Government consultation on probation services
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last week announced an eight-week public consultation on the future of probation.
Clinks and the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance (NCJAA) welcome this announcement. Clinks’ TrackTR research on the voluntary sector’s engagement in Transforming Rehabilitation shows that the voluntary sector is under represented, under pressure and under resourced and calls for the MoJ to openly consult on the purpose and structure of probation.
It is timely for the Ministry of Justice to take the decision to terminate current contracts in 2020 and take steps to stabilise current arrangements. Research from Clinks and others indicates that probation services, and the voluntary sector’s role in them, are currently unsustainable and not able to deliver to the quality we would like to see.”
– Anne Fox, Clinks’ Chief Executive Officer
The governments’ consultation acknowledges that the current system has presented challenges for the voluntary sector, despite the central role which was outlined in the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. There is hope that this consultation signals the start of a genuine co-design process for future commissioning and partnership arrangements between probation services and the voluntary sector so that the lessons of the current system are learnt from.
- Read Clinks’ blog exploring the proposals and their implications for the voluntary sector
- Read Clinks’ press release
- Read the Ministry of Justice’s full consultation document.
- Book on one of Clinks’ free events for the voluntary sector to find out more about the proposals and feed in your views [20th August, Bristol | 22nd August, York | 28th August, London | 4th September, Wales]
- Book on one of Ministry of Justice’s events happening this week for those interested in providing probation services in the future [2nd August, London | 3rd August, Manchester]. HM Prisons and Probation Service in Wales is organising separate events. Register on the Bravo portal to see the details.
The closing date for the consultation is 21 September 2018. The NCJAA will feed in to Clinks’ response. We encourage any NCJAA members that deliver probation services to engage in the consultation and have their say.
Click here to submit your response via online survey
Image courtesy of LandWorks
