Starting with the problem rather than the structure - aka how rather than who
by Grahame Broadbelt
Whilst being no expert on the probation service I cannot help but worry about the current progress of the Offender Management Bill in the teeth of significant opposition from the Labour Backbenchers.
My difficulty is this. The problem this bill is trying to solve is rooted in the assertion that the Probation Service are not reducing reoffending rates at the pace the Government require. The solution is to let the voluntary sector and the private sector have a go instead. The assumption therefore is that the reason we have high levels of reoffending is something to do with the Probation Service and therefore if we get rid of them (or rather we move them into a complex web of interrelationships with other suppliers with government contracts - but that is a whole other story) then all will be well. Is it me or is that nonesense?
It is always clear to me that when faced with a problem we don't understand the solutions to that we often replace insight with action. Organisations do it all the time ('we need to improve the performance of the people in this organisation, trouble is that we have no idea how to do that so let's reorganise everything in the hope that'll work').
I am certain that there are some complex problems relating to bringing down reoffending rates and some complex problems in improving the performance of the Probation Service. So we need answers to the question 'how do we bring down reoffending rates?' and 'how do we improve the performance of the probation service?'
The Offender Management Bill has absolutely nothing to say on either of these central questions. So lots of money will be spent, lots of change will have to managed, lots of transition in the system will have to take place, lots of unintended consequences of major structural change will have to be handled, lots of new agencies will be created and lots of communications teams and press people will be employed to explain everything. Meanwhile whatever we know about how to reduce re-offending rates will not get much of a mention (it hasn't so far despite the best efforts of some backbench MPs).
Lots of dedicated people in the probation service and in the voluntary sector will continue to shoulder the everyday burden of working with offenders to break the cycle of offending. They deserve our support because they are in the front line trying to make good choices in service to our collective need to reduce crime and improve the life-chances of ex-criminals.
How to help them do that more effectively is what we should be doing. Not changing the cast of actors, creating even more complexity and ducking the central problem entirely.
David Burnby
I'm minded of the quote attributed to CaiusPetronius (AD66)
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization." Seems some things never change...
Jamie Bartlett
Sounds like disreorganisation theory to me: the idea that the most common reason for reorganising organisations is "no good reason" and that it is fuelled by people with that are intoxicated by the propsect of change. Admittedly this new theory (and honestly there are papers on this) is a bit of a joke, but there is a serious point about organisational theory in there. It's known as the "garbage can approach" to policy making, where policy change is more about solutions looking for problems rather than vice-versa.