Women offenders: after the Corston Report - United Kingdom ...

Justice Committee: Evidence Ev 2315 January 2013 Peter Kilgarriff, Jackie Russell, Sharon Spurling and Joy DoalQ124 Steve Brine: But it is merely your opinion onthe strategy, which you have backed up with variousevidence. Mr Kilgarriff, does anybody in governmentcare? Clearly, that is your opinion on this.Peter Kilgarriff: It is my opinion. I think this is too lowdown their priorities at the moment to care.Q125 Steve Brine: Why do you think that is?Peter Kilgarriff: It is my opinion. Part of it is about anideological fix on diversifying the service provision.One of the things that really annoys me, if I might use thatword, is the Government’s insistence on never makinga distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit in theprivate sector. When the “Transforming Rehabilitation”paper came out and talked about the private sector, itmeant Serco and SWAN. SWAN’s inability to engagein this agenda is widespread; it absolutely characterisesthe voluntary sector, particularly perhaps in the fieldof criminal justice, because, numerically, most of thevoluntary sector agencies are tiny and very dependenton grants. There are one or two large beasts, but eventhose cannot put in the capital to wait for payment byresults. Serco and G4S, for example, might be able to.That refusal to distinguish between the for-profit andnot-for-profit private sector is extremely annoying, andit is a refusal. We have asked Government to make thisdistinction, because it is a very important one, but inpublic pronouncements it is never usually made.Q126 Steve Brine: On the new PBR regime, whatrole would or should CIFC have?Peter Kilgarriff: I did not envisage CIFC having a rolein PBR in any formal way. Trusts were one of the maininvestors in the Peterborough social impact bond. Ihesitate to say it, but you used the word “depressing”.We would try to put a brake on some of the PBRproposals, because there is something about the speedwith which Government are saying this is working.It is not known whether it is working. For example,Peterborough is over a seven-year period. It is nearlyinto its third year, but there is no strong evidence yet.The evidence on the community-based work as wellneeds to be given time, and time needs resources. Weare asked to prove a reduction in reoffending withina year. You can talk about individual cases and canpresent that.Mr Corbyn’s question was about evaluation. I am notsure whether you were asking whether the centresthemselves were satisfied with their resource, butusually it is the funders who say, “These are theevaluation criteria you have to use.” If the evaluationcriteria on this work are a binary measure, which is thatyou are either in prison or out, or you did or did not goto prison, and it does not take into account the complexjourneys and stages of development and improvementin people’s lives, then I do not think it will work.Q127 Steve Brine: Jackie Russell, much of thewritten evidence we have received as a Committee andthe terms of this inquiry were designed under the tag oflocal commissioning, which now seems to be movingtowards a more national commissioning functioning.How will that affect your work?Jackie Russell: We wanted services for women tostay at a national level. What we see happening thisyear with probation trusts confirms that is what shouldhave happened. You have heard from Sharon about herfunding issue; you have heard from Joy about hers. Imet with 21 of the 31 projects just before Christmas,and talk about depressing—that was really depressing.I wrote up the sorts of things they were saying. Themajority of them had been told that they were seeing30% to 50% cuts in their services. Projects were beingtold, “You are going to have a reduction, but we nowwant you to cover the whole trust area.” So, for Joy, thatwould be Stafford down to Coventry, Wolverhamptonand Birmingham. There are some very big centres thereand that is one of the big areas in terms of numbersof women offenders. Some were told that. Some weretold, “You’re going to have all the women referred toyou”, so they would become the probation office forwomen. There is a whole range of different things.Essentially, what has happened with the money thathas driven this is that NOMS have passported it toprobation trusts without managing the process. Wecome to Peter’s point about time. A timed-managedprocess might have been more effective, but theyhave just passported it to probation trusts. They haveactually passported it to clusters of probation trusts.At the moment, 20 out of 35 probation trusts receivedfunding like this. They have now passported it to fiveclusters. Say, for argument’s sake, that within thoseclusters there are seven probation trusts. Maybe two ofthem previously had projects; maybe five of them didnot. The argument has now gone that that money has tobe split among the seven probation trusts.Not only that, but in some probation trusts they aresplitting it down to their local delivery unit. We areseeing services that were previously supported butcost quite a lot. It was £160,000 here; Joy’s was about£250,000. A £250,000 service has now got one twentyfifthof the budget that has gone to the cluster. Forinstance, in Reading, it means that Alana House hasnow got £16,000. You cannot even employ someonewith £16,000. We have seen appalling behaviour but anunmanaged process. In an unmanaged process, it is afree-for-all for the money, so what is the easiest route?The easiest route is to spread it out and be done with it.Q128 Chair: But can national commissioning workfor you?Jackie Russell: National commissioning is what theyhad last year, which is NOMS commissioning that.NOMS do not want to do that, so they are moving itfurther away. I think a national contract could work,but that brings you back to the PBR problem. If therewas a national contract at the moment and it was notNOMS but a prime provider or a large organisation, theproblem is that it is driven by profit. On employmentissues, we have projects working in prisons. Forinstance, Working Chance works in Holloway tosupport women in employment; Working Links is alsoin Holloway. I have visited that. The Working Linksworker sat in the office reading the paper. The WorkingChance organisation was working on a workshop withwomen to connect them to employment. It is WorkingChance that gets them into employment and WorkingLinks that takes the credit and the money.That brings me on to another point. I have heard it saidby the Minister that the voluntary sector needs to get