David Hunter looks on the bright side of life to see how the Ministry of Justice's new payment-by-results proposals for offender rehabilitation might benefit voluntary sector providers.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has just completed a consultation on its proposals to open up probation servies to competition.  Its stated objectives are to reduce reoffending, to reduce the overall spend on offenders by the State and to preserve a diversity of service provision, including from the voluntary and community sector (VCS).

The MoJ proposal involves a national programme of sixteen regional procurements where services shall be delivered on a payment by results basis. On the face of it, there is much to worry about for the many VCS organisations that currently provide services on a small and specialised basis. However, adopting the Philosophy of Brian (“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”), what, at best, might the Transforming Rehabilitation programme look like to enable VCS organisations to contribute to achieving the MoJ’s stated outcomes whilst thriving themselves? It could look something like this:

Programme design

1. MoJ takes local need and provision into account in structuring each one of the procurements under the programme.

2. MoJ facilitates (and funds) substantive capacity building exercises so that all interested parties have the opportunity to come together and develop credible proposals for delivering the proposed outcomes before formal procurements commence.

3. MoJ creates a diversity of contract packages nationally, of different sizes and complexions, encouraging a diverse market of providers including VCS consortia, social investors, social enterprise spin outs from probation trusts and private sector primes contracting on a fair and equitable basis (see below).

4. The design of the programme retains a focus on encouraging preventative spend and so reducing the long term cost of the criminal justice system to the taxpayer, rather than simply measuring the headline cost of the individual contracts let.