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Roger condemns plans to privatise the probation service

Posted by Roger Godsiff, MP for Birmingham, Hall Green, at 12:07, Thu 31 October 2013:

Roger has written to the Minister for Prisons and Rehabilitation to express his opposition to the Government’s plans to outsource the majority of the Probation Service’s work to private companies with poor reputations and track records, including G4S and Serco. The Government’s plan will allow these companies to bid for the majority of the Probation Service’s work, including the supervision of all medium and low risk offenders. The Government’s definition of “medium risk” includes people convicted of serious crimes including violent and sexual offences, gang members and domestic violence perpetrators.

Roger’s constituents who work for the Probation Service contacted him because they were worried that the plans will result in a more expensive service, poorer working conditions and a greater risk of harm to members of the public, in return for fat profits for companies with a record of failures and abuses. Roger said: “When G4S were allowed responsibility for security at the Olympics, they were so inept that the Army had to be called in. Why is this Government incapable of learning from their mistakes, rather than repeating them at the taxpayer’s expense?”

In his letter to the Minister Roger pointed out that this country already has an extremely good probation service, which unlike G4S is fully accountable to the British public and does not skim off profits for the benefit of shareholders. The Probation Service in England and Wales is performing better than ever and meeting its targets, and levels of reoffending for those supervised by the service are at their lowest for five years.

Roger also reminded the Government that payment by results, their preferred structure for the outsourcing, worked extremely poorly in the Pathways to Work scheme. As the Public Accounts Committee pointed out, private providers’ performance was “universally poor”, and was worse than the alternative provided by Jobcentre Plus. Private providers tended to cherry pick their clients yet still achieved only one third of the targets for mandatory participants. Roger commented: “I am unaware of any evidence which suggests that payment by results will work better when it comes to helping people on probation, who are former offenders with frequently chaotic lives which may involve drug addiction, mental health issues and illiteracy.”

He continued: “I am concerned that private companies will also cherry pick if they are allowed to take responsibility for the probation service. They will focus on those offenders who will make them the most profit with the least input, and not those whose behaviour most needs to change to protect the public. I do not think it is worth taking such serious risks with public safety simply to further fatten the shareholders of G4S.”