Private firms cash in on Probation outsourcing

Despite the exclusion of discredited big beasts G4S and Serco from recent competitive tendering for £450m of probation services contracts in England and Wales, the private sector has swept the board with two outsourcing companies - Sodexo and Purple Futures - leading 'consortiums' that were last week awarded a majority of the 21 regional, ten year long, contracts:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/29/justice-probation-contracts-private-companies

Probation services on death row

A new TUC report examines the outsourcing of offender management in England and Wales, including privatisation of prisons, probation and the supervision of offenders in the community. The report, based research undertaken by the New Economics Foundation, calls for The Transforming Rehabilitation reforms (currently decimating probation services) to be put on hold while an independently evaluated pilot is carried out. The TUC calls for a ’unified, locally accountable, public probation service should be in place to ensure one agency has overall responsibility for risk management whilst maintaining important links with local communities’. The big question is whether Labour is listening to that call as the 2015 General election draws nearer?
https://www.napo.org.uk/sites/default/files/TUC%20Criminal%20Justice%20Report.pdf

Stop privatisation of probation services

UNISON and other probation unions are organising lunchtime protests today throughout England and Wales in opposition to Government plans to hive off over 70% of probation services to the private sector. 35 existing regional probation trusts will be replaced by 21 government companies which will tender out the work of supervising more than 200,000 offenders each year considered to present low or medium risk:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/privatisation-of-probation-service-will-put-public-at-risk-8825106.html
   Locations of today’s protests can be obtained from UNISON regional offices and an on-line Parliamentary petition opposing privatisation can be signed at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/44403

Profiting from the criminal justice system - It's a crime

Today's Independent reports that multinational contractors G4S, Serco and Sodexho are in the running for probation services which are being outsourced by the Con Dem Government in England and Wales:
http://www.independent.
co.uk/news/uk/politics/g4s-in-the-running-to-take-control-of-privatised-probation-8221943.html  UNISON has over 5000 members employed in probation services and, alongside NAPO, is steadfastly campaigning against privatisation: http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/unpaid_Work_flyer.pdf

Probation cuts are a false economy

"Like so many public-sector workers, probation staff are crying out to escape a heavy burden of bureaucracy and get out into their communities to do their jobs. But the piles of paperwork will only get worse if the government pushes on with cuts that are leading to so-called back office staff losing their jobs" says UNISON’s Ben Priestley: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/107572