Clinks Members’ Policy Briefing | August 2014
In this month's edition...NewsResponse to Cabinet Office consultation on a new fund to support the sustainability of voluntary sector organisations Clinks’ response highlights that voluntary sector organisations working in criminal justice and community safety are having to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment, significant policy changes, changing service user need, and a reduction in available funding, and we know that this can have a negative impact on the valuable and effective services they deliver. We have provided responses to questions where we feel our experience has highlighted particularly good practice in the provision of funding and support for the sector.
Ministerial Appointments: July 2014 Key changes relating to the Cabinet reshuffle include: Brooks Newmark replacing Nick Hurd as Minister for Civil Society, Andrew Selous being appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Minister for Prisons, Probation and Rehabilitation in place of Jeremy Wright, who is now Attorney General, and Nicky Morgan taking over from Michael Gove as Education Secretary and also moving into the Minister for Women and Equalities role.
Home Secretary’s speech at the Women’s Institute and Prison Reform Trust's Care not Custody conference The Care not Custody coalition represents 34 different organisations and professional bodies, and almost two million people across the health, social care and justice sectors and wider society. The Rt Hon Theresa May MP gave a speech at a recent reception held by the coalition, and outlined key work the Government is undertaking in relation to people with mental health problems, learning difficulties and other vulnerabilities who come into contact with the Criminal Justice System. This includes a review of the operation of section 135 and section 136 of the Mental Health Act, the trialling of street triage schemes in nine police force areas where police work in partnership with a mental health practitioner and the commission of an inspection, led by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary into the treatment of vulnerable people in police custody.
Criminal Justice and Courts Bill This has just passed through the Committee stage in the House of Lords and is expected to reach report stage on the 20th October 2014. The Bill contains criminal justice changes including sentencing, cautions and prisoners’ release and recall; secure colleges for young offenders; courts and tribunal changes, including contribution towards court costs for those who are convicted of a crime; amendments to the offence of possession of extreme pornographic images; and changes to the conduct and funding of judicial review claims.
Justice Involving Volunteers in Europe (JIVE) This two year project, funded by the European Commission and led by Clinks, has established a partnership of 8 non-government organisations from across Europe working within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) to exchange ideas and share good practice. The project aims to build on the recommendations from the Policy Agenda for Volunteering in Europe produced at the end of the 2011 European Year of Volunteering, and the opinion given by the European Economic & Social Committee (SOC/431-EU Policies & Volunteering). Through an online survey, JIVE aims to explore the role and value of volunteers within organisations working with ex-offenders and in prisons in Europe. You can take part in the survey here.
Offender Health
Navigating the health landscape in England: A guide for the voluntary sector working with offenders This report by Clinks provides an accessible overview of the complex health and care world, to help the voluntary sector navigate it. It highlights the key bodies involved, including those with direct responsibility for commissioning offender health services.
Rights and complaints procedures for health and care services This report by Clinks gives essential guidance that explains how and where to challenge health services if you believe a service user is not receiving the right treatment or standard of care.
Sahir House: Achieving outcomes for HIV positive clients This case study, written by Clinks, highlights how successful partnerships with the health and care sector have enabled Sahir House to provide continuity of support to a service user through the difficult transition from prison to the community.
Lancashire Women’s Centres: Ensuring the best health outcomes for vulnerable women This case study, also written by Clinks explores one voluntary sector organisation’s experiences of providing NHS commissioned mental health services to improve outcomes for the women they work with.
Criminal Justice System
A presumption against imprisonment: social order and social values This report by the British Academy explores why the UK has a high prison population and contributes to the ongoing debate as to why and how we should try to reduce both the number of people in custodial establishments and the length of time for which they are imprisoned.
Building better courts: Lessons from London’s Family and Drug Alcohol Court (FDAC) This report by the New Economics Foundation and Centre for Justice Innovation outlines the success of the FDAC and explores its implementation history in an attempt to identify strategies that laid the foundation for the success of the project. Key strategies that contributed to its success include: targeting a clearly defined and well-evidenced problem relevant to policy makers and local commissioners; developing a locally tailored solution and identifying immediate cost savings.
Unlocking banking-impact report This report by Unlock reflects on the progress the organisation has made during a 9-year project that developed access to basic bank accounts for people in prison before release. The report details a number of recommendations for NOMS, to ensure progress is sustained and developed further. These include: ensuring there is a single point of contact for prisons to use if they are looking for advice and support, establishing a standard framework which allows prisons to assess ‘need’ amongst prisoners, and put in place a system where this can be collected centrally so ‘need’ can be matched with the number of accounts actually opened; and ensuring that prisons are sufficiently resourced and appropriately targeted so they can help anyone who wants to open a bank account before they are released.
Young people
‘It’s a lonely journey’ A Rapid Evidence Assessment on Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse This report, published by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner examined 57, 226 research studies into child sexual abuse. It found that there is a lack of research into child sexual abuse in families, including almost no research directly looking at children and young people’s experiences of what would have helped to prevent it or support those who have been abused. The report also shows that there is a particular lack of knowledge about the experiences of disabled children and those from minority groups, as well as little being known about the prevalence of long-term psychological and physical harm caused by sexual abuse in family environments.
On my own: the accommodation needs of young people leaving care in England This report by Barnardo’s follows research carried out with care leavers and support workers across a range of the charity’s services throughout England. It found that many care leavers are worried about the risk of becoming homeless and are experiencing difficulties with finding appropriate accommodation and living independently for the first time. The report also shows that many care leavers experience practical problems such as how to pay bills and cook for themselves whilst others have experienced problems with their accommodation and risk eviction and homelessness.
Women
Violence against women and girls: communications insight pack This pack, published by the Home Office, covers a wide range of information relating to Violence Against Women and Girls and includes national statistics, background information on policy and government and partner campaigns. It will be updated on a regular basis when more information becomes available.
Justice Data Lab statistics: Working chance This report by the Ministry of Justice outlines the Justice Data Lab results for Working Chance, who support female offenders into voluntary and paid work with mainstream employers. The analysis indicates that individuals who received the recruitment service run by Working Chance experienced a reduction in reoffending between 0.2 and 13 percentage points. The frequency of reoffending for 52 offenders who received the recruitment service was 0.08 offences per individual, compared with 0.53 per individual in the matched control group. The difference in reoffending rates is statistically significant.
Women and girls at risk: evidence across the life course Barrow Cadbury Trust, LankellyChase Foundation and the Pilgrim Trust commissioned DMSS Research to undertake a wide ranging review as part of their work to broaden the approach of the Corston Independent Funders Coalition to look at the underlying causes of risk and disadvantage for women and girls. The review looked across the life course of women and girls who experience poor outcomes (offending, homelessness, prostitution and exploitation, chronic mental health and substance abuse) and highlighted significant gaps in the evidence in this area.
Policing
Policing in Austerity: Meeting the Challenge The HM Inspectorate of Constabulary tracked police forces’ responses to budget cuts since 2011, using force data and inspections to analyse how they are making savings and how this is affecting the service they are providing to their communities. The report found that police forces in England and Wales have met the financial challenge of the spending review, victims' satisfaction has increased and crime continues to fall.
Keeping London’s children safe: The Met’s role in safeguarding children This report published by the Police and Crime Committee at the London Assembly has found that significant increases in the number of allegations of rape and sexual assault against children are stretching the resources of the Metropolitan Police unit responsible for investigating them. Although the report found significant improvements in the way the Met approaches child protection, including improved cooperative working with many other agencies, it calls for an increase in the number of officers dedicated to tackling this issue.
Welfare Reform
One day at a time: examining the cumulative impact of welfare reform on benefit claimants in Wales This report by Citizens Advice Cymru is based on evidence from across the Citizens Advice Bureaux network in Wales as well as qualitative research that explored the ‘lived experience’ of the recent benefit changes. The qualitative element of the research examines how welfare changes are affecting different areas of benefit claimants’ lives including their physical and mental health, living arrangements, work and job seeking behaviour, and personal relationships. It also investigates the coping mechanisms people have adopted to help them manage the changes; their knowledge and understanding of future changes and their perceived capacity to cope in the future.
Payment by Results
Evaluating the Efficacy of Social Impact Bonds The Ministry of Justice has commissioned RAND Europe to evaluate the development, implementation and operation of the Social Impact Bond (SIB) at HMP Peterborough. This evaluation report identifies lessons from the development and implementation of the SIB to inform other Payment by Results (PbR) pilots; investigates if the pilot led to reduced reoffending and assesses whether this funding model leads to greater efficiency and examines the wider costs and benefits of the SIB.
Drug and alcohol use
Crime trends and illicit drug use This report by the Home Office examines the relationship between illicit drug use and crime and details the potential impact on crime rates of the changes in the number of people using opiates and crack-cocaine since 1980.
The Work Programme
The Work Programme This report by the National Audit office outlines that the performance of the Work Programme is at similar levels to previous programmes but is less than originally forecast. The Department for Work and Pensions has struggled to improve outcomes for harder-to-help groups and the programme has the potential to offer value for money if it can achieve higher rates of performance that the Department now expects.
Impact of welfare reform and commissioning on those with multiple needs In this blog, Sam Thomas, Programme Manager at Drugscope, examines the initial findings from a survey carried out as part of the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) Voices from the Frontline project, in which Clinks is one of the four partner organisations. Over 140 organisations participated in the survey who between them represent as many as 70,000 individuals.
Provide employment support? Know about the NOMS CFO/ESF operational programme? In this blog, Nathan Dick, Head of Policy and Communications at Clinks, gives details about the third round of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) Co-Financing Organisation's (CFO) funding called the 'Operational Programme'
Co-ordinating services, but for whom? Natalie Maidment and Isabel Livingstone, Local Development Officers at Clinks for the North East and South West respectively, explore some of the issues involved for the Making Every Adult Matter Coalition (MEAM) in identifying appropriate clients to work with.
Where does talent come from? Saul Hewish, Co-Director of Rideout gives details about the success of the Talent 4 programme that uses a mix of puzzles, games, activities, films and discussion to help participants in custodial settings become more aware of their innate skills and talents.
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