MPs are asking why probation privatisation cost billions and helped nobody
Richard Heaton, permanent secretary, Ministry of Justice [Image: Wikipedia].
Tories don’t understand money – possibly because their party is run by entitled fools who have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it.
The cluelessness bleeds into government, despite the fact that – in public service – the Tories should have the benefit of impartial advice.
But we see, here, that two of their advisors – Richard Heaton, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, and Michael Spurr, chief executive of the Prison and Probation Service – are to appear before the Commons Public Accounts Committee to explain why they have allowed the Tories to spend nearly £2.5 billion letting private companies into the probation service – that cannot do the job.
Perhaps it’s different in Westminster, but in the United Kingdom This Writer inhabits, if you take money to do a job and don’t actually do it, you’re in breach of contract.
Sure, and part of the disaster was caused by HMG. The idea was to give 21 companies £3.7 billion until 2022 to handle and help prisoners serving 12 months or more who are at low risk of self-harm.
But it seems people like Messrs Heaton and Spurr had overestimated the number of low risk ex-offenders leaving prison and underestimated the number of high risk ex-offenders who are still being helped by the publicly run probation service
It means the private companies were dealing with fewer people, so they’d get less money – £1.6 billion less. This put them in financial difficulty.
It also transpires that these companies were also complete and utter failures at the job – so bad, according to inspectors, that they may as well not exist.
So why has the Tory government agreed to spend £342 million keeping them in business and in-contract?
The state should be demanding its money back from these privateers. They’re in breach of contract.
It should seem bizarre to anyone that the government is throwing good money after bad in this way.
All should become clear when it is revealed that the government minister behind this disaster – Secretary of State for Justice at the time the contracts were awarded – was walking disaster Chris Grayling.
On Wednesday two very highly paid civil servants – £185,000 a year Richard Heaton, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice and £190,000 a year Michael Spurr, Chief Executive, HM Prison and Probation Service – will appear before MPs to explain their latest botch-up – the privatisation failure of parts of the probation service.
I hope MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee will not only be briefed by the excellent National Audit Office report and investigation into the failure of Community Rehabilitation Companies – the fancy name for profit making companies like Sodexo and Seetec.
They should also read the coruscating report by Dame Glenys Stacey HM Chief Inspector of Probation and Peter Clarke HM Chief Inspector of Prisons last June on the performance of these companies and their failure to either help ex offenders go straight or protect the public from child abusers and perpetrators of domestic violence.
Source: The Great £300m Probation Bail Out: You Pay, They Prey | David Hencke
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
It appears that the government, and nu labour are as complicit as the tories in this, are so desperate to get the private sector to run things, that the contracts are so much in favour of the companies they can’t take the contracts back no matter the level of incompetence.
Doesn’t matter if the companies go out of business, of course. The contracts would be void.
And it’s a good thing there’s never been any such thing as “Nu Labour”, isn’t it?
He means new labour and they did privatised many including the NHS services,! Why? Because their backers and them selves are to gain out of the millions going into private hands from public tax payer money! thus is the tory plan also!
Isn’t it a good thing New Labour has gone the way of the Dodo, then?
Yet another publicly funded Tory cash cow. They don’t really care if it works or not, just as long as it makes them money.
It doesn’t matter to the Tories whether it fails or not it serves their purpose, public services transferred into private hands are taken out of public control and accountability.
This is all part of the corporate sector dictating the standard of living, and in their eyes we are just there to serve their needs.
Facts are not something Tories worry about, the nearest they ever get to the truth is whether what they say appears plausible or not.
The myth that the private sector generates the wealth in this country is plain to see……. when we examine why so many of these so called entrepreneurs are involved in buying up these public services.
As a sovereign government we can reverse anything these Tories do, so the sauce that is good for the Gander is also good for the Goose.