The Ministry of Justice's shake-up of offender rehabilitation services has not led to major disruptions, according to the National Audit Office – but there are concerns among probation staff about workloads and new barriers between the private and public parts of the system.
The MoJ's Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) overhaul has seen the privatisation of almost 70% of probation services, splitting offender management between privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Centres (CRCs) and the National Probation Service (NPS).
The NPS advises courts on sentencing and manages higher-risk offenders, while the CRCs supervise low and medium-risk offenders. The new companies oversee around 80% of probation cases.
Probation watchdog warns over Ministry of Justice rehabilitation shake-up
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While the NAO's latest report acknowledges that the changes "have barely started", it says services "have been sustained throughout a period of major changes", with offenders reporting that provision "had stayed the same or improved since the reforms".
The watchdog also praises the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) – the arm of the MoJ with overall responsibility for probation – for having introduced a "robust and thorough" approaching to managing contracts with the CRCs, saying it has "applied lessons from previous failures" and "maintained its position on key contract terms".
However, the NAO says the splitting of the probation service has led to "unsurprising frictions" between the CRC and NPS staff, which it says "will take time to work through".
"Close cooperation is essential to handle the transfer of offenders between CRCs and the NPS when their risks change or when they breach the terms of their probation," the watchdog adds.
"Many junior staff we spoke to in CRCs considered their NPS contacts were often unduly critical and dismissive, while many junior staff in the NPS thought that their CRC contacts were often not providing them with necessary information and had become too focused on their commercial interests as opposed to the best interests of offenders."
The NAO says that while it has seen "efforts by local CRC and NPS managers" to tackle that cultural divide, it says the organisations will need to do more "to ensure that they work together more effectively to improve case management".
The watchdog also flags up concern over resource pressure, saying that staff at both the CRCs and the NPS believe high workloads "have reduced the supervision and training that they receive and the service they provide".
"Junior staff we spoke to in CRCs considered their NPS contacts were often unduly critical and dismissive" – National Audit Office
That echoes a warning from then-probation watchdog Paul Wilson, who told CSW before stepping down last year that he was concerned that CRCs could be manned by staff who were "less trained and qualified than they were before, with larger caseloads, managed and supervised by more remote managers".
The NAO's report says: "In the four CRCs we visited, only three provided individual caseload data and these were presented as an average, which masks any variation within and across CRCs. While the average caseload was between 34 and 42 cases, we met staff handling significantly higher caseloads, which they considered prevented them providing an adequate service."
It also warns that the NPS has higher caseloads than had been predicted, with front-line managers facing "increasing pressure" while also trying to oversee an inflow of trainees "who will take time to become fully effective professionals".
"At the same time, probation managers are acquiring new responsibilities for managing support services, such as human resources and office management; a key source of dissatisfaction among staff we interviewed," the watchdog adds.
"The NPS’s new change programme, announced in November 2015, is attempting to tackle regional variations in probation practices but has not focused specifically on support services."
The NAO's report says there are still "severe" inefficiencies because of the "cumbersome" IT systems used in probation casework, with staff losing hours each week because of problems with the nDelius case management system brought in before the TR shake-up.
A new IT system designed to help CRCs share data on offenders has also been delayed "due to other priorities and increased scope", the NAO says.
Launching the report, NAO head Amyas Morse said the MoJ had “successfully restructured the probation landscape and avoided major disruptions in service", but pointed out that it was only at "the beginning" of the process.
"The NPS is not yet operating as a truly national, sustainable service and the Ministry needs to address operational issues, many of which are longstanding, such as weaknesses in ICT systems," he added. "The Ministry also needs to hve a deeper understanding of risks associated with reduced business for CRCs. Achieving value for money will require the resolution of these fundamental issues.”