At the TUC Congress 2018, Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence is
calling for a counter-revolution to address the chronic state of
the probation service.
Following ’s dogmatic and ideological
privatisation called Transforming Rehabilitation (TR), in 2015,
the Probation Service has been left in an unprecedented crisis.
The Justice Select Committee concluded its inquiry into TR in
July and found that all of Napo's predictions had not only come
true but the situation was even worse than the unions and other
stakeholders had thought possible.
The public National Probation Service is massively understaffed,
and is so dysfunctional that it cannot pay its staff correctly or
administrate pensions properly, leading to a national dispute.
Serious Further Offences (SFO) are on the increase and Her
Majesty's Inspectorate for Probation has found nearly all of the
private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are failing to
provide even basic levels of supervision.
The Ministry of Justice announced at the beginning of the
parliamentary recess that they acknowledged there was a crisis
and it was taking action to address this. But, Napo believes that
their new proposals are nowhere near enough to resolve the issues
and that the government is still wedded to the marketisation of
probation.
Ian Lawrence, General Secretary said: "We need the government to
be brave and take strong action in light of the conclusions of
the Justice Committee. The announcement by the MoJ simply means
that the majority of private providers will be propped up to
continue their failing business models which will cost the tax
payer even more money and not address the issue that the model of
a split and privatised probation service simply doesn't work.
Probation must be brought back in to public ownership and meet
the needs of local communities and be locally accountable."
Motion 67 calls on the TUC to support Napo
in calling for a cross sector alliance to develop an alternative
model and to lobby politicians to secure funding and legislation
needed to deliver a better and safer model for probation.
-Ends-
Notes to editors:
Motion 67 - THE TRANSFORMING
REHABILITATION COUNTER-REVOLUTION
’s dogmatic ‘rehabilitation
revolution’ was supposed to transform probation services and
support for offenders on their release from prison. It saw the
abolition of locally accountable, publicly funded Probation
Trusts, but the main achievement was the ruinous division of an
award winning service, leaving it in an unsustainable mess.
Private CRC contracts, despite additional funding by government
of over £230M are still operating at a loss, prompting further
dangerous staffing and service cuts. Napo believes it is no
coincidence that Serious Further Offences have increased since
this disastrous privatisation.
The National Probation Service can’t recruit, pay or collect
staff pensions adequately or consistently, further undermining
morale. Calls to their HR department cost the taxpayer 88p a
minute. The MoJ, following the qualification of recent accounts,
is seemingly being run from the Treasury with every major
financial decision taken by its auditors.
It is time for a Rehabilitation Counter-Revolution and a new
model, built around consensus not dogma, where an independent,
locally accountable, reunified and publicly funded core probation
service is run in the public interest and not for profit.
Congress calls on the TUC to facilitate and support unions
in:
- Building a cross-sector alliance with HM Official Opposition,
charities, public sector partners and supportive cross-party
politicians and academics to develop a consensus and refine a new
model.
- Lobbying politicians to secure the funding and legislation
needed to deliver a better, safer and more sustainable model for
probation founded upon these principles.
