Napo has today again challenged Chris Grayling to pilot his plans to privatise the Probation Service in England and Wales. The Secretary of State split the Probation service on the 1st June to facilitate the intended sell off of 70% of the services work to bidders representing the third and private sectors. The union says Ministers have told Parliament that the rationale behind the ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ agenda has been based on the two prison based ‘Payment by Results’ pilots operating in HMP Peterborough and HMP Doncaster. The final results for cohorts 1 for these pilots are expected to be published by the MoJ in a press notice at 09:30 on Thursday 7th August 2014. (Napo will also be available for further comment thereafter.)
Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence said: 'Whilst we await these figures and the spurious claims of success that will no doubt follow, it’s worth remembering that the Secretary of State has misled parliament about a number of issues in connection with his reckless social experiment known as TR, and that the early results from these schemes could not possibly justify the wholesale fragmentation of the probation service and the massive operational chaos that has followed it.’
He added: ‘It’s worth remembering that Chris Grayling has so far resisted all attempts to elicit information about the discontinued ‘Payment by Results’ pilots in Wales and West Midlands Probation, which our members tell me would have demonstrated the limitations of such schemes as opposed to the continued use of publically managed local interventions involving commissioned partnerships. These have been the basis of Probations track record in reducing reoffending to its lowest level since 2007.’
The Union says that Ministers have previously tried to use the initial but hugely inconclusive results from the two Prison pilots to justify the proposed Probation sell off, but have failed to recognise the fact that these schemes are voluntary and will therefore be more likely to attract willing participants. This would not be the case where contracts would be handed over to the owners of the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC’s). Napo is also currently challenging the Secretary of State to reveal the Risk Assessment of the Transforming Rehabilitation Project, and to publish the results of the testing processes which the government claims will prove that it is safe to proceed with the sale of contracts in advance the next general election.
Editors note: The Ministry of Justice has been publishing quarterly interim reconviction figures for the HMP Peterborough and Doncaster reoffending pilots since June 2013. We expect that the final results for each of these pilots will be based on a 12 month re-conviction rate: offences committed in the 12 months following release from prison, and resulting in conviction at court either in those 12 months, or in a further 6 month period (allowing time for cases to progress through the courts).
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