Devolving Probation Services: An ethnographic study of the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda

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The Probation Service in England & Wales is a public body which plays a key role in the criminal justice system. The Service is more than 100 years old and is responsible for supervising offenders subject to community-based sentences as well as large numbers of offenders who are subject to mandatory supervision at the end of a prison sentence. Currently the Probation Service supervises approximately 220,000 offenders in the community and employs more than 16,000 staff. In 2013 the Ministry of Justice announced plans to implement a policy which will see approximately 70% of the work carried out by the public Probation Service being outsourced to other providers, including private sector companies. The first stage in the process involves the creation of 21 'Community Rehabilitation Companies' (from 1 April 2014) which will be owned by the Ministry of Justice for a period of several months, prior to being offered for sale to a variety of potential providers, including private companies.This project will examine this significant development in one part of the country, providing a case study of the 'devolution' of the majority of probation services. It will look in detail, in one metropolitan area, at the process and implications of moving the bulk of probation work (and staff) from the public Probation Service to a Community Rehabilitation Company with an uncertain future. The project will seek to understand this process from a variety of perspectives, including those of senior managers involved in running the Company and probation workers engaged in supervising offenders. The researchers will attend and observe management meetings, collect and analyse policy documents and conduct interviews with staff at all levels within the organisation. The research will provide a detailed picture of a significant development in the criminal justice system and, more broadly, the process of 'outsourcing' a public service.