What is the potential role of the
Voluntary and Community Sector?
Contents
2
INTRODUCTION
2
POLICY CONTEXT
3
RATIONALE FOR OUTSOURCING
4
Arrest and Charge
4
Bail
4
PROBATION TRUSTS
5
Pre-Sentence Reports and Assessments
5
Supervision
5
Programmes
5
Unpaid Work
6
Approved Premises (Probation Hostels)
6
Post-release
6
PRISON
7
Offender Supervisor Role
7
Workshops and Prison Industries
7
CHALLENGES
8
VCS ethos
8
Underdeveloped VCS Market
8
TUPE issues
8
Payment by results
8
KEY QUESTIONS
9
Introduction
This is the fifth in a series of Clinks discussion papers
that aims to inform Clinks Members and to stimulate
debate of the issues that are expected to feature
heavily in the new coalition Government’s
rehabilitation Green Paper, due for publication in
2010.
“Does the voluntary sector’s ethos of
voluntarism and flexibility equip it to
deliver enforcement and punishment,
which are key aspects of offender
management?”
This paper is focussed on the potential for the VCS to
deliver correctional services in custody and the
community, including possible new forms of criminal
justice delivery which are not currently provided by
either the probation or prison services.
To help bring together our Members’ perspectives,
we would be grateful if you could consider and
respond to the key questions posed at the end of this
paper.
www.clinks.org
December 2010
Policy Context
The creation of the National Offender Management
Service (NOMS) in 2004 introduced the concept of
‘contestability’ into the Criminal Justice System
especially in respect of the two key correctional
agencies, the National Probation Service, and HM
Prison Service.
The government response1 to Patrick Carter’s
report, Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime2
endorsed the proposal that greater competition
between the public, private, and voluntary sector in
the delivery of correctional services would improve
value for money and effectiveness in reducing reoffending. NOMS would be a ‘commissioning’
agency with both a national and regional structure.
The ultimate vision was a market of providers that
would compete for funding to deliver custodial and
community based services.
There was already competition within the custodial
estate with a number of private companies
operating prisons under contract to HM Prison
Service. The probation service, however, had not
been exposed to external competition. This was
addressed by policy proposals3 which culminated in
the Offender Management Act 2007 that made
provision for the creation of Probation Trusts –
independent bodies directly commissioned by the
Secretary of State. All the services that they
delivered (with the exception of court report
preparation) would be open to competition from
1
http://www.probation.homeoffice.gov.uk/files/pdf/master%2
020pp%20BB.pdf
other sectors, or indeed from other Probation
Trusts.
These developments did not however lead to an
increase in private or Voluntary and Community
Sector (VCS) delivery of probation services and, in
order to drive this policy forward, the Home Office
imposed an ‘outsourcing’ target on probation areas
of 10% of offender facing services to be achieved by
March 2008. This initiative resulted in a small
increase in provision by private and VCS
organisations.
It was replaced by a ‘Best Value’ approach, which
was the subject of consultation from April 20084
and adopted as policy in autumn 2008. This
framework required probation areas to review
identified strands of service delivery (e.g. Unpaid
Work) to assess their cost effectiveness and then
compare performance against other probation
areas. If there was evidence that the delivery was
not achieving ‘best value’ these service areas would
be ‘market tested’.
In 2007, Lord Carter undertook a further
assessment of the capacity of the prison service to
manage the increasing prison population. Within
that review, he asserted that there was further
scope for increasing the efficiency of the custodial
estate. There were a number of recommendations
made including the feasibility of outsourcing some
functions and market testing some provision.
In January 2008, the National Audit Office published
a report5 assessing the cost-effectiveness of the
probation service which was highly critical of the
service’s lack of information about the unit costs of
delivery.
2
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strateg
y/assets/managingoffenders.pdf
4
http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/cp0608.pdf
3
5
http://www.probation.homeoffice.gov.uk/files/pdf/Restructur
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/the_national_prob
ation_service.aspx
3 ing%20Probation%20to%20Reduce%20Reoffending.pdf
In response to both of these reports, NOMS began a
Specification, Benchmarking and Costing (SBC)
programme. The SBC programme identified 97
areas of delivery across both custody and
community provision with the intention of
producing detailed minimum specifications of
delivery including the unit costs. To date, over 20
service delivery areas have been subjected to this
process beginning with Unpaid Work, Victim
Liaison, and Visitor Centres.
Finally, in April 2009, NOMS published its Capacity
and Competition policy6 which included a
statement of intent to market test 25% of Unpaid
Work and Victim Liaison provision that had been
subject to Best Value reviews.

Does the public sector have the tradition of
innovation and risk that is essential to
engage with difficult and challenging
individuals on the margins of society?
There are also issues related to skill and knowledge,
value orientation, and the ethos of public sector
delivery that are important to consider in deciding
which kinds of organisations are best placed to
manage offenders and achieve a measure of
rehabilitation.
This paper is focussed on the potential for the VCS
to deliver correctional services in custody and the
community, including possible new forms of
criminal justice delivery which are not currently
provided by either the probation or prison services.
Arrest and Charge
Rationale for Outsourcing
The preceding brief overview of policy regarding
contestability and competition in the context of the
delivery of correctional services reveals that it has
been entirely framed in terms of cost and
‘performance improvement’. There has been little,
if any, discussion of the types of service provision
that might be better delivered by either the public,
private or voluntary sector. For instance:


6
Does the private sector have the
experience and characteristics that would
make it well-placed to deliver Victim
Contact Services?
Does the voluntary sector’s ethos of
voluntarism and flexibility equip it to
deliver enforcement and punishment,
which are key aspects of offender
management?
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/capacity-and-
4 competition.htm
The police and the Crown Prosecution Service retain
the statutory responsibility for these functions.
However, in order for both of these agencies to deal
effectively with the full range of individuals they
come into contact with it is often crucial that they
can access VCS provision.
For instance, arrestees with drug and alcohol
problems, or who are experiencing a range of
mental health issues require specialist services to
divert them away from the Criminal Justice System
or to support them with relevant services to begin
the process of stabilisation and possible recovery.
Bail
Defendants can often be diverted away from
custodial remand if they have access to support
services that begin to address their needs and
increase their capacity to keep to the terms of their
bail conditions. The VCS provides a range of
mentoring and support services including hostel
and other types of supported accommodation.
The advantage of this approach is that offenders
have an early introduction to the services that
support rehabilitation and resettlement, which can
then be retained during periods of community
supervision.
Probation Trusts
As a result of the provisions in the Offender
Management Act 2007, Probation Trusts were
created as ‘free-standing’ organisations contracted
directly by the Secretary of State to provide
probation services in their local areas. From 2010,
it is theoretically possible for entire probation trusts
to be ‘market tested’, and organisations from the
private and Voluntary and Community Sectors to
bid to provide these services. However, services
provided to courts are excluded from competition
and reserved to the public sector.7 Although there
have been some recent mergers of trusts – reducing
the original number from 42 to 35 – there has not
been a ‘market test’ of any probation trusts.
However, there are a range of services currently
delivered by probation that are either currently
delivered by the VCS or have the potential for being
provided by VCS organisations.
down (short form) reports and enable the inclusion
of a range of VCS services as elements in new
community sentences.
Supervision
There is considerable potential for the VCS to
provide ‘offender supervision’ to low level
offenders with the public sector retaining the
‘offender management’ role. The probation service
has become increasingly focussed on high risk
offenders and the management of risk and there
remains a need to address the ‘resettlement’ needs
of offenders.
This requires the capacity to form constructive and
supportive relationships with offenders as well as
providing them with practical help to access
mainstream services from which they may have
been excluded. The VCS were consulted on the
Specification, Benchmarking and Costing (SBC)
process regarding offender supervision.
This approach complements the considerable scope
for the VCS to work with the Integrated Offender
Management (IOM) cohort not currently subject to
any supervision (e.g. serving less than 12 months)
with the capacity to offer informal support and
voluntary supervision over longer timescales than
statutory orders currently permit.
Pre-Sentence Reports and Assessments
VCS organisations provide assessments regarding
suitability for interventions and services. These are
usually incorporated in Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs)
presented to courts or produced alongside them.
Given their statutory basis, PSRs are not
appropriate for outsourcing especially as they
include recommendations affecting a defendant’s
liberty. But of course there is lots of scope for VCSled court-based diversion schemes that could
usefully inform Probation staff providing stand7
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/capacity-and-
5 competition.pdf
Programmes
The probation service delivers a range of accredited
programmes addressing general offending
behaviour, Drink Impaired Driving, Sex Offender
Treatment, Violence Reduction, and substance
misuse. The VCS delivers parts or all of these
programmes in some probation areas.
Organisations including Circles of Support and
Accountability, the NSPCC, and a range of drug
treatment agencies have the experience and
expertise to successfully deliver these programmes.
Many of these agencies bring the added value of
also providing local services into which offenders
can be referred to support the learning/progress
they have made as a result of attending the
programmes.8
Unpaid Work
There are currently a range of VCS organisations
providing supervised placements at charity shops,
Sunday Lunch clubs, and furniture renovation
projects, etc. There is scope for broader delivery
including assessment and placement across a range
of agencies and projects that could be organised by
Local Infrastructure Organisations (LIOs) under
contract to local probation areas.
There would be clear advantages in constructing a
model of Unpaid Work with probation retaining the
‘offender management’ function and LIOs sourcing
and quality assuring the placements, ensuring that
the work was supervised and recorded, and
reporting on compliance. Reports on offenders’
progress could be provided to offender managers
on a weekly basis.
The significant advantage of LIOs undertaking this
work rests in their great knowledge of local VCS
organisations and the needs of local communities.
Approved Premises (Probation Hostels)
There are currently 100 Approved Premises of
which 12 are currently managed by VCS
management committees. The remainder could be
‘outsourced’ with the VCS being in a strong position
to deliver this provision.
However, this would involve VCS providers
delivering a more rigid and enforcement oriented
role than they have traditionally been used to
(although Langley House Trust do already provide a
8
6
Accredited programmes are also delivered in prisons and
again there is significant potential for VCS delivery in this
context.
small number of high risk beds under contract to
NOMS).
VCS accommodation providers are specialist in this
area in relation to housing support although ‘risk
management’ may be an initial ‘deficit’. This could
be readily addressed through training and would be
more than offset by the quality of housing related
support that would be available in VCS provision,
including the links that many projects have within
local housing strategies and networks.
Post-release
For all prisoners leaving custody on license the
offender management function (enforcement and
risk management) would need to remain with the
probation service. However, mentoring and
‘through-the-gate’ services could be provided by
the VCS within an ‘offender supervision’ package.
All contact, other than for assessment and referral
purposes, could readily be provided by the VCS.
This is a model which was successfully operated
within the Connect Project in the West Midlands,
and is similar to the programme now being
delivered to short sentence prisoners by St. Giles
Trust at Peterborough Prison in the Social Impact
Bond initiative (where there is no offender
management function).
The key issues addressed by these schemes relate
to accessing housing, welfare benefits, GP services,
and education and employment opportunities.
These are all areas in which the probation service
has little, if any, knowledge or expertise but which
are essential to reducing re-offending and enabling
successful resettlement.
Prison
The current position regarding ‘outsourcing’ is
fundamentally different for prisons compared to
probation.
Presently, approximately 12% of prisons are wholly
delivered by the private sector. Some of these
prisons have been designed, built and managed by
the private sector while others have been taken
over from the public sector as a result of ‘market
tests’.
Delivery of entire strands of prison functions (in
public sector prisons) has also been transferred to
other government departments. For example, PCTs
now commission health care services in prisons, and
The Skills Funding Agency (OLASS) is responsible for
education.
Furthermore, the two recent contracts awarded for
new prisons have involved the private sector in a
partnership with two large VCS organisations (in
each case to be responsible for ‘resettlement
services’).
Finally, for the past 13 years, new funding from
health and the European Social Fund to support
drug treatment and employment services has been
used to commission VCS and private sector
organisations to deliver these services. Therefore,
there has been a mixed and complex picture of
public, private, and VCS delivery of services in
prisons.
Offender Supervisor Role
The traditional role of the prison officer combines
both a security and control function, and a personal
officer (offender supervisor) role involving support
and management of the delivery of the sentence
plan and resettlement activities.
More recently, HM Prison Service has sought to
7 introduce a new grading structure which would
separate the ‘security and control’ function from
the ‘offender supervisor’ role, with the latter on a
higher grade to reflect the greater responsibility
and skill level in managing prisoners’ progress
through their sentence. This role would link closely
with the resettlement functions and would work
together with inmates to co-ordinate the
interventions necessary to achieve reductions in
risk and re-offending. Most importantly, the role
would have as its central purpose the development
of supportive relationships with inmates, with a
focus on motivation and pro-social modelling, as
well as personal counselling (mentoring).
This is a role that could certainly be ‘outsourced’ to
the VCS. The skill set and experience of many VCS
mentoring and volunteering organisations would be
entirely relevant within this context, and such an
arrangement would bring the added benefit of
strong linkages to the community based services
delivered by the same organisation(s). It would also
provide an operational ‘fit’ with ‘through the gate’
provision.
Workshops and Prison Industries
There is growing interest in significantly raising the
standard and range of work that prisoners
undertake during their sentences. Prison
management of this area of regime delivery has
been constrained by lack of skill and innovation, as
well as by the absence of a well-developed external
market.
Re-commissioning this strand of custodial delivery
could bring in both private sector and VCS/Social
Enterprise providers better placed to provide the
type of ‘real’ work programme envisaged in new
government policy.
Challenges
There are a number of challenges to increasing VCS
delivery of services in the Criminal Justice System.
These include:
VCS ethos
As alluded to earlier in this paper, the VCS has an
orientation which is characterised by voluntarism
and a focus on the needs of service users. The
inevitable constraints placed on individuals who
have been in touch with the Criminal Justice System
may at times run counter to VCS values in this
respect and organisations will have to make
judgments about the extent to which they can
adapt to working within this context.
Underdeveloped VCS Market
With the exception of a few large national
organisations the VCS works locally and often in
fragile and uncertain financial circumstances.
present a major barrier to the re-commissioning of
services.
Payment by results
The new government is clearly committed to
implementing contracts that provide payments only
after evidence is provided of positive outcomes for
service users. On the one hand, this is good news
for the VCS as it potentially frees organisations to
deliver their services in innovative ways that are not
necessarily tied to bureaucratic processes.
However, the payment regime requires
organisations to have substantial working capital to
be able to deliver the service before receiving
payment. For small local VCS organisations this can
be a major barrier unless flexibility is introduced to
these arrangements.
Clinks has recently published a discussion paper
further exploring this issue9
If the VCS is to play a much larger role, this will
require leadership and facilitation from the public
sector.
Probation Trusts could fill this role but they will
need to manage the inherent conflict that arises
from their position as both purchasers and
providers of services themselves. The situation is
similar within prisons and the commissioning
process will need to take account of these issues.
TUPE issues
TUPE is the set of arrangements for protecting the
conditions of service of employees who are
transferred from one organisation to another,
usually as a result of a competitive market test.
For VCS organisations taking on public sector
business this can bring major costs in terms of the
pensions and salaries that comprise the conditions
8 of service of transferring staff. TUPE may therefore
9
http://www.clinks.org/assets/files/PDFs/Payment%20by%20r
esults.pdf
Author
Key Questions
Malcolm Thomson
You are therefore invited to submit responses
to the following questions, to enable Clinks to
build a better picture of current practice and
organisations’ support and development needs,
and to inform future discussions with
government about proportionate outcomes
reporting requirements in the ‘rehabilitation
revolution’.
Policy Analyst, Clinks
December 2010
1. What is your experience of commissioners’
/ funders’ reporting requirements?
2. What systems do you currently have in
place to measure outcomes?
3. What do you see as the greatest challenges
to measuring outcomes in the CJS?
4. Do you think your organisation could
demonstrate a reduction in reoffending? If
not, what outcomes could be practically
evidenced?
5. Do you think more standardised evaluation
tools for the VCS in the CJS would be
useful?
To contribute to this debate, please email
your views and ideas to
[email protected]
9
Other Clinks papers in this series cover:




Localising Justice
Big Society
Innovative services for a rehabilitation revolution
Payment by results
Visit www.clinks.org