As welcome as the announcement of the justice secretary is that the probation service is to be renationalised (Probation services to return to public control after Grayling disasters, 11 June), the treatment of this relatively small but extremely important public service has been nothing short of disgraceful.
Chris Grayling was simply the last in a long line of ideologically driven home and justice secretaries, from New Labour’s Jack Straw onwards, who were intent on applying the rules and values of the market, despite the fact that in 2014 every one of the 35 locally accountable probation trusts was formally adjudged to be either good or excellent.
Having tracked this trend, we took no pride in commenting in 2012 that “a small island of decency and humanity in the criminal justice system may be disappearing” or indeed, outlining in 2015, five reasons why the government’s transforming rehabilitation strategy would fail. It was obvious to anybody with basic knowledge of the criminal justice system that operational failure, massive expense and complex bureaucratic fragmentation awaited a part-privatised system.
Three questions remain. First, will Grayling be held to account for the waste of taxpayers’ money (£600m and counting) on a scale that would have resourced the National Probation Service for almost a full year of operation? Second, will this government learn one of the lessons from the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and commit itself to rebuilding well-resourced locally accountable services that are free from by the dead hand of centralised bureaucratic control? And finally, will this justice secretary acknowledge the complex and demanding work of the probation service by enhancing the professional standing of its staff?
Professor Lol Burke School of justice studies, Liverpool John Moores University, Professor Steve Collett Liverpool John Moores University; former chief probation officer, Cheshire Probation Trust (2001-10)
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