The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has failed to deliver its ‘rehabilitation revolution’. It has left probation services underfunded, fragile, and lacking the confidence of the courts, says the Public Accounts Committee of MPs in a report.
PAC chair, Labour MP Meg Hillier, said: “Despite warnings from this Committee and the National Audit Office over the past three years, the Ministry of Justice has failed to bring about the promised revolution in rehabilitation. Rather than deliver the savings hoped for at the start of the programme, the Ministry’s attempts to address the failures in the reforms have cost the taxpayer an additional £467m while failing to achieve the anticipated improvements in reoffending behaviour.”
The reforms failed to reduce reoffending by as much as expected and, from 2011 to March 2017, the average number of re-offences committed by each reoffender actually increased. The MoJ failed to involve voluntary sector organisations in delivering probation services on the scale it promised. Provision of specialist services on mental health, employment and substance abuse is poor and not tailored to offenders’ needs.
The split of probation services between the NPS (National Probation Service) and CRCs (Community Rehabilitation Companies, who manage most offenders under probation supervision) introduced many new points of contact between parts of the probation system and with the wider justice system, which create friction and require effort and resource to manage. The reforms split the role of probation services in court, the report found.
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Chair of the Justice Committee, Bob Neill, Conservative MP for Bromley, said: “This damning report from the Public Accounts Committee backs up the findings of our own inquiry that it is doubtful the Government’s disastrous reforms can ever deliver an effective or viable probation service. As well as laying bare the eye-watering cost of terminating contracts which should never have been entered into in the first place, the report also highlights the failure to improve support or reduce reoffending.
“This has a real human impact: more victims of crime and more wasted lives as offenders ricochet in and out of custody. We are also seriously concerned about the decline in judge and magistrate confidence in community sentences – even though these sentences generally lead to better outcomes. We said back in June last year that the Government should review into the long-term future and sustainability of delivering probation services, including how TR might compare to an alternative system.
“They didn’t start such a review and ten months later we are still waiting for a full response to our report. The Ministry needs to sort this mess by setting out a new, clear strategy for the future of probation services, which is rigorously tested and not rushed through, when it announces plans for the next generation of Community Rehabilitation Companies due soon. We sincerely hope that the change in responsible Minister will not delay things any further.”
For Labour, Richard Burgon, Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “Chris Grayling’s disastrous decision to privatise probation has been a costly failure that has left our communities less safe. The Tories must show that they have learnt the lessons of this failure and drop their ideologically-driven plans to sign yet more private probation contracts.
“Labour has made it clear that in government we will return probation to the public sector, where it can focus on keeping the public safe – not lining the pockets of failing private companies.”
