Napo's practitioners and friends know their stuff

In between awaiting more news on the timetable for the Judicial Review process (another mail out by the end of the week will follow) here is some news on other issues that I hope will interest you.

Electronic Monitoring - Value for Money?

Our old friend Professor Mike Nellis copied Napo in to his recent correspondence to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) about EM and our Professional Committee has asked me to endorse the case that he makes for the PAC to seriously scrutinise the contract.

We have said that in our view, Professor Nellis’ description of the development of these contracts and his analysis of how they came to be signed is less than transparent (does that ring a bell?) and the statement in this year’s Major Projects Authority (MPA) report that the project would “support the development of a co-operative and constructive partnership approach to delivery through the engagement of key stakeholders across the criminal justice sector both in the project and following implementation of the contract(s).” has not been sustained in reality.

We have reminded the PAC of the previous contracts for EM, which have attracted so much attention from the Serious Fraud Office, amongst others. These were valued at somewhere in the region of £100-120million p.a. Mike says that this has been equivalent to more than 10% of the overall budget for Probation year on year, and is money that might have been better targeted towards funding the supervision of under-12 month prisoners on release.

As Professor Nellis has pointed out, we do not really know the value of the new contracts or their proposed scope. We have said that we would hope that these EM contracts will be cheaper than their predecessors, not least because those previous contracts were hugely overpriced. The statistics compiled by the learned Professor inform us that according to the Policy Exchange Unit report, the average ‘per day’ cost of a tag in the US was £1.25 compared to £13.14 in England and Wales at the time the report was prepared. On the other hand, the more sophisticated technology (GPS) is likely to be more expensive to operate and if numbers are greatly increased, (Ed: especially if ‘Through the Gate’ fails to deliver?) then so will the contract prices. Figures for ‘whole-life’ contract costs as given in the MPA report 2013/14 are anything from £529.2m to £912m. If these contracts are for six years, then the annual cost might be between £88m and £152m.

Napo’s Professional Committee believes that the unimaginative and indiscriminate use of EM curfews has been nothing short of scandalous. Indeed a very expensive one at that; and with little or no evidence to suggest that ‘stand-alone’ curfews (around 70% of those imposed) do anything at all to reduce re-offending rates.

Read Napo’s submission here.

Criminal Courts Charges

More great work in progress by our eagle eyed practitioners. Under The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill 2014, currently still progressing through parliament is a whole raft of changes (28 in all) to various areas of criminal justice. One of the most invidious of these is the creation of a Criminal Courts Charge – meaning that people if convicted, will pay for their use of the criminal courts-i.e. for the cost of running and administering the courts.

This controversial proposal from the MoJ (aren’t they all?) is completely separate from and in addition to existing financial impositions such as: fines, compensation to victims, victim surcharge and prosecution costs, the latter often currently referred to as court costs- these will all continue to be ordered as decided by sentencers. Our current understanding is that the Criminal Courts Charge will be imposed in all cases where there is a conviction and regardless of whether a defendant receives a custodial sentence or not, it will always be paid last i.e. when all other financial impositions have been paid. A list of draft charge levels has been compiled as follows:

In addition there will be interest accruing/charged at the rate of inflation if the Criminal Courts Charge remains unpaid.

The rationale (if you could even call it that) behind these charges is that it is considered to be time that the burden of cost of running the courts was taken away from the taxpayer. It is conceded briefly that even some taxpayers may themselves be defendants! The means test completed at the beginning of court proceedings will determine at what rate the charge is to be paid. Apparently there will be an incentive to keep out of further trouble as if there is no fresh conviction within two years of its imposition then there is the facility for it to be remitted.

It is mooted that the charge might in the long term reduce reoffending by providing a disincentive in itself. The initial work by Napo suggests that this idea is ludicrous in the extreme in that it suggests that not only might the reduction in income caused by the charge be something that an individual might weigh up prior to committing an offence, but also the fact that two years offence free allowing possible remittance of the charge would be a carrot to prevent and reduce reoffending. It is conceded however that increased debt could lead to other destabilising consequences such as family breakdown!!

Worse still the so called analysis and evidence for the introduction of this charge acknowledges that the enforcement of current criminal courts financial impositions is already struggling so it is envisaged that an external provider (guess who?) will be looked for “to deliver compliance and enforcement activity” No matter that the transition to and maintenance of such a service including enforcing the new Criminal Courts Charge will be in the region of “£20million per year” (in addition to costs of enforcement of existing financial impositions)

It seems that the emerging legislation will allow for people to be imprisoned for non-payment - “It is estimated that the potential increase in prison occupancy resulting from this sanction could lead to a cost of around £5million per annum in steady state (although the actual costs are dependent on capacity)”. So more people in prison and absolutely zero prospects of rehabilitation in such cases.

Look out for more news on this issue when Napo’s work is complete and thanks to all involved in pulling together on these two hot topics.

Meanwhile, to read more about this google: Criminal Justice and Courts Bill and /or Criminal Justice and Courts bill – fact sheets and/or Criminal Justice and Courts Bill - Overarching impact assessment.

How the 1% always get away with it.

They always have, but it does not mean that they always should. Thats the theme of an event being promoted by the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and being organised by professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University (www.dannydorling.org) who is a human geographer specialising in social justice and inequality.

Dannys next book is about the super-rich, who run Britain. He wants to hear from a group of thirty under thirty somethings (ideally but not exclusively) as he believes tht the next generation of trade union leaders have new issues to deal with and should think about tackling them in new ways.

The GFTU Educational Trust has therefore organised an evening school to enable this discussion to take place and there are still spaces available. Date: Tuesday 25th November 2014. Time: 6pm-9pm, Venue: Birmingham and Midland Institute, 9 Margaret St, Birmingham B3 3BS

Danny says that you won’t need a degree in geography or anything else to join in the discussions and hear the ideas. Places are limited to 30, so early booking for this interesting event are recommended. Light refreshments will be provided.

Please send your booking or further enquiry to sean@gftu.org.uk

Campaign for the Youth Service.

GFTU again. This time it’s about the campaign to rebuild the Youth Service. GFTU General Secretary Doug Nicholls reminds me that this has been the first public service to be 100% destroyed in many parts of the country. Our youth service led the world and benefitted millions of young people. In just four years under this coalition it has been ruined. The campaign led by Chooseyouth and many of its supporters is determined to turn things around. An important step has now been reached with some Labour Party commitments for the future and a recent Early Day Motion (488) from Gerry Sutcliffe.

Doug is asking all trade unions and especially GFTU affiliates such as Napo, if I could encourage you to spread the message of support for the EDM and wider commitments from Labour as per the outline agenda contained in the Chooseyouth Manifesto copies of which are available from the Chooseyouth website.

Paste this link in to your browser - http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/488

Probation Qualification Framework and the pay shambles

This missive has just been released by NOMS. We have raised this already and will pursue it wherever we can, but it’s yet another example of the corporate calamity caused by the staff split.

PQF Learners / NPS Divisional Training Managers:  October 2014 Cohort

All new PQF learners have had to have some patience while we have worked through a period of resolving some pay issues for those who have recently joined NPS.  This uncertainty over pay has been difficult for everyone involved.  It has not been simple to resolve because the solutions have been different depending on the learner's circumstances.  These are outlined below:

PSOs within NPS who are starting the PQF

PQF learners who were previously PSOs in the NPS will remain on their current terms and conditions and are already on the NOMS payroll; so they will continue receive their pay at month end.  This is why this group are not eligible for pay advances.

New PSOs joining NPS as an external recruit

The majority of pay advances for external recruits were paid at the beginning of this week.  For the remaining small group of external recruits for whom Shared Services did not have bank details or who had missed the deadline, pay advances should have been made by Friday, November 7th.  There were also a small number of recruits who were incorrectly identified as existing NPS staff because they were previous sessional workers and therefore had not offered a pay advance.  These cases should have now also been resolved.

PSOs transferring to NPS from a CRC

CRCs will be requested to provide the relevant information for these staff to enable them to be treated as transfers.  All PQF learners will be put on the payroll this month and will therefore be paid at the end of November.  Employee numbers will also be issued shortly, which will enable people to claim expenses in the usual way.