Nacro's response to Breaking the Cycle Green Paper

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Breaking the Cycle: Nacro’s response | 36Q23 What is the best way of reflecting the contribution of different providers withina payment-by-results approach for those offenders sentenced to custodialsentences and released on licence?Nacro recognises that it is going to be difficult to ascertain what specific interventions, carriedout by which providers, actually made the material difference to reductions in reoffending. Aspayment by results is rolled out on a larger scale, this becomes all the more complex and allthe more challenging. But Nacro has long been calling for a move away from a preoccupationwith who delivers the service and towards a greater focus on outcomes. This is what mattersto victims, to communities and, ultimately, to the offender. It follows, therefore, that crosssectorcollaboration and consortia is the way forward under payment by results and thatseamless service offerings are put forward. The sharing of risk and/or any profit should be leftto providers to determine according to their memoranda of understanding.Q24 What is the best way of developing the market to ensure a diverse base ofproviders?Payment by results is already attracting new providers and new combinations of providersto the market. Given time, and the emergence of more large volume opportunities, this trendwill continue to grow. But at the moment we are in a period of transition. Charities are facingreductions brought about by public spending cuts, particularly at the local level, at the sametime as they are having to gear up for larger-scale, higher-risk opportunities involving paymentby results. Even then, beyond the announcement of the six pilots – some of which are stillrelatively small in scale – there is little indication that the new commissioning arrangements willbe in place any time soon. This is challenging when it comes to long-term strategic planning.What is required is decisive leadership from government, based on regular dialogue with theprovider side – particularly in the charity sector – to determine the precise shape, scale androll-out of the market. Moving too quickly will mean that some voluntary sector providers (andthe unique contributions they could make) will be left behind. Moving too slowly will preventorganisations realising sufficient return on the investment they will have made in the newarrangements.In addition, we would like to see a move away from long, prescriptive tender specificationsand more autonomy for provider consortia to determine the best way of achieving the requiredreoffending outcomes in any given tender.Q25 Do you agree that high-risk offenders and those who are less likely toreoffend should be excluded from the payment-by-results approach?Nacro does not agree that any cohort of offenders should be automatically excluded frompayment by results. From a victim and community perspective, there is even more reason
Breaking the Cycle: Nacro’s response | 37to ensure that the right outcomes are achieved with offenders who present the highest risk.That said, it is important that any new commissioning arrangements do not detract from thesuccesses of existing multi-agency public protection panel arrangements.Q26 What measurement method provides the best fit with the principles we haveset out for payment by results?Nacro agrees that the best measure of success relates to future convictions, police cautions orpenalty notices. We also consider a period of two years is required before sustained successcan be claimed. We would like to see a move towards realising more than one social outcomewith the same set of interventions and would hope that this can be tested in current or futurepilot arrangements.Q27 What is the best option for measuring reoffending and success to support apayment-by-results approach?Nacro understands the desire for keeping the arrangements as simple and straightforward aspossible and this suggests the need for a binary measure: did the offender commit further crimeor not? Indeed there can be no doubt that the ultimate aim must be that offenders stop offending.That said, Nacro knows that with some offenders the reality on the ground is very different.Progress is not necessarily a straight line and lapses do not always mean that the offender hasreturned to a life of crime. Very serious offending can be made less frequent. Very persistentoffending can be made less frequent. Both of these intermediate measures are positiveindicators towards the right direction of travel. There are also reliable tools at our disposalwhich allow for predicted versus actual reoffending by individuals and cohorts of offenders.
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Nacro's response to Breaking the Cycle Green Paper

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