Press Statement  

1 August 2017 - Immediate Release

Probation Union anger over secret funding for privateers as Serious Offences rise

The leader of the largest trade union in the Probation service today questioned the rationale behind a £21 million government bail-out to private providers of probation across England and Wales. The decision was revealed in an answer to a Parliamentary question from Liz Saville Roberts MP. Details of the amounts so far given to 14 of the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCS) are shown below.*

Ian Lawrence, General Secretary of Napo said: “News of the government’s decision to throw a financial lifeboat to failing CRCs – with more expected to follow – will go down like a lead balloon with our members who have seen their pay decrease by 21% in real term value whilst they have been shoring up the chaos caused by this disastrous privatisation. We also understand that the second anticipated payment will be considerably higher than the first.”

Information also obtained via a Parliamentary question indicates that despite the claims that the privatisation of probation services was said by Ministers to be no threat to public safety, the Ministry of Justice have this week revealed a 24.6% increase in further serious offences (SFO’s) across England and Wales.

Napo, who represents front line practitioners, has been at the forefront of the campaign to expose the flaws that they claim have resulted in sub-standard delivery models, huge caseloads for staff and inadequate supervision which have also been featured in numerous reports from Her Majesty’s Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey.

Ian Lawrence added: “This news is bound to cause further interest to members of the Justice Select and Public Accounts Committees and we urge them to order in-depth enquiries into the whole Transforming Rehabilitation project. Napo stands ready to work with Ministers to help bring about improvements to the system but merely throwing more taxpayers money at the problems will not deal with the underlying causes.”

*Funding increases for CRC providers

Ends.

For further information and possible media opportunities please contact Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence on 07788 118005 or Tania Bassett (lead for media and parliamentary issues) on 0790 4184195.