First they launched a consultation for the outsourcing of probation services. That happened in January and finished in February. This is commonly agreed to be not really long enough to solicit the views of the experts in the field – but if you have already determined not to listen to them then it is plenty long enough.
The word "consultation" has that deadening thud of the political euphemism. The probation service is doing a good job, or – to give it its technical name – a "good to exceptional" one; the most recent figures showed reoffending down by 5%. The National Offender Management Service rated every single one of the nation's 35 probation services to be either good or exceptional.
The government proposes to tear up all that expertise and track record, and hand the contracts over to companies such as Serco, G4S and A4e. The two largest names in this corporate cohort are currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, as far as the massive waste of money that is the tagging fiasco goes, nobody is bandying about words like "good" or "exceptional".
Of course those on the inside were going to oppose outsourcing. And of course they were going to be ignored. In September, the Ministry of Justice announced a competition for an annual £450m package of rehabilitation. Contracts will be awarded in 2014; the government hopes the private sector will take over 70% of probation work in 2015. So, consultation is a euphemism, but here I use "euphemism" as a euphemism for "bloody joke".
Napo, the union for the probation service, has already spelled out what this procurement process looks like, having seen it at close range: in London, in 2012, Serco won the probation contract for £37m. The costing was predicated on its losing 100 of the 550 staff.
But if the headline is redundancy and a reduced service, there's a problem underneath that is actually worse. Serco underbid everyone else by a huge amount. We're not allowed to find out by how much for reasons of commercial confidentiality (which is of course much more in the public interest than transparency).
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How to make recidivism and costs rise? Privatise probation | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian
The word "consultation" has that deadening thud of the political euphemism. The probation service is doing a good job, or – to give it its technical name – a "good to exceptional" one; the most recent figures showed reoffending down by 5%. The National Offender Management Service rated every single one of the nation's 35 probation services to be either good or exceptional.
The government proposes to tear up all that expertise and track record, and hand the contracts over to companies such as Serco, G4S and A4e. The two largest names in this corporate cohort are currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, as far as the massive waste of money that is the tagging fiasco goes, nobody is bandying about words like "good" or "exceptional".
Of course those on the inside were going to oppose outsourcing. And of course they were going to be ignored. In September, the Ministry of Justice announced a competition for an annual £450m package of rehabilitation. Contracts will be awarded in 2014; the government hopes the private sector will take over 70% of probation work in 2015. So, consultation is a euphemism, but here I use "euphemism" as a euphemism for "bloody joke".
Napo, the union for the probation service, has already spelled out what this procurement process looks like, having seen it at close range: in London, in 2012, Serco won the probation contract for £37m. The costing was predicated on its losing 100 of the 550 staff.
But if the headline is redundancy and a reduced service, there's a problem underneath that is actually worse. Serco underbid everyone else by a huge amount. We're not allowed to find out by how much for reasons of commercial confidentiality (which is of course much more in the public interest than transparency).
more
How to make recidivism and costs rise? Privatise probation | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian