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Through the gate: Transforming resettlement, reintegration and rehabilitation

Reform roundtable seminar with Jeremy Wright MP, Minister of State for Prisons and Rehabilitation

Reform, 45 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3LT Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Reform45 Great Peter StreetLondonSW1P 3LT

T 020 7799 [email protected]

Reform is an independent, non-party think tank whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity. Reform is a registered charity, the Reform Research Trust, charity no. 1103739. This publication is the property of the Reform Research Trust.

We believe that by reforming the public sector, increasing investment and extending choice, high quality services can be made available for everyone.

Our vision is of a Britain with 21st Century healthcare, high standards in schools, a modern and efficient transport system, safe streets, and a free, dynamic and competitive economy.

Kindly sponsored by:

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Reform comment

The Government has made some radical steps forward in the “rehabilitation revolution”, proposing far reaching reforms to offender management. By introducing resettlement prisons, extending probation to offenders serving short sentences, and contracting services out in whole or part to a wide range of both public and private providers, the Government hopes to transform the lives of offenders, communities and victims. This Reform-Home Group roundtable, “Through the gate: Transforming resettlement, reintegration and rehabilitation”, brought together public, private and charity representatives to discuss how these reforms could be best implemented at pace and scale.

Jeremy Wright MP, Minister of State for Prisons and Rehabilitation, opened the discussion by outlining his vision for end-to-end justice in which offender management is seamlessly integrated between prison and probation services. Under his proposals, rehabilitation will not merely start as soon as offenders leave prison, but will be underway as soon as their sentences have begun. The vision is to transform prisons themselves from places of containment to centres of rehabilitation. Jeremy Wright explained that the proposed resettlement prisons will release people from prisons into their own area. Rachael Byrne, Executive Director of Care and Justice Service at Home Group contended that better use of community sentences such as peer mentoring and Home Detention Curfew would support efforts to help offenders reconnect with society.

Jerry Petherick, Managing Director for Custodial and Detention Services at G4S raised concerns that prison governors may become disempowered under these reforms. He warned that governors have a crucial role in the management of prisons, and there is a risk that they are no longer “pulling levers” that are attached to positive outcomes. Liz Calderbank, HM Chief Inspector of Probation set these issues in the context of a rising prison population, and Peter

McParlin, National Chairman of the Prison Officer’s Association, attributed this “institutionalised overcrowding” to political interference in the jurisdiction system. He proposed that the prison system needs a new way of working: improvements in technology and skills.

There was consensus around the table that the introduction of new providers will result in new, innovative and more effective ways of working, but there was also concern over how the voluntary and charitable sector will operate in a competitive system of Payment by Results. Frances Flaxington, Director of Community Justice at Catch 22, asserted that voluntary organisations have great potential in this sphere, but that their capacity has to be built further if they are going to be able to deliver consistently at scale. There was debate over the role of Government, and the extent to which private providers can support smaller organisations in the supply chain.

Concerns were raised over how standards of safety would be maintained. Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust warned that “all this preoccupation with the market is taking their attention off some very important safety concerns”. Russell Trent, Governor of HMP/YOI Portsmouth was clear that lessons must be learnt from other public sector organisations to ensure that prisons continue to operate safely, responsibly and securely. He pointed to the failings at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust as an example of an institution which lost sight of standards in the face of organisational change.

The far-reaching reforms proposed by the Ministry of Justice will challenge existing structures and require new ways of working across the sector. Opening up the market to competition and changing the purpose of prison from containment to rehabilitation has the potential to revolutionise the delivery of services. To do this effectively, contracts will have to be commissioned intelligently, incentivising providers to work collaboratively towards better outcomes. Despite the challenges, the Minister made clear his commitment to the reforms, concluding, “I don’t want to give the impression by anything I say that we regard this as dead easy and all I’ve got to do is snap my fingers and somehow the estate reforms perfectly in the new way. It’s not going to be like that, and there will be teething troubles. But it’s got to be the right way to go.”

Andrew Haldenby, Director, Reform

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Participants

Sally Benton Head of Policy and Public Affairs NACRO

Adrian Brown Principal, Boston Consulting Group

Rachael Byrne Executive Director, Care and Justice Services, Home Group

Liz Calderbank HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation

Andy Cross Head of Services, St Giles Trust

Danny Spencer Operations Director, MITIE Group

Frances Flaxington Director of Community Justice, Catch 22

Savas Hadjipavlou Business Director, Probation Chiefs Association

Andrew Haldenby Director, Reform

Nick Hardwick HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons

Stephen Hornby Rehabilitation Lead, Serco

Juliet Lyon CBE Director, Prison Reform Trust

Tara Macpherson Senior Researcher, Reform

Peter McParlin National Chairman, Prison Officers’ Association

David Morgan Group Managing Director, G4S

Joyce Moseley OBE Chair, Transition to Adulthood Alliance

Jerry Petherick Managing Director for Custodial and Detention Services, G4S

Mark Smith Managing Director, Health and Public Service, Accenture

Russell Trent Governor, HMP/YOI Portland

Beverley Williams Director of Criminal Justice, Home Group

Jeremy Wright MP Minister of State for Prisons and Rehabilitation

Kate Wynne Director, Wysper Consulting Ltd

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Andrew Haldenby: Welcome to this Reform policy seminar supported by Home Group on “Through the gate: Transforming resettlement, reintegration and rehabilitation”. My name is Andrew Haldenby. I’m the Director of Reform which is an independent non-party think-tank whose mission is to find a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity in the UK.

I will simply say that from our point of view at Reform we have seen the debate on criminal justice policy advance very quickly in this Parliament. It’s been one of the most exciting areas of reform across the public services. It may be not the conversation for today but our view is that where some spending pressure has been applied in public services, that has been a bit of a platform for change. But alongside that there has also been a willingness on the part of Ministers who see services develop to worry more about the outcomes than about the mode of delivery and so on.

We have been very lucky to work with Home Group throughout this Parliament in order to keep shining a light on this area of policy. Previously Crispin Blunt was here for another session just like this about 18 months ago. At that time we were talking about the early days of Payment by Results (PbR) and where is this all going to go and so on. So we seem to have a sense of how far things have come in that short time.

Clearly now with the next general election not that far away suddenly, and I’ll let the Minister spell it out but everyone around this table knows the recent policy announcements, particularly on the probation side which sets a very ambitious agenda to continue that reform programme going and actually deliver before the next election. This is really a great moment to bring together some people to assess where policy is and to see how we can really make a success of these next two years. So that’s what I’d like this discussion to be about, please.

It means so much for a think-tank like Reform – it means we can do our work – that you want to give up your time to come. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you to Home Group for making it possible.

Jeremy Wright: Thanks, Andrew. Well, thank you very much first of all for the invitation and gathering this glittering array of talent around the room. And thanks also to Home Group and Reform more generally for organising. I’m going to also say very little at this point and hopefully have a chance to listen to you before I have to rush away.

What I would say is that, just to pick up on Andrew’s point about pace and urgency, there is a degree of urgency to this reform programme, and we’ve often been questioned about how fast this is moving and whether in fact we need to slow down a bit. But the urgency is, I think, based partly on some financial realities here but much more substantially, I think, on the need to bring into the ambit of realisation some 50,000 offenders who, as you all know,

are receiving sentences of 12 months or less and not much interventional supervision to go with them.

Now that is clearly an omission within the criminal justice system, and it needs to be repaired. The difficulty of

course is that the Chancellor is unlikely to be handing us very large cheques for additional spending. So we need to derive that extra provision from our existing budgets. And that’s what leads

Jeremy Wright MP

a Payment by Results element will also help us to deliver better services at a more realistic cost for the taxpayer.

Transcript

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us on to a conclusion that the competition of medium and low risk offenders is a good idea and indeed that a PbR element will also help us to deliver

better services at a more realistic cost for the taxpayer. So all of that is part of the reasoning behind what we’re doing.

But what I thought I’d do this morning is rather than run through all the list of things that we’re doing – which I think almost everyone around the table

will be far too familiar with by now – is just highlight two things where it might be really helpful perhaps to discuss.

The first of them is to talk about how smaller, particularly voluntary sector organisations can participate in this new landscape. And it seems to me there are a number of things for us all to consider, but particularly perhaps for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to consider. We do have to think about the proper process of bid assessment. We need to be able to be confident when people bring to us a bid involving a range of different organisations, as I expect that they will – I think that will be the predominant bid structure. It will be a number of different organisations. It won’t necessarily just be one. And if those organisations are a range of different sizes, we need to be persuaded that the smaller organisations in that blend will be able to survive in the long term.

Balanced against that, we don’t want to build into our structures an inability to move away from partner organisations who are not performing. So we want to be able to protect the interests of the smaller organisations,

but equally we don’t want to saddle a consortium or a partnership with a structure which may not turn out to work as well as they’d hoped. So I think there is a balance to be struck there. It will be very interesting to talk about how that balance should best be reached.

There is also in the bid assessment process the question of to what degree is the cascading of risk acceptable. To what degree is it right for a large organisation to say to a smaller organisation, look, we’ll take you with us but you’ve got to bear a share of the risk when those smaller organisations might not be resilient enough to take that risk. But equally to what degree would it be right for the MoJ to say that cannot happen? Where a smaller organisation wants to proceed on that basis, would it be right for me or for the MoJ to say, well, that’s not permissible? I rather suspect not. So that’s one area where I think it might be helpful too to discuss.

The other – and I’m conscious that there are people around the table very much in the prisons part of this organisation – I’m very keen to explore how we make sure that the links between what goes on in prison in terms of rehabilitation and what’s going to go on through the gate and out into the community are properly joined up because we’ve identified, I think, quite rightly that there is a gap that happens when someone steps out of the prison gates. And because of that gap there is a risk that the risks of reoffending are proportionately higher because they fall into bad company again, go back to their old habits – all of those things that we know about.

I’m very keen to explore how we make sure that the links between what goes on in prison in terms of rehabilitation and what’s going to go on through the gate and out into the community are properly joined up.

we’re very hopeful that in the 17 settlement prisons we can talk to a greater extent about the use of Home Detention Curfew and the ability then to really work with someone’s support and all the issues that they face.

Russell Trent

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So we are attempting to bridge that gap. What I don’t want to do is to create another gap which is located about three or four months earlier in the closing part of someone’s sentence or even earlier on in their sentence. It’s very important, I think, that we don’t spend all of our time talking about rehabilitation outside prison and none of our time talking about it inside prison.

So again, for me a useful point of discussion would be how we make sure that that linkage happens. I suspect the point of danger will now be at the point at which the provider of rehabilitation services takes up responsibility for someone some three or four months before they leave custody. How do we make sure that that

handover happens as it should and how do we make sure that providers are talking to prisons and the other way round about what the prison is doing for someone sentenced for a longer term before the provider comes back into direct contact with them?

So those are the things, Andrew, that I’m particularly interested to hear from people about in addition to what you’ve outlined and obviously anything else anybody wants to raise.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you, Jeremy. That’s perfect. You said you didn’t want to give a long list of what the Government is doing, and I quite understand that. I would certainly appreciate it just so we’ve got the two or three things clear in our minds and if there is anything left to come in this Parliament. There is obviously the probation contract –

Jeremy Wright: Surely there isn’t anything we haven’t reformed yet.

[laughter]

Andrew Haldenby: Can you imagine? But am I right in thinking that there are still some prisons’ contracts on the facilities management and other things still, and are they still to come out before the end of the Parliament?

Jeremy Wright: Yes, that’s right. The agenda on prisons is really this, that – Peter and I have had these conversations many times.

Peter McParlin: We have, Minister.

Jeremy Wright: And we’ve reached an amicable agreement, have we not, that

the sensible way to deal with it is, rather than to proceed in our line of the privatisation of individual prisons, to say, look, there were bids made by the public sector prisons service in the course of competition for the last eight prisons, I think it was – eight or nine – and those bids weren’t strong enough as they were, but there were elements within them that we thought were very promising.

So the sensible way, we think, to proceed is to say to the public sector prisons service, look, we want you to run the core custodial services in prisons. We want you to take some cost out when you do that. And we will expect you to carry out across the estate the savings that you anticipate you could make in your bids to run the eight or nine prisons that you’ve bid for. In addition to that, we

about 60 per cent of prison reform trusts tell us prisoners leaving don’t have fixed accommodation or somewhere to lay their head at night.

Rachael Byrne

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think that it is right to explore contracting out for ancillary services. So that’s facilities management, repair contract – those sorts of things – and we’re proceeding down that line with, I’m pleased to say, the co-operation of all involved. So that’s the part for prisons.

More broadly on the rehabilitation agenda, as I say, I think you know most of it. What is to come is a separate consideration of where we go with the female custodial estate and indeed with the youth custodial estate, and that work is ongoing. So what we’ve talked about so far is the adult male custodial estate. And very shortly you will see a little detail on the resettlement of prisons which are the 70 or so prisons that we wish to designate as resettlement prisons.

It’s to assist what we have been talking about already: make sure that providers of rehabilitation services can locate themselves in a more limited

number of prisons, make the connections they need to make, and then assist people through the gate out into the community. So you’re looking at about 72 or 73 per contract package area, give or take.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you very much. That’s quite helpful background. Thank you very much indeed, Jeremy. Rachael, can I ask you to say what you think?

Rachael Byrne: I’ll keep it really brief because I think they want to hear it from Jeremy. One of the things I’m interested in, and listening to Jeremy it came out, is the work which goes on less than 12-month sentences. And the piece I was going to talk about is the interventions that are required to work with that group. And the three quick interventions I wanted to talk about and

would be interested to hear more on later that I think already exist and operate very well, but we could get far greater traction on those interventions if we worked both with MoJ and potentially with each other.

The first is peer mentoring and the recruitment of ex-offenders into the work that we do. So within Stonham we have a whole raft of ex-offenders working within our business, but we really struggle to get any transition of those colleagues into our justice work. It happens in mental health and in other areas, but the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the barring is more difficult if they are then going to work with offenders. So that’s number one.

The second one is the use of Home Detention Curfew (HDC) which Jeremy hopefully can’t remember but I’ve already bent his ear about this. I think we could use it far greater. So particularly with

Mark Smith and Frances Flaxington

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Stonham’s breadth, we see that whole national picture; we have some prisons who work and offer HDC really well; others who literally don’t. Home Detention Curfew –this is where someone comes to the end of their sentence, is tagged, and is in the community.

We have the greatest success with that cohort in our BASS contract and in some of our other services, but we struggle to get all the prisons to see that. So we’re very hopeful that in the 17 settlement prisons we can talk to a greater extent about the use of HDC and the ability then to really work with someone’s support and all the issues that they face. It’s easier when you’re working in prison and then outside of them.

And the third area is housing, which is of course our thing. It’s an intervention we can make traction with in the Home Group, but we can’t do that alone. We have some of the skills we can share about how you can interact with other housing associations and wider, but I think there is a place now where we need to look at working in each local authority area with other housing providers and with the Housing Minister about how that supports this overall reform. And the main reason for that is about 60 per cent of prison reform trusts tell us prisoners leaving don’t have fixed accommodation or somewhere to lay their head at night, and we need to rectify that. And those are my comments. Let’s make more of the interventions that already exist but make them easier across the piece.

Andrew Haldenby: Perfect. Thank you very much. So we’ve got our agenda. The Minister set it out, I feel, very honestly when he said there is a financial pressure

here but the plan for Treasury should be a catalyst for doing the services. But what is particularly in your mind is the structure of the groups who are going to deliver particularly the probation services and then how that joins up between prisoners and probation. And then Rachael has reminded us that there is already a great deal of best practice here so can we just find ways to deliver better and the scales to do that, giving us some of the content of the story that’s going to be told in this area of policy.

So we’ve got two things. We’ve got the structure of the consortia we’re going to run and we’ve got the ways in which rehabilitation of prisoners and probation can be done best. I’m going to try and drag everybody in in the next 20-25 minutes, so who would like to be the first? Perhaps we can ask our Chief Inspectors.

Nick Hardwick: Thank you. Good morning. If I can just pick up one of the comments that the Minister talked about that I had mentioned to him before which is I think if you have a view that rehabilitation starts at the point when he leaves the prison, you’re making a big mistake and you’ve got to work back into the establishment itself. You’ve got to start in the establishment itself. And I think there are two things that have still not yet been fully grasped.

I think the idea that you have almost like these two separate processes on which there is a point in time at which they join is mistaken. And I think effective prisons start the resettlement and rehabilitation process at the moment someone crosses the door or comes in through the gate. And that’s reinforced throughout their time in the prison. So it’s not merely something, in a sense, the services that are labelled “rehabilitation service” deliver, but it’s something that prisons reinforce in their interaction with the prisoners on the wings.

So you’ve gone off and done some course or you’ve gone off and done some activity. And when you get back you’ve got your post officer or your wing officer saying: how did that go? You need to work on this. You need to do that. So you have a whole prison approach, and I think the idea of almost like these two separate functions. And there is a point in time at which they join is mistaken.

The second thing I’d say is while it’s important, it also works the other way round. So the whole prison needs to be involved, in a sense, in effective rehabilitation and resettlement. But effective rehabilitation and resettlement also makes the whole prison work better. So actually if prisoners have some sense of progress, the place is likely to be safer and more ordered. So you do that.

And there are two practical issues that need to be addressed that kind of deal with those problems that I haven’t had someone explain convincingly to me yet. The first practical problem is I don’t think the idea of a resettlement prison is a good idea. How actually are you going to get the right prisoners in the right prison at the right time? As I understand the history of it, that’s defeated previous attempts. So I think that’s a big call to do, first of all.

And secondly I think our worry is that the governor of a prison becomes disempowered. There are these kind of services, but when the governor is trying to yank the levers to make things happen, actually it is not connected. And we see that a bit at the moment, for instance, where we are going places and the governors have been pulling their hair out because the health provider isn’t

delivering in a way that they should or the education provider, work provider is poor. And these always seem to be managed by some distant commissioning and contract process that they can’t control.

So they’ll say to us: you criticise this, you criticise that, but it’s not our fault. So my question would be about there is a practicality about making

I think there is great potential, and we need to build capacity of the voluntary sectors more and larger to deliver. But it’s going to take some time.

effective rehabilitation and resettlement also makes the whole prison work better. So actually if prisoners have some sense of progress, the place is likely to be safer and more ordered.

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resettlement prisons work, but I think there is a more fundamental issue about how you make sure that at the end of the day for what happens in the prison there is someone identifiable, accountable, who is responsible for making it happen. And that responsibility isn’t so diffuse. It doesn’t happen in the way it should.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. We’ll keep going round.

Liz Calderbank: Yes, I would agree with Nick’s summary. But I think it raises the question of what are prisons for? Are they places of containment, or are they places of rehabilitation? And if they are places of rehabilitation, that has implications for the whole of their governance from start to finish. The point I would like to actually move on to, if I may take the opportunity of, is that on the under 12 months which, as you know, Minister, I’ve had reservations about this from the start

because I think this is a very diverse group of prisoners with very diverse needs. And I’ve advocated a more targeted approach, just on the basis of making more effective use of the resources and the fact that once you’ve accepted responsibility for them, you are then accountable for their supervision with that.

What does concern me is that within this group – and I think this is the group of the frequent offenders but not the prolific ones who are already picked up by the Integrated Offender Management (IOM) schemes, but the ones who go down the revolving door syndrome, the ones who actually should be getting services from universal services like health, like housing etc but very often actually exclude themselves from these services by their own behaviour and, without advocacy, have difficulty in accessing them. And these are the ones who actually become more comfortable inside than they do out.

And I can see the merit of offering this group some really substantial form of help.

But I am concerned about how we’re doing it in terms of the opportunity for a very short sentence followed by a lengthy period of supervision. I can see that being extremely attractive to courts at the expense of community sentences for this group. And actually community sentences for this group are proven to be more effective. If you look at them match to match they re-offend at a much, much lower rate. And then you really are backbreaking the cycle of repeat reoffending.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. I just wanted to catch the Minister’s first thought which is on the structure of the consortia and particularly voluntary sector.

Joyce Moseley: In some ways it responds to that. And notwithstanding what you said about the 12-month supervision, I very much support it, I would say. And I’m speaking now particularly from that 18 to 25 group, the young adult who, as we know, 10 per cent of the population, a third of probation caseloads, a third of those sent to custody. So if anything isn’t working now, it is not working for that group. And everything shows that in the reoffending rates.

And recently, Minister, you will know that Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have taken maturity into account when they consider culpability. Sentencing guidelines have done the

We shouldn’t also underestimate the governor/directors’ role in command and control and maintaining a balance and so forth. And the fewer levers we have to pull, the more difficult that becomes.

Peter McParlin

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same when it comes to sentencing. And the alliance, which certainly isn’t asking for leniency, is asking for the criminal justice system at all its points to treat this group more appropriately because their levels of development, their levels of maturity, mean that the services – those universal services you were saying should be appropriate – are just not appropriate.

Drugs, mental health in particular, housing, I would add – they actually need a particular focus for this age group if they’re going to succeed and if they’re going to work. And so it’s in the sense when will commissioning, the probation work – when will prisons start to have a specific focus because that will make them more effective.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Can I keep going round and then we’ll come back? So we’ve just jumped to the first part of the Minister’s remarks on the structure of the consortia and the role of the voluntary sector. Perhaps Frances and Andy would like to give a quick thought, and I’ll bring others in.

Frances Flaxington: Yes, to welcome the comments about the contribution of the voluntary community sector, and actually my comments are based on our experience of the pilot PbR contract at Doncaster, working in alliance with Serco, but also with police probation – IOM teams and partners in the community. And my comment is really about the shifting perception about the

capability and the ambitions of the voluntary and community sector (VCS).

Some of the comments in the proposals talk about mentoring, talk about our role in interventions. I would say that most of the voluntary sector have a greater ambition in terms of our ability to manage high risk and medium risk offenders, our ability to case manage. In Doncaster we were managing under 12 months alongside probation and their statutory role in release with high risk of offending.

And secondly Catch 22 and its partners do work closely through supply chains. We don’t think we can deliver it all ourselves, and we know we need that specialist local expertise to build on. My comment in relation to that agenda is I think we need to be realistic and manage the expectations of all the voluntary community sector in that in terms of the transitional period that’s going to be needed in implementing these changes – with the holding companies, with the existing contracts – I think there is great potential, and we need to build capacity of the voluntary sectors more and larger to deliver. But it’s going to take some time.

I think first we have this issue of the funding in that there will be existing contracts, so to implement a new model which brings in new providers, which actually extends the range of providers that you’ve got, it’s just going to take a little period to free up that resource to do it. And I don’t think that’s been an issue that’s been highlighted.

Jeremy Wright: Do you have a view on the appetite for risk among voluntary sector organisations in particular?

Ultimately everybody wants the rehabilitation programme to be a success. Bidding to win on a PbR that’s not deliverable is far more reputationally dangerous than in the Work Programme.

Liz Calderbank

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Frances Flaxington: Well, it’s very interesting. I have a very, very small organisation – I mean this in relation to a bid that we’re just putting in. We were offering a very small sum of money and they were saying we should share the risk with you. And I was saying hang on, do you really want to do that? And I think for me it’s about how we support. And as an alliance like Catch 22, it supports more on – do you really know what you’re saying here? We value your commitment, but let’s just think about the best contracts. And isn’t that some of the learning from the Work Programme as well in that the VCS need to come to the table and ask the right questions so they know what they’re signing up for.

Andy Cross: Yes, I just echo Frances’ comments particularly around the desire to be more than just on the periphery of things, particularly around mentoring.

And I think as an organisation we provide an additional challenge for prime contractors and obviously our ethos is very much around employing people with convictions, including those that may still be on license. And I think that does provide a real challenge because actually what we’re doing is training and employing these guys within quite a professional, structured set-up which means that they can contribute more than just a bit of peripheral mentoring.

And I think it’s going to be really quite interesting as to how prime contractors can work with us to involve us in more than just sitting on the edge and providing – I think someone described us as a bit of glitter the other day. And it’s whether we can be a bit more than that. And in terms of the risk, I think Rob has been very clear that the voluntary sector can do that. As I say, it’s about asking the

right questions and being clear about what you’re entering into.

Andrew Haldenby: Jerry, did you want to come in?

Jerry Petherick: I think there is no distance between any of us about the importance of “through the gates”. And we see this in the mentoring scheme we run in conjunction with the Welsh probation service as part of the transitional support scheme. I think for me the Chief Inspector has just made the very valid point about the complexity of this world that’s coming towards us; a very complex job for governors/directors is about to become much more complex.

And the requirement is going to be a mixed one of clarity of purpose about the resettlement prisons and the logistical background to that because I’ve been

Rachael Byrne, Jeremy Wright MP and Beverley Williams

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around long enough to remember a number of those previous local discharge schemes etc and the tremendous work that fell on logistics. And I think you shouldn’t underestimate that.

We shouldn’t also underestimate the governor/directors’ role in command and control and maintaining a balance and so forth. And the fewer levers we have to pull, the more difficult that becomes. So I think, strange in some ways, we’ve got to get a balance between giving governors discretion, giving them long enough in post because one of the issues that’s around is the very transitory nature of many in charge posts at the moment, and actually mandating certain actions.

And perhaps it’s the mandating of those actions that’s going to be the most difficult because by definition the governors and directors are very strong, principled characters. And so you’ve got to somehow balance out all of those demands, and we shouldn’t underestimate the demands that will impact on command and control in establishments as well. So it’s a very holistic approach that’s needed, and I’m sure I’m speaking the obvious, but it is important.

Danny Spencer: Can I just add to that particularly about resettlement prisons is it feels to me that prisons across the country are resourced particularly around resettlement services, services that impact on reducing reoffending as local prisons and training prisons and high security prisons. They’re not resourced as resettlement prisons. And I haven’t heard through any of this how resources are going to be moved around those prisons so that work going on in the resettlement prisons is focused for the population and properly resourced for the population that’s there. Otherwise it will be an incorrect fit.

David Morgan: Can I just pick up on that first point that was raised about the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and VCS? I completely agree with the point the Minister made. There is no one organisation that can provide an end-to-end solution in any of the Contract Package Areas (CPAs). So by implication all of the CPAs are going to

require localised solutions. And inevitably that’s going to mean VCS, existing contracts, and ultimately it’s about doing what probably exists already but bringing it together in a more cohesive way progressively.

I definitely think the key point ultimately is the way in which the competition is evaluated and the criteria that are set. The key lessons, without doubt, in relation to the Work Programme which is related to PbR solely – other than a small bit of upfront capital – is that the criteria and the way in which the competition was set determined the way in which bidders bid and to some extent was a race to the bottom. So people who got a higher quality score and therefore won by reducing their price ended up winning. But that didn’t necessarily mean they were the best outcomes achieved.

So if you link that back to the point you made about VCS and SMEs, what does that mean? That means it’s all about the degree of risk associated with what is set within the bids. So, for

example, it’s about the targets that are achieved. Ultimately everybody wants the rehabilitation programme to be a success. So therefore by bidding to win on a PbR that’s not deliverable, this is far more reputationally dangerous than the Work Programme. And of course that, I think, is the key thing.

So actually it doesn’t really matter if you’re a VCS organisation or an SME organisation. The risk associated with failure is the same. The risk will be cascaded from the top down. And so inevitably the challenge with PbR is the

pace with which change can be delivered. And actually you’re talking about fundamental change in doing what is currently done in a bigger way for less.

And that in itself is huge. That’s going to deliver the savings which you alluded to right at the start, and of course in turn will deliver a reduction in reoffending. But the reduction in reoffending has to be a realistic target. And of course reducing reoffending by one, two, three, four per cent in itself is a matter of achievement, albeit maybe from a public perception that might not be considered to be a huge change.

Andrew Haldenby: Everyone is bursting to come in, but I’m just going to divide the conversation up in respect of the Minister’s time. I want to give you a chance just to come back because this is actually a very, very rich set of replies, both on some of the best practice that can help you make a success of the probation changes, but then also some specific answers to your questions. We’d love to hear your thoughts before you go.

Jeremy Wright: OK. Shall I try and pick out one thing that everybody said rather than the whole that everybody said. Otherwise we’ll be here until 9.15 tomorrow. First thing, Rachael is right in thinking that peer mentoring has a huge part to play here. And I absolutely take Andy’s point too that it’s not just an add on extra. It can be at the core of what you do in order to turn lives around. And that,

rehabilitation starts on the first day of the sentence and therefore that’s why I’m very interested to make sure that whatever work is going on in prisons is joined up.

the system we’re designing gives you a financial incentive to do what you think you need to do to make it work. But I don’t see anybody taking on these contracts feeling the need to spend resource where they don’t think it’s necessary.

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I think, is what the Secretary of State has always had in mind in the way in which he has expressed these reforms from the outset, that the objective here is to have a mentoring role right at the centre of it and a co-ordinating role to bring in all the other things that someone might need to address their rehabilitation.

And there is a very relevant and live question about what we do or what we can do with those offenders who are on license. And we’re thinking about that very carefully because I think there are some offenders on license whose activity you would clearly want to restrict, and there are some frankly who you wouldn’t. So I suspect the answer is not going to be a blanket they all get to do it or none of them do. I suspect it will be a bit more nuanced than that. But we’re thinking that one through at the moment.

Nick’s points, I think, are absolutely right. I wouldn’t want to give

the impression by what I said earlier that I thought that these were two separate processes. I think actually the way in which we are likely to see this work, I hope, is that rehabilitation providers are going to be required to do something with people when they first arrive. And I couldn’t agree more that rehabilitation starts on the first day of the sentence and therefore that’s why I’m very interested to make sure that whatever work is going on in prisons is joined up.

And I don’t mean that to suggest that there should be two separate processes. But I’m conscious that someone who is serving a longer sentence, the likelihood is that they are going to have some initial contact with their outside rehabilitation provider. They are then going to go off to a prison somewhere where they will hopefully be offered rehabilitation of various kinds, then are going to come back into

contact with their rehabilitation provider towards the end of their sentence.

And I want to make sure – and I’m sure we all do – that what happens at each of those stages is connected and people are talking to each other so that what the prison is doing, which might be very worthwhile on its own merits, isn’t cutting across what the rehabilitation provider intends to do with their time.

So that’s all good, I think. We need to see. I don’t doubt the difficulty of achieving it, but I think that’s absolutely where we need to be. And I think again you’re entirely right that everybody has said, I’m sure, at some point in the job that I now hold, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we released people from prisons in their own area. Surely we must be able to do that. And so I don’t underestimate the scale of the logistical challenge being referred to earlier on.

But I think it must be right to do that. And I think that if what we are moving towards is a prison system where there are 70 or so resettlement prisons whose primary job in this complex is to move people through the gate and outside, that is logical for the prison system. It’s logical for the rehabilitation provider too because they don’t have to spread their resources across a huge number of prisons; they can concentrate it on a handful. And it enables the remainder of the prison estate to develop some specialisms too. So we can look at prisons becoming experts in different kinds of offending behaviour programmes or other things. And I think there is a hugely exciting potential in that too.

Liz, yes, absolutely. I think you and I have already spoken about the issues involved in a sort of blanket requirement Sally Benton

to be able to move people around the system as we want and yet to still be able to preserve absolute autonomy for every governor is a really difficult trick to pull off.

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that the under 12-month group be managed by providers. As you know, the conclusion we’ve come to is that logistically it is actually easier to say you take everybody. And it seems to me that if you’re talking about – let’s take a totally random example, Chris Huhne –

[laughter]

Jeremy Wright: Who has a less than 12-month sentence. Now it may very well be that if you are a rehabilitation provider and included in your cohort is Mr Huhne, you would say to yourself, well, I don’t think his chances of reoffending are very high – you may disagree on that –

[laughter]

Jeremy Wright: But it’s probably the case. And so I probably don’t need to put a lot of effort into him. I don’t need to spend a lot of resource on him. But nonetheless it would be a good idea for us to keep in touch, make sure he’s doing OK, make sure things aren’t going wrong

that we hadn’t anticipated at the start because that’s the advantage of a relatively long period of supervision. Some problems that you hadn’t anticipated at the beginning but may occur later on you can pick up on as a provider.

But I think in the end the system we’re designing gives you a financial incentive to do what you think you need to do to make it work. But I don’t see anybody taking on these contracts feeling the need to spend resource where they don’t think it’s necessary. So would you spend a lot of time and effort and money on Chris Huhne? Probably not. So adding him to the group, does that really add to the burden? I suspect not hugely. And so that’s where we’ve come to on that.

George, absolutely I take the point about maturity. And I think we do need to think more intelligently around that group who are in transition between youth and adulthood. It has a lot to do, I think, with the way in which we design the youth estate too and what happens

when people leave the youth estate and how of course they move if they need to from the youth estate to the adult estate. That is all work ongoing. I could reassure you about that, and we are very conscious of taking that point into account too.

And Francis, on the point about the perception of capability of the voluntary sector and the willingness to take on high risk offenders, I quite understand and I appreciate the enthusiasm. I think you would recognise I have a political balancing act to carry out here. There are many, many people out there who are very sceptical about these reforms in total. I think their scepticism would be even higher if we were talking about, from the outset, allowing for the contracting out of the management of all offenders, however high their risk of serious harm may be.

So I think there is probably a political reality here. Plus I think it is fair to say that the probation service have, in my view, a particular specialism and

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expertise in managing high risk offenders. And I think it’s a shame – and I’ve always thought this – that the probation service don’t get more credit for the role they play in public protection. I think people would be out there on the street able to identify certain facets of the criminal justice system as helping to keep them safe.

Very few of them, I suspect, would identify the probation service in that context. And I think that’s a shame. So part of this is about focusing the role of the probation service more clearly on public protection. And that of course predominantly means looking after those offenders who are at highest risk of damaging the public.

Frances Flaxington: Can I just come back on that very quickly. I think what has happened in the debate is it’s become very polarised in terms of only probation can manage high risk and what can the voluntary sector actually do. I think for me what the proposals

offer is an opportunity to integrate the skills of probation and the voluntary sector. And co-location, I think, has to be almost a given in terms of making this work. I think the point that I was trying to emphasise was that the voluntary sector can and do. My colleagues around the table will back me up. We’re already managing some really difficult and dangerous people every day – so just to clarify that.

Jeremy Wright: I don’t doubt that for a second, and I think the reality is that because we are going to be dealing with people who don’t stay in the box marked medium risk offender or low risk offender necessarily throughout the transition through the criminal justice system what you will inevitably be dealing with is people who become high risk. And having the capacity to be able to deal with those people effectively is going to be vital, even if it’s a matter of identifying the warning signs, asking for a further risk assessment and having

that done, that still requires skill and will still require obviously all those bidding for this work to demonstrate to us that they can do that. So the capacity for doing that, I think, is very important.

In terms of do smaller organisations understand the risk, based on what I asked you, I think it is crucial that they do. And one of the things that we want to do from the centre to assist, I think, is to offer a degree of advice and assistance on analysing the financial deal you’re being offered as a smaller voluntary sector organisation so you know what you’re getting into – also I think offering a degree of legal support so that you don’t have to spend a huge amount of time and money analysing the contract you’re being presented with to understand what it is you are actually letting yourself in for. So I think enabling that to happen will offer some reassurance to smaller organisations that they can play in this space.

I think the other thing that’s important actually is frankly giving them a

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shop window. There are lots of organisations who do great work, and frankly these guys at this end of the table might not know anything about them. And so it’s quite important that we enable them to showcase what they do and to perhaps make some quick matches because there may be a group of people who have got lots of expertise in a certain thing over here. There might be another group of people over here who have ticked every box except that one. And if we can put them together, then they might be able to offer a very strong bid. So all of that, I think, is ways in which we can help.

Jerry’s point about governors’ authority – which I think others have reflected – I think is absolutely right. But we’ve got a real challenge here to be able to move people around the system as we want and yet to still be able to preserve absolute autonomy for every governor is a really difficult trick to pull off. But I take the point, and certainly in relation to duration in role it’s something I am concerned about, frankly. I keep asking the question of the department: well, actually, how long do people stay? And I get told the average is three years. Now actually to be honest my experience is they don’t stay even that long. But you could argue three years isn’t all that long in order to make a substantial change to a prison. And the

governors I meet – and I don’t know whether Russell agrees with this or not – say that the job they fear most is the job that follows a good governor because there is only one way it can go after that.

[laughter]

Jeremy Wright: And we want people to be there long enough that they can make a really positive impact on the

institution. And I’ve seen governors do that, and not necessarily over five or 10 years. But they’re going to need a heck of a lot longer than 18 months to do it. So I think there is a case for looking again at duration, and we’re doing that.

Danny’s point about resource for resettlement prisons, I mean the objective here is to transfer the resource that is currently allocated to resettlement to those prisons that will be doing resettlement. So if you’re running a resettlement prison, your resource for that should increase. That does of course mean that the resource for resettlement decreases if you’re running a prison that isn’t any longer a resettlement prison. But, as I’ve said, I think what we need to do is try to move specialisms around a bit within the prison estate and try and develop different roles for different prisons. And we’ve got enough flexibility, I think, to be able to do that to a degree. It will never be perfect, just as, I warn you now, there will not be perfect direct matching between the prisons and the CPA. But we do need to, I think, limit the numbers of prisons that each CPA is dealing with at least.

Danny Spencer: I don’t know where the thinking is on this, but I just wonder whether an opportunity is being missed in the resettlement prisons if actually resettlement and reducing reoffending is much wider than housing advice, employment advice, training advice. It goes deeper than that. It can go into the industries that are happening within those resettlement prisons – the offending behaviour programmes that are happening within them. And it feels to me that if that is missed off for the sake of expediency or convenience, that actually might be an opportunity lost in terms of a root and branch reshaping of the prison estate. It will be that that you will turn your attention to.

Jeremy Wright: Absolutely. And I would hope that that will come because I think governors of resettlement prisons will have to start thinking in those terms. And they’ll have to start thinking about structuring what they offer in partnership with the rehabilitation prisons to make sure that everything they do is designed

to release people into the community who are fit to go there. To an extent that’s what already happens. It’s not that we’re asking governors to do something radically different here. It’s just that we’re trying to structure our resource in a way that helps them do it more effectively.

But absolutely. And again I don’t want to give the impression by anything I say that we regard this as dead easy

and all I’ve got to do is snap my fingers and somehow the estate reforms perfectly in the new way. It’s not going to be like that, and there will be teething troubles. But it’s got to be the right way to go, and there is little point in redesigning the structure of rehabilitation in the community and expecting the prison system to stay exactly the same because then you really will have the mismatch that we’re all worried about.

The last point is David’s about reputational risk which is a good point and I think we do need to keep that in mind that it doesn’t matter how much financial risk you are or are not taking, if somebody does something terrible when you’re looking after them you are going to take a hit. There is no doubt about that. So everybody takes risk in this.

I think the only thing I’d slightly disagree with, the way in which we structure this is not actually about doing more with less. It’s about doing more with the same. And the savings that I was talking about earlier in the context of this programme are really about releasing

You’ve got to be cautious about a race to the bottom as far as things are concerned with keeping it safe, decent and secure.

I don’t want to give the impression by anything I say that we regard this as dead easy and all I’ve got to do is snap my fingers and somehow the estate reforms perfectly in the new way.

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savings from what you’ve already spent to spend on extra provision. So it’s about doing what we do with our billion pounds a year now more efficiently so that we get enough extra to spend on that 50,000 more people, spend on the provision of rehabilitation for them and of course spend on the sanctions regime which is going to be necessary because I suspect not all of them will do exactly what they’re told first time.

So we do need some extra resource to do that. I don’t expect to be handing huge amounts of money back to the Treasury as a result of these reforms – disappointingly for the Treasury though that will be. I think that what we need to be doing is saying, look, we spend a billion a year. We can get better outcomes with that billion

than we’re currently getting and we can include in it the people who have got the highest reoffending rates. Why would we not want to do that?

But if you do want to do that, and pretty much everyone agrees that’s a sensible thing to do, then you’ve got to talk about the mechanisms whereby you can release those savings. And frankly in a long consultation and a lot of parliamentary debates since, nobody has come up with a better idea than ours yet as to how to do that. I’m still all ears, but I haven’t heard it. So that’s where we are in terms of finance.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you very much indeed. We will continue the discussion in your absence and we will send you the transcript. You’ve hugely

helped us. It’s so valuable for us just to get a sense of, in this fast developing area, what the ministerial thinking is and, you know, more specialised prisons. It’s all fascinating and it’s already got minds going round the table. So thank you very much. We’ll let you go.

Jeremy Wright: Thank you. Thanks all.

Andrew Haldenby: I just wanted to turn to our governor. A huge amount of the governor’s role has come out a number of times in this conversation. What do you think, listening to this?

Russell Trent: Well, I think it’s important you put the operational resilience and operational capability into perspective. I’m certain the Minister will have seen that there are a lot more incidents going on in prisons and it’s – yes, incidents of everything from serious and disciplined incidents into self-harm and things like that. I think we need to put that into the context. But also to put it into the context of – the Chief Inspector recently spoke at the Perrie lectures about how we can learn lessons from other public sector organisations.

And I think what we need to do is recognise that we’re in very, very difficult operational times where the concentration on restructuring of management and benchmarking, I’ve heard that talked about as a race to the bottom. You’ve got to be cautious about a race to the bottom as far as things are concerned with keeping it safe, decent and secure.

Bearing that in mind, and bringing that into the resettlement agenda, I’d first of all make the point in working with young offenders; we have high numbers of young offenders all over the south coast. Using the word “resettlement” makes us think that people are settled in the first place which, in my experience, that’s not the case. So I think actually we’re talking about settlement. And for some of these people it’s settlement the first time in their lives.

And I think that’s an incredibly difficult thing to do when actually they have a lack of parenting. And that’s why I think mentoring is so important. So I think that’s the backdrop. Governors have got an incredibly difficult job to do, but I think it is achievable. But I think it’s Nick Hardwick

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So where does the process start? Where does the preparatory work start? Can it start with the pre-sentence reports? Can we have a look at if they have got any previous custodial history? Could it start before they come across the door to give us that kick start?

the pace of change as well. And I think we need to learn lessons. The West Staffs report has come out. We’ve got to learn lessons from that. And I think it’s not a race to the bottom. It’s not all about statistics. I think we’ve got to be

very cautious about benchmarking and racing to the bottom because actually what we’ve got to do is keep the places safe. We’ve got to keep them decent.

Everyone needs to know exactly what safe and decent is and be able to – it’s got to be absolutely crystal clear what we all expect for safe and decent services in custody. And then what we need to be making sure is that we resource appropriate resettlement prisons because there is no compromise on safety and decency. The public expect us to be secure. And if we’re not, then obviously that’s the reputation stuff we were talking about earlier.

So I’m interested – to put an absolute point on it, I’m very interested to see if I give you X amount of places to run as a resettlement prison, which I’m assuming I will, how that will look, what it will feel like, how I’m going to resource it, and how I’m going to keep the rest of the operational resilience if it’s down to money.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Well, I’m just going to go with the order of

hands that came up, even if I get it slightly wrong. Stephen first and then Peter, please.

Stephen Hornby: It’s just an observation really. I’ve been doing some delivery with the Cabinet Office in terms of a commercial skills masterclass with the VCS and we’ve just done a very Clinks member-heavy training session for a couple of days. And some of the things that were coming back there was that there were two central issues, really, in terms of involving particularly small VCS.

And essentially one theme was around attribution and their concern around being able to prove that the services they provide related directly and tangibly to reducing reoffending and an anxiety that if they couldn’t do that in sufficient scale to be statistically significant, then they would automatically be squeezed out of the competition because the nasty kind of private sector primes wouldn’t be interested in anything that didn’t deliver immediately. So that was one set of

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anxieties with terms that need to be ameliorated, I think.

And the other really is an anxiety around negotiation where there is a lot of concern about, and self-acknowledged lack of experience and perhaps naiveté in some organisations about how they would negotiate particularly with large VCS – other large VCS organisations and with private sector primes. And I think we can maybe look to the Work Programme and how

that has functioned more and less well, to take some examples there. Perhaps – I know that the Ministry is considering standard contracts, but actually probably it’s more about standard terms.

But if the VCS could be confident that actually the larger organisations were all going to pay the same people the same thing for doing what they did, then they can set aside the anxiety around, oh, I need to have these negotiation skills I haven’t got and how am I going to do that because if private sector primes and large VCS say they won’t negotiate in a positive way, then what they’re actually saying is we won’t give small VCS less in order to give bigger, better negotiating organisations more. So I think there are some really straightforward expectations that the MoJ could set in that in how the next stage of the competition goes that would really help small VCS step forward and step into the space.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Peter.

Peter McParlin: First of all some concerns, then I’ll concentrate on other aspects. Concerns – and these aren’t negatives; they’re just concerns. But the prison population goes up further. Now we’re coming up to a general election. I have to say in my age I’ve seen politicians tend to respond to the masses and the prison population goes up. I know they’re not supposed to be involved in the jurisdiction system, but they tend to be, it seems to me, and have some sort of influence.

That goes alongside the overcrowding which the Director General of the prison service is quite happy to say now is institutionalised. It’s institutionalised because it saves money, closing prisons and allowing for overcrowding. Budget reduction is a reality. That causes obviously an issue with reduced staffing. The new way forward is based on new ways of working, in particular the 40-hour prison working week. Now Kenneth Clarke, the predecessor to Mr Grayling, was very ambitious in saying 40 hours. If you’d listened to us, we said we’ll say 15 hours. And if we achieved 20, then we’d have done well.

But that needs to be given another boost and it needs to mirror outside work, not prison work as it has been perhaps traditionally. New technology – have we got the new technology? Have we got the IT in place. All these, I think, are risks. They’re dangers. Have we got the skills? Are there skill shortages? We need to have a really close look at that. The Minister mentioned the Treasury. In my experience, the Treasury are at the bottom of all of this. Now I heard the Minister and I think I’ve quoted it because I just wrote it down: “not more with less but more with the same”. And that’s a good trick if you can pull that off, and I wish him all success.

Industrial relations are always a risk, but I have to say we are on board and at national level this is the best relationship we’ve had with a ministerial team in living memory. So I think that is probably – that is not a risk. That’s probably a positive. The PbR model, Peterborough seems to be the favoured choice. And my understanding,

that is based to an extent on a voluntary aspect to it and buying. Well, that’s a mindset that’s going to be carried through. That’s the chosen model. That’s a mindset. It’s got to then progress outside. Well, I understand now there is going to be sort of a compulsion to access services. So that all needs to be looked at very carefully.

Just a throwaway line on the high risk of probation: slightly different, the points I’m making because it’s about prisons, and they won’t give – I mean you can kick this around for a long time – they won’t give the high security prisons to the private sector because of the fear of the risk if a Cat A escapes or there is an incident in a high security prison, that costs the Minister his job. Let’s just put it where it is. That’s whose job goes. It’s the Minister. And that’s where their concerns will be there.

Serving less than 12 months – absolutely the lady down there on the left, they need to target resources, a focused regime for the short-termers. Most, I would say – the prison inspector probably will correct me – show a

sentence of not being on remand. So where does the process start? Where does the preparatory work start? Can it start with the pre-sentence reports? Can we have a look at if they have got any previous custodial history? Could it start before they come across the door to give us that kick start? I don’t know.

But it certainly needs a structured regime. Yes, we’re assessing the health and wellbeing now – or we should be – the mental health and access to family

mentoring is really important but it’s all about the fact that it’s rooted in the community and it’s that reconnection with the community that reintegrates that offender.

I have to say in my age I’ve seen politicians tend to respond to the masses and the prison population goes up. I know they’re not supposed to be involved in the jurisdiction system, but they tend to be, it seems to me, and have some sort of influence.

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ties. But I think we need to make it more professional. And the Minister was quite right. He mentioned Mr Huhne. There is a different way of looking at this. And as is also mentioned here, are we containing or are we rehabilitating? Some of these dreadful murders that we’ve seen recently, people have murdered police officers. Well, the rehabilitation for them is going to be somewhat different, isn’t it, because you’re looking 30-40 years or perhaps never down the line.

So yes, we have to have a look at what is realistic and where can we target those resources. I think we need to manage expectations – manage expectations of offenders, whether they’re under 12 months and whether they’re longer than 12 months. And I have to say with the resettlement prisons, are we going to fall back on what we’ve normally done. We get people serving less than 12 months and we give them a mop and say push that round the landing. Well, if we’re going to concentrate resources and we want to rehabilitate, that’s not what we should be doing with them. They should be in a structured regime, addressing their reoffending and giving them the help to become good citizens when they come out in a short time.

And just very briefly because I know I’m taking up a lot of time here, governors, I think we need to incentivise governors. Now how do you do that? It isn’t necessarily by increasing their wages. And it’s not a new idea. This, I’ve seen it one of the green papers. But perhaps their budget going forward is based on how successful the outcomes are when the prisoners, that cohort leave and go outside and whether they become recidivists or new model citizens of the State. So I think that needs to be looked at. Thank you very much.

Andrew Haldenby: No, thank you. People have been waiting patiently to come in. Shall we start with NACRO first?

Sally Benton: I’m not going to add what colleagues have said around the table about VCS because I really echo those. But I think there are three things that have may not come up in those elements of the discussion. The key

thing around resettlement, I echo everything that everybody said, particularly about resettlement starting when custodial sentence starts. But equally I think one thing we’re using – the language when we’re talking about resettlement is community.

So there are all the practical services that you need to implement to make sure that somebody stops reoffending. Find them a house. Provide them with support for substance abuse issues, manage their personality disorders, support their mental health problems and so on. But the key thing that we all miss in the language and why the voluntary sector is here, yes, mentoring is really important but it’s all

about the fact that it’s rooted in the community and it’s the connection with the community and that reconnection with the community that reintegrates that offender without the family, without the added incentive to change that makes services more effective.

On the role of the voluntary community sector, I echo what Frances said about the ambition. And I think that plays across all, be it large, medium or small. But I do think that we start talking about the sector without understanding where the sector operates in the criminal justice system. At the moment the sector operates in a very small percentage actually in the criminal justice system.

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Most of crime reduction charities are operate in substance abuse services, housing, and then on the periphery at the moment in terms of mentoring gang, drug, guns, gangs, knives.

It’s not that we don’t have the ambition to and that’s why we support the reforms as service delivery organisations, but our entry into the market has been stifled. And it is small. So there does need to be an understanding of where the voluntary sector is in the criminal justice sector and use the learning and experience of service delivery organisations in the other elements of crime reduction to scale the large-scale substance issues contracts and the housing provision and so on that we do.

And I was really pleased to hear about offering financial modelling and support for the sector to enter into the market because it seems to us that is where the support gap is for the whole of the sector really. And just one thing that I think relates that hasn’t been discussed yet, and I’m sorry to throw another spanner in –

Andrew Haldenby: No, no. Please.

Sally Benton: When we’re talking about resettlement prisons and resettlement in the community, again we all know that effective resettlement relies upon co-ordination of agency work and a cross-Government approach. And I’d like to see more talk about alternatives to custody, liaison and diversion, and the real upstream pre-custody discussion about somebody’s rehabilitation and resettlement into the community.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you very much. Kate.

Kate Wynne: Yes, I was going to make the point that Sally made around social capital and how we really need to generate that as part of the whole reducing reoffending agenda, but probably not surprising seeing as I’m an ex-NACRO colleague anyway that we’ve both kind of got the same mindset. The other point I wanted to make was around PbR and the whole point about the race to the bottom, but we really do need to learn from the Work Programme

experience that actually the Government understands what they are commissioning and how they evaluate those bids will impact and influence what operational model we develop.

So at the moment we’re all doing our pie in the sky, our best case scenario – we’re going to have this; going to have that. When it comes out and you look at your scoring you’re going to start pulling out that bit of innovation, cutting that out, less staff here, less hours there in order to get that lowest price.

And so if the Government do really want to see VCS and the smaller VCS built into the system, they need to somehow put that into the Invitation to Tender (ITT) and weight the scoring of the ITT so actually you are seeing a proper weighting on your local delivery solution

rather than it being more so on the price because otherwise you will end up like the Work Programme where people are just essentially misusing the voluntary sector in order to get the lowest price. And then you see the impact two or three years down the line of what actually that means for that delivery. It doesn’t work. That’s what you’ve got to do to win it. But it’s not what you’ve got to do in order to deliver it.

And just the one other point earlier was just around if you want PbR there really does need to be a proper embedding period. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to call it a holiday anymore so I’ll call it an embedding period. The Government is saying they want PbR to go from day one. Ministers are saying possibly we might be able to squeeze it to six months. But on something which

Savas Hadjipavlou

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is as complex as this probation contract, to say that you’ve got to have PbR from day one or even jumping to month six, you’re ruining the entire contract because you’re going to have that race. You’re going to not focus on the embedding and the culture change that’s needed. And bringing in that

supply chain, getting everybody working together and having that whole thing, that is from top to bottom and bottom to top. And by having that focus on PbR from day one you’re going to be focusing on the wrong things. That’s my big concern around it.

Andrew Haldenby: There seems to be some sort of nodding around the table at that thought, so just so I understand, are you saying that forever - that PbR shouldn’t apply in the first six months, or are you saying the first time these contracts are introduced –

Kate Wynne: On a contract like this I think the Government really needs to structure payments in the PbR mechanism so that in the first 12 months you’ll have been subjected to the PbR measurements.

Russell Trent: There are lessons learned from the OLASS contract from that. With the OLASS contract it’s failed to give in the early days culture change. And you should take the pressure off the provider to be chasing quick wins and actually let them embed the new way of working and the new funding methodology.

Beverley Williams: I just feel with the sense of how this competition is running and how this true push for market

engagement and true push for providers to be able to sit round the table with commissioners and redesign – which is what this needs. This needs complete redesign and reform. I absolutely agree. Do we want to be hammering providers on day one with a PbR element, or do we want that true collaboration?

And I don’t mean collaboration with just people who are sat round the table but collaboration with the commissioning groups to be able to sit down and truly look at – we know the spec that when this comes out is going to be pretty vague. They want redesign. They want innovation. Therefore you’ve got to enable that relationship to be open and negotiation truly happens. So negotiation doesn’t stop the minute the contract is signed but there is a period of negotiation post contract signing that enables people to test and flex approaches because if that doesn’t happen, Daily Mail front page coverage will occur. Numbers of us, our reputations will go down the pan if we’re purely looking at PbR day one and proving that point from the start. It needs to allow that chance for people to learn and develop.

Andrew Haldenby: OK. A couple of you want to come in again and we’re just short of time. So what I’m going to do is just bring in Adrian and Juliet and Savas please. And then we’ll come back to Nick and Liz and Rachael. I think that will then bring them together. So Adrian.

Adrian Brown: I was also going to talk about PbR from quite a technical perspective because I think the value associated with a PbR hub as a contract as opposed to the fee for service partners contract will be crucial as to whether any of this is going to happen at all. And I think a concern would be that there is not sufficient value put into the PbR bit such that – far from the fact that people get too obsessed with PbR at the beginning, everyone basically just ignores the PbR component because it’s just not worth it, basically.

And I think we do see that in certain parts of the Work Programme if you look at the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) route there. So a hard to help group, the price is probably wrong. And then providers don’t normally make

effort. So I think there is a real risk in these reforms that if we get that price wrong, then there will not be an incentive for providers to make much effort in relation to rehabilitation. And all of the good stuff around VCS involvement and the rest of it will come to naught.

The other aspect about this which is built into the contract – sorry to be very technical about it – if you’ve read the payment mechanism document, they are putting in place a statistically significant gap in performance improvement. Again, so that means that you have to not just improve performance above the baseline, but improve it by a statistically significant amount in order for PbR to kick in. That again reduces the attractiveness of the PbR component and might mean that providers at times look at it and say, well, if we’re not really convinced we’re going to jump that gap, then again why are we going to bother investing in rehabilitation.

So often I think there is a short-hand PbR that because we’re paying by results, then obviously providers will be

incentivised to improve results, and obviously it’s going to lead to innovation. The technical details of the PbR contract matter a lot, and if you get it slightly wrong it will lead to a real blow-up, I think.

Andrew Haldenby: I think we’re going to move support around the table for the next thought.

Andy Cross: The fundamental difference, of course, with the Work Programme is that the TUPE based workforce will take up all the budgets.

we’re looking at a probation service that’s been able to deliver almost 10 per cent better reconviction, reoffending rates, preventing reoffending. But that doesn’t appear to have been built on.

They want redesign. They want innovation. Therefore you’ve got to enable that relationship to be open and negotiation truly happens.

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So with the Work Programme you don’t have that issue. And that’s the elephant in the room.

Andrew Haldenby: OK. Juliet.

Juliet Lyon: I think we are in a very dangerous place, really, and it strikes me as extraordinary that we’re still so reliant on prison as a gateway to rehabilitation, prison as a gateway to treatment. Peter said about the number of people who are overcrowding our prisons at the moment. I think the Government has got a choice. They can work hard to minimise use of imprisonment, and that was going in that direction under Ken Clarke – reduction in the use of remand through the LASPO Act; no real prospect test.

It’s now turning around and going in a different direction with the Offender Rehabilitation Bill and the impact of 13,000 more people predicted to enter prison for short periods of time. And I think the Government does have a choice. I’m not sure it’s recognising it. It’s got to have a safe and decent prison system because that’s the danger. And all this preoccupation with the market is taking their attention off some very important safety concerns.

And I think the other concerns that I would like them to have is using prison as an unavoidable minimum: an important place – a very important place – of absolute last resort, instead of which we’re looking through the prison end of the telescope at the moment and it’s paradoxical because there is no reason to do that actually in terms of the evidence that is available to Government. The solutions that work best, we’re looking at a probation service that’s been able to deliver almost 10 per cent better reconviction, reoffending rates, preventing reoffending. But that doesn’t appear to have been built on.

We can look at the mental health treatment, drug treatment, all the other things that people have talked about variously around this table, paying attention to maturity, things that don’t all happen within prison walls. And I’m just worried that the concentration is so focused curiously on the one hand on what prison can achieve as a gateway to all this help, but also a failure to understand its basic function of having a

decent and safe place for people who are in a very desperate state.

So I am very, very worried, actually. And it’s difficult to contribute usefully except that I do think there are genuine solutions. I don’t think this is a handwringing penal reform last-ditch contribution to your meeting because I do think there are solutions. But I think

they are cross-Governmental, cross-departmental solutions. And there is always a reluctance, politically, to enter that arena.

Andrew Haldenby: Sorry, time is a little bit short, I’m afraid. We’re having such a good discussion, but what might be worth it is just one example of what that might be in your mind.

Juliet Lyon: Well, the obvious is the partnership between health, justice and the Home Office in relation to liaison diversion services. Because it’s already in train it’s got potential to go a lot wider. The solution of reducing child imprisonment by half and the knock-on effect in local community is a very positive effect – and a drop in youth crime. So there are things you can point to already which are going in a good direction. But this preoccupation with the use of prison in this way I think is very, very short-sighted and potentially very dangerous.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Savas.

Savas Hadjipavlou: I agree entirely with the comments that Juliet has made. There is a big danger here that we convert inadvertently what is, in essence, a social problem to a justice problem. For the vast majority of people

they happen to be in the justice system as a side effect of poor coping, mental health issues, and all the rest of it. And so it’s actually rather disappointing that we don’t have an HS England around this table. We don’t have the Work Programme for them to say how they will engage with the proposition of rehabilitation because it looks to me like the MoJ has effectively grasped this as its own problem when in fact it isn’t. In the main it’s actually a problem that needs the contribution of other people.

It’s also interesting that we’ve substituted a conversation about reducing reoffending and rehabilitation with one about contract shape, contract management, financial management and so forth. I just make that as an observation because I think we have accepted that almost as if by magic because the contracts will be in place we’ve solved the problem of rehabilitation when we haven’t actually.

Andrew Haldenby: Yes. Well, I think given the Minister’s remarks it’s reasonable for us to think about those issues and it is kind of where we are. But I take the point. Right. What – so seven minutes to go or so. What a fantastic discussion, and the Minister will hear all of this. He wanted advice on how to structure his contracts and what will happen when he lets these contracts. And we gave him some answers when he was here, but actually we’ve come up with a lot more answers since he was here. Actually the idea that the Government is going to get what it wants – what everybody asks for – is a sort of key theme.

He also wanted to hear about the relationship between prisons and probation, and we talked an awful lot about that, and we’ve recognised that actually that is quite a significant issue. And then Rachael, you put some ideas on the table about how to actually do this almost in whatever contractual structure. And I think that’s also borne a great deal of support. So that’s pretty good. Let me then just give the last word to our Chief Inspectors and to Rachael. And I suppose you wanted to come in anyway, but Nick, can I ask you, have you got any more thoughts on this question of who is in charge here – the Florence Nightingale question: who is in

we’re faced with a prison population that is increasing not only because of increasing numbers but by the fact that people are staying in it for longer.

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charge? – because this is quite a complex picture that is emerging.

Nick Hardwick: I think that is a good question. It is a very good question. And I think, what I would say is I was struck by what Russell was saying. And I think the policy makers around the table need to listen very carefully to what Russell and Jerry and PJ at that end of the table were telling you because one of the things that is likely to knock the long-term plans off course is events today, tomorrow, this week.

And what Russell said was correct. By every objective measure prisons now are less safe places than they were a year ago. There are more violent incidents; more self-harm. Prisoners tell us they feel less safe than they did. And

I’m very struck by the parallels of what prisons and probation can learn from the Mid-Staffs inquiry.

And the critical lesson there, what Frances found is that the health service took their eye off the patient. While they were busy planning their long-term strategies etc, etc, they forgot that down in the ward – they didn’t see that down in the ward an old lady covered in excrement who they weren’t feeding properly. And I think there is a real risk if we don’t hear what Russell and Jerry and PJ are saying that in a sense we make that same problem.

And then what will blow up – and I think there are a lot of very positive long-term strategies. Actually if the provider hits the pan in the short-term, you will lose the momentum and ability to

deliver those long-term improvements. And I think if you, in answer to your direct question, it goes precisely to what Jo was saying – who is in charge? Well, Russell – in a prison Russell should be in charge. He should be able to pull the levers that enable him to operate that prison safely and decently. And if he can’t, then that really risks what everybody else is talking about.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Liz, did you want to come in on that?

Liz Calderbank: Yes, I’d like to pick up on Juliet’s point which actually took me to where I started on this debate about the importance of not looking at this from the perspective of the prison as the solution but from community sentences

Stephen Hornby and Juliet Lyon CBE

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and what they can achieve in terms of rehabilitation and in reducing reoffending because it does feel that within the debate that the focus if very much on the prison – and I guess that’s too almost traditional, isn’t it – but actually ignoring the bulk of the offenders are actually supervised effectively and actually their reoffending rates now are brought down.

So why aren’t we actually building it backwards, particularly when we’re faced with a prison population that is increasing not only because of increasing numbers but by the fact that people are staying in it for longer – our number of long-term prisoners. And that’s something about picking up on the importance of offender management within prisons in terms of changing attitudes or behaviour.

We’re shortly to release a report on lifers – I mean Frances is smiling because it’s one we did about 12 years ago, wasn’t it? But one of the things that is coming out of that is the length of time that people are staying in custody after tariff. And the one example that stays with me is one guy has done 25 years after tariff. Now tell me what that’s cost us all? And they probably do longer because I don’t think – he was probably so institutionalised his care will cost as much in the community anyway.

And the other point I would like to make is to pick up, I think it was the point that Kate was making and broaden that about the speed of all of this. It feels that the speed of it is actually working against the ability to develop good practice, to develop that shared language, to take issues forward. And that would be one of the worst shames, I think, if this – there is the potential for considerable change here and considerable change for the better. But it will take time to develop. And to lose it by doing this in a hurry I think would be reprehensible.

Andrew Haldenby: Thank you. Rachael.

Rachael Byrne: Very quickly I’m struck by three short things. The first is the delivery model. And I struggle a bit with the word “regime” but either model or regime is what we have to put in place. We met with the MoJ on Monday, and they don’t have a delivery model, and it won’t be in the specification. And it is up to us who bid in the sector to design what that looks like.

The second is I agree with you about the TUPE implication. And I suppose there are two angles. There is a commercial angle that it will take the resource. The other angle is the cultural angle. And if I were a probation officer, I would be in a bad place at the moment worrying about what is happening and the change. But they will come to providers who then take on those contracts. And we have to really think about the cultural balance.

And the third point is around the voluntary sector. And we are always talking about this actually. In Stonham

we work with 30,000 clients a year. Most of them are in that cohort of the under 12 months. They have been receiving intervention for four years successfully, but I admit you don’t have a great way of demonstrating the fact that we have delivered strong interventions for them.

So I think the role for the voluntary sector is to demonstrate that now but is actually quite massive in the competition if we get that right. And sometimes I think the word voluntary makes them all sound very small. Some of the bigger voluntary sector are social enterprises who can invest, make this work and also have the track record of delivery. And that was it. And thank you for hosting today.

Andrew Haldenby: No, no. Well, thank you. We’re right on time. Thank you all so much for coming. This is an area of policy where there is real activity. Trying to do things with a number of different providers and a number of different agendas, it probably does add to the complexity of all of this. But that just means all we can do is get people together and talk about it. It was a shame the Minister had to go, but in a way this is a slightly symbolic thing because he can’t do it all.

The rest of the people around the table are the people who are going to

make this work. So there is a slight sense of the rest of us are going to have to work this all out and then present it to him. So that sort of told its own story.

And I clearly see a number of concerns raised around the table about pace of change, design of contracts, and so on. But I don’t think anybody would demur from the objectives in what the Government is trying to achieve. So that’s quite an important thing to rest on. All I would say from my point of view, we’ve been trying to do as much as we can to improve the discussion around this area of policy in this Parliament, and we would like to continue to do that.

If we can please keep in touch with all of you throughout the election we’d love to do that. Thank you. Mostly thank you so much for your support for our work. I hope these discussions continue to do the right thing which is to help policy makers think out these ideas. Your support makes it possible, so thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Minister.

[laughter]

Andrew Haldenby: No doubt doing something very important. But most of all thank you all and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

The rest of the people around the table are the people who are going to make this work.

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