Officers and Officials will continue to engage with CRCs on issues such as pay and operational/ collective bargaining matters on a business as usual basis. We will also be drawing up transition papers to highlight the pros and cons of each potential option for the future provision of services and will be priming our contacts in the press and political circles.

What are the options?

1. TR Mark 2. This would see new contract package areas being drawn up to match the intended 10 divisions of the NPS. These CPAs would then be sold off in a similar way to TR. Our 8 reasons to reunify Probation give you an outline of the key issues that we are asking members to raise with MP’s but also more local concerns. I.e. DTV CRC will not exist if TR Mk2 goes ahead yet it is the only mutual and certainly not the worst performing CRC.

2. Welsh model. Clearly, this would be a massive step in the right direction for our campaign to reunify probation. It is not without its pitfalls such as the so far untested transition risks and could be seen as leaving behind comrades in Interventions and Programmes, but it would at least give us good grounds for pushing our campaign for full reunification, as well as giving us an opportunity to press again for pay parity. It is estimated that between 250-300 staff will move into the NPS Wales from KSS CRC when the transfer of Offender Management work is completed by December this year.

3. Total reunification - private sector. If we get a new Prime Minister and/or Justice Secretary then there is a real risk that they would seek to privatise the whole of Probation. While this is the least likely option, we must factor it into our planning. Our main objective would be to highlight the failure of CRC’s to deliver the most basic of probation services and lobby politicians on the basis that private providers simply cannot be trusted to hold high and very high risk cases.

4. Total reunification - public. Clearly, this is the major objective of our campaign and one we will continue to fight for. The Wales model (if it were to be the preferred option for Government) would give us a real head start, but we can still hold some hope on the possibility of the Minister accepting that a total rethink is the best option. However, any reunification would still require us to push for the NPS to have local accountability and budgets as well as our claim that Probation should be removed from the civil service and given back its former independence.

We had anticipated that a decision would have emerged by now but it is clear that more analysis is being undertaken and yesterday’s announcement that Rory Stewart has been promoted to the Cabinet has obviously also been a factor in the delay. We currently await news of his successor.