Government condemned after ‘devastating’ report on probation service

Ministers have been urged to go back to the drawing board after a damning report on the Government’s shake-up of the probation service.

The Tory administration faced a barrage of criticism from peers over the “devastating” findings of a watchdog into the system for managing offenders in England and Wales.

In her annual report, Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey revealed that thousands of convicts living in the community are managed by a brief phone call every few weeks.

In some cases offenders are only met once before being placed on “remote supervision” by private probation providers.

Known as Transforming Rehabilitation, the £3.7 billion partial privatisation launched in 2014 saw the creation of the National Probation Service to deal with high-risk cases, while remaining work was assigned to 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs).

Inspectors found some individuals managed by CRCs do not meet their probation worker face-to-face and are supervised by telephone calls every six weeks or so with junior staff overseeing 200 cases or more.

Independent crossbench peer and former chief inspector of social services Lord Laming, who secured a private notice question on the report’s findings in the House of Lords, said it presented “a thoroughly dispiriting account of just how great has been the deterioration and the effectiveness of the probation service during the last three years”.

He added: “It’s now clear that the so-called innovative programme has resulted in a disjointed and incoherent system despite the hard work of the staff.

“I hope the minister will agree that the victims of crime, the courts of this country and local communities deserve better and now urgent action will be taken to recover what has been lost in these recent changes.”

Government frontbencher Lord Keen of Elie said: “We recognise the concerns identified by the inspectorate and are working hard to address these problems.

“Many of the performance issues with CRCs stem from the financial challenges that providers are facing and that has meant that we have addressed those contractual terms.

“I would, however, observe that nearly two-thirds of CRCs have reduced the number of people reoffending.”

Opposition spokesman Lord Beecham said: “This report is is another legacy of the unlamented tenure as lord chancellor of Chris Grayling.”

He added: “Isn’t it time for the Government to review its ideological commitment to insist on private sector organisations playing a major role in the field of criminal justice with results often as disastrous as these?”

Lord Keen said: “This is not an issue of ideology.

“We do hold CRCs to account for their performance through robust contract management and where that performance is not good enough we require improvement plans to be put in place.”

Lord Ramsbotham, a former chief inspector of prisons and an independent crossbencher, said: “A caseload of 200 is simply unacceptable and unbelievable that anyone can actually exercise any form of supervision of that number of people.”

Former BBC director general Lord Birt, who declared an interest as the husband of the founding director general of the National Probation Service, said: “This is a devastating report.”

The crossbencher added: “These reforms were ill-framed, speedily and poorly implemented. Would the minister accept that it is time to get back to the drawing board?”

Lord Keen said: “We do not accept it is necessary to go back to the drawing board. It is however necessary to address the shortcomings in the delivery by CRCs and that is what we are in the course of doing.”

Retired judge and independent crossbencher Baroness Butler-Sloss said: “Is the minister really saying that the Government are satisfied with a telephone form of probation, because I don’t think anyone in this house is?”

Lord Keen said: “We are not satisfied with a telephone form of probation, but as I say, contact with offenders has to be proportionate to the risk they present.”

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