Justice Committee announce new inquiry: Transforming Rehabilitation

Transforming rehabilitation: how well is Government addressing the challenges facing the Probation Services? What more needs to be done?

The Justice Committee has launched an inquiry into the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation Programme. This will focus on two key questions:

• ·         How effective are current Government measures in addressing the challenges facing the probation service?

• ·         What more needs to be done in the short term to improve the probation system?

The Committee welcomes written evidence up to Friday 17 Nov; terms of reference here. 

Background

The probation system is responsible for supervising, rehabilitating and, where necessary, resettling offenders after or instead of a custodial sentence.  In 2014 the Ministry of Justice divided the system into two as part of its Transforming Rehabilitation programme:

â—     the National Probation Service (NPS)—handle high risk offenders (the NPS is a public body); and

â—     Community Rehabilitation Centres (CRCs)—of which there are 21 across England and Wales—handle low and medium risk offenders and services are delivered by private or third sector organisations (eight private organisations run the 21 CRCs).

The Government also introduced a provision in the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 which required that rehabilitation activity be provided to short-sentenced offenders (i.e. those receiving a custodial sentences of 12 months or less). In 2015, Through-the-Gate was introduced and CRCs were given responsibility to support offenders in the 12 weeks before their release from prison and in the period after their release.

The Government’s stated aims for Transforming Rehabilitation included:

• ·         Open up the market to diverse service providers in the private, voluntary and social sectors;

• ·         Increase innovation by paying providers for delivering reductions in re-offending;

• ·         Reduce re-offending for short sentenced prisoners by extending statutory rehabilitation to them
• ·         Provide continuous support via Through-the-Gate. 

Transforming Rehabilitation has attracted criticism since its implementation in reports by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee, and by HM Chief Inspectors of Probation and Prisons in reports on resettlement services for short term prisoners  and for prisoners serving 12 months or more. Statutory probation for short-sentence prisoners is placing additional strains on the justice system:recalls for licence breaches rose 28% in 2015 from the previous year .

Previous Select Committee work

The Justice Committee published a Report in January 2014 highlighting many potential problems with the proposed reforms.

It returned to the issue in 2017, with two formal evidence sessions to consider problems and solutions. It took evidence from HM Inspector of Probation, CRCs, the Probation Institute, trade unions and a range of third sector organisations. This evidence will feed in to this Committee’s inquiry.

In the last Parliament other select committees have raised issues about the provision of support to offenders (see for example, the Report of the Communities and Local Government Committee on Homelessness and the Report of the Work and Pensions Committee on Support for ex-offenders).

Transforming Rehabilitation: Terms of Reference

The Justice Committee launches an inquiry into the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation Programme. The inquiry will focus on how current Government measures are effectively addressing the challenges facing the probation services and what more needs to be done in the short-term to improve the probation system.

Terms of reference                                                    

The Committee welcomes written evidence on the following topics:

Government measures

1.              To what extent do the steps taken by the Government address the issues facing probation services?

a.              What contractual, financial and administrative changes did the Government introduce for CRCs in July 2017 as a result of their internal review of Transforming Rehabilitation? What has been the effect of these changes on the delivery of probation services?

b.             Are strengthening inspection standards and creating joint performance measures (between probation services and prisons) the best ways of improving performance?

c.              What should be the Government’s priorities to improve work between departments on the delivery of services needed for effective rehabilitation?

2.              What impact have the reforms had on: i) sentencing behaviour, ii) recalls to prison, and iii) serious further offences?

3.              How effective have Government measures been in addressing issues arising from the division of responsibility between the NPS and CRCs in the delivery of probation services?

4.              What else should the Government do to address the issues facing probation services?

Short-term changes

5.              How can the Through-the-Gate provision be improved so that prisoners get the right help before their release from prison and afterwards?

6.              What can be done to increase voluntary sector involvement in the delivery of probation services?

The future of probation services

7.              When should there be a review of the future of the Transforming Rehabilitation model and the long-term plan for delivering probation services?

Submitting written evidence

The deadline for written submissions to be made is Friday 17 November 2017.