PRESS RELEASE 14 December 2017
Deep-rooted problems prevail in probation since Transforming Rehabilitation
HMI Probation’s annual report was published today revealing a series of “deep-rooted” problems that still prevail since the service was split in 2013.
This report comes after a year of other scathing reports in which the lack of IT, faults in the financial and operational models and unreasonable workloads have been highlighted as areas for major concern.
Many of the areas criticised by the inspectorate over the past year echo much of the issues that Napo continuously flagged up as far back as 2013 as likely to be problematic if this untested model was rolled out.
“Regrettably, none of government’s stated aspirations for Transforming Rehabilitation have been met in any meaningful way. I question whether the current model for probation can deliver sufficiently well,” said chief inspectorate Dame Glenys Stacey.
Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence said: "Another day and another damning report from the Chief Inspector about this broken and consistently failing example of privatisation. Napo will be urgently discussing the conclusions of the report with Dame Glenys as it provides a compelling but fully independent testimony in support of the issues that we have brought to the attention of the Justice Select Committee."
He added: “It is only the hard work and dedication of our members working in the National Probation Service and the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies that is preventing even more public safety incidents to add to those which saw an increase of 26% of serious further offences across England and Wales last year. It’s time that Government ministers called time on the worst performing contractors whose systemic failures are being subsidised by the taxpayer.”
ENDS
Enquiries should be directed via General Secretary Ian Lawrence on 07788 118005 or Tania Bassett 07904 184195.