Justice Week 8-12 December 2008

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August 21, 2006

Privatisation prospectus published

The Government has at last published its long awaited prospectus on how privatisation would be introduced into the provision of probation services.

The paper - Improving Prison and Probation Services: Public Value Partnerships - is 30 pages long, and contains a whole range of unproven assertions.

Below we give a brief synopsis of the document. A full commentary will be published shortly.

In the forward the Home Secretary argues: "we need to harness the dynamism of as wide a range of clients as possible from the private, voluntary and public sectors to ensure that offender services are only delivered by those who show they can do the best job". The paper is, however, silent on how this is achieved.

The document claims that the introduction of privatisation into the Prison Service has improved standards! In reality, successive reports have shown that is not proved. The Home Secretary argues that performance testing in prison contracts has had 'a major effect on driving up standards across the custodial sentence'. Again, he offers no proof. He wants this, non-proven, approach to be adopted by the Probation Service.

In the absence of legislation he is requiring that this year and next Probation Areas will, on a voluntary basis, double and then double again the proportion of services they contract out. From April 2008, following legislation, they will go further and open up to competition a much larger proportion of the interventions provided - up to £250 million of services a year. It controversially adds that this will include unpaid work.

The Home Secretary also says that where a whole Probation Area is 'failing to deliver expected levels of performance we plan to put the whole offender management function out to competition'

He argues also that he values the public sector and that it will have a continuing role, but adds that everything must be challenged. He states that there is only one future for probation services and that is a mixed economy and then says he is going to consult on the proposals.

In a message to staff, Roger Hill, asks us to note that the paper, is laden with language such as 'collaboration', 'alliances', 'joint ventures' and 'partnerships'. Nevertheless, the whole of the proposal is a threat and Napo, over the coming weeks, will be campaigning to oppose the introduction of any form of forced competition and demanding that business cases and proof be produced to show that the proposals will have the benefits that are claimed.

Posted by kfalcon at 09:49 AM

August 01, 2006

Keep your MP briefed

Parliament went into recess at the end of last week, but this doesn’t mean it’s time to give MPs a break. In fact, August and September is often the best time to catch MPs in their constituencies.

If you have not yet contacted your local MP, or if you haven’t done so for a while, why not get in touch with their constituency office and ask for an appointment to see them at their surgery. If you can take a colleague with you and introduce local probation service issues into the discussion so much the better.

Napo prodcued two new briefings last month for the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group. You might want to give a copy to your local MP. Download copies below.

Supervision in the Community: An Alternative Approach

This briefing looks at the Scottish model of Community Justice Authorities and statutory partnership working

Reducing the Prison Population

This briefing argues that the Government should be looking at alternatives to custody rather than building more prison places, and that a properly resourced Probation Service is key to this.

Posted by kfalcon at 06:10 PM