On the 12th August, the Institute for Government, NESTA and the Design Council hosted a seminar on what the Big Society means for Criminal Justice.
On the panel were Lord Adebowale (Chief Executive of Turning Point), Jonathan Slater (Director General for Transformation, Ministry of Justice) and Mandie Campbell (Director of Drugs, Alcohol and Partnerships Unit, Crime and Policing Group, Home Office).
This note provides an overview of the points raised by the panel and in discussion.
What is the Big Society?
The panel depicted two different interpretations of the Big Society, one interpretation which has potential to work and the other which raises cause for concern.
The more concerning interpretation of the Big Society is that romantic rhetoric about the community will mask the rapid decline of state support and increasing reliance on altruism and volunteers. The panel agreed volunteering has intrinsic benefits, but were resolute in their belief that volunteers should not be treated as a free good and replacement for core public services. Generalising somewhat, when President Regan withdrew state support, gangs filled the gap and the rich purchased private care. The panel were concerned that parallels could occur in the UK if the government holds onto a romantic assumption about what the community can provide in place of the state.
A more positive interpretation of the Big Society is the idea that the problems society needs to address in 2010 cannot be solved through traditional, siloed, unengaged, public services. In some cases, central government does not know best and it should stop setting the rules by which people on the frontline interact with local communities. If people can be engaged in their community setting, and design services which address their needs, then they are less likely to need core public services over the long-term. The realisation of the Big Society should be built on the recognition that communities need to pro-actively design preventative systems of support and that the personalisation of services has to occur.
The capacity of some communities to get involved to ensure the quality of service is not left to chance may be undermined by the cuts. When reforming public services so they are more responsive to the needs of communities, the government needs to make sure that some communities are not left behind.
The case for the Big Society in Criminal Justice
In theory, the MoJ stands to gain the most from the Big Society. Cohesive communities and informal social control (so the public is able to affect what happens in their local area) results in less crime. If people can be engaged in their community setting, share responsibility, and design services which address their needs then they are less likely to fall into the Criminal Justice System in the long-term. If this reduced demand can be translated into cash savings this will mean a cheaper Criminal Justice System.
Despite the benefits of community action, the default position is to rely on the Criminal Justice System to tackle crime. This struck some members of the audience as peculiar. The point was raised that the CJS does not have the ability to tackle all causes of crime. Currently efforts are focused on rehabilitation within prison. Yet of crimes that are taken to trial, a very low percentage of defendants go to prison. Therefore, focusing efforts on those who enter the prison system may not have maximum impact on the level of crime.
Moreover, the CJS cannot intervene in all criminal acts. There is a perception in government that much crime is dependent on how people relate to each other in their communities, and therefore can often be prevented through informal social controls. The government believes that people should feel they can intervene when they see crime occurring – they should take action, get involved and hold people to account
Currently, people often turn a blind eye to anti-social behaviour in their area. Reference was made research which found 2/3rds of people in Germany would intervene if they saw a bus stop being vandalised whereas 2/3rds of people in the UK would not. The government believes that this passive behaviour is the result of too much state action disabling community responsibility. A smashed bus stop often matters the most to the public, who believe that crime builds in neighbourhoods in which no action is taken.
Finally, it was acknowledged that examples of Big Society-type volunteering already exist in the Criminal Justice System, there are over 30,000 magistrates in the UK and organisations such as Neighbourhood Watch, and these should be learnt from and built upon.
What is being done?
Rehabilitation Revolution initiatives
A number of Big Society initiatives are already underway. They form part of a ‘Rehabilitation Revolution’ in the MoJ which will help move it from a reactive department to a problem solving department – that intervenes early to prevent later, and more costly, difficulties.
Initiatives being considered include mediators to resolve family disputes, crime prevention strategies, more use of community order and restorative justice and an integrated approach to offender management. With regard to the latter, there is already a lot of work being done within prisons helping prisoners integrate back into communities. However, services are still commissioned separately and integration at other points in the system could be improved. Therefore, there are opportunities to be more radical still.
Innovative funding mechanisms
Discussion centred on the funding mechanisms which could support the Big Society.
The government aims to give contracts to organisations which can achieve the best outcomes, which may mean a diversification of the organisations involved in the Criminal Justice System. To support the best providers, innovative funding mechanisms, such as Payment by Results and Social Impact Bonds are being piloted. Concerns were raised about how the effectiveness of the social impact bonds could be proved, but the audience were reassured that providers have to take on a range of ex-offenders (not just the ‘low hanging fruit’ who are easier to move along the journey to rehabilitation) and the pilot is at sufficient scale to prove whether it works or not.
The incentive to take contracts out at a local level will be stronger if providers control all parts of the system. As in social care, providers commissioned for re-offending outcomes may want to own the whole pathway and have responsibility for purchasing support and care along the way. This could create competition between providers, who have to convince for example, local authorities, that a particular pathway would be the most effective.
For this to work, commissioning needs to improve. Commissioning structures need to be in place that are repeatable and most importantly, commissioners need to know what works, rather than letting ‘a thousand flowers bloom’ and allowing innovation for innovations sake. Whether providers have the skills to negotiate a range of additional subcontracts which will make up the pathway was called into question.
Further, there is a different between private and voluntary sector motives when private companies are accountable to their stakeholders and shareholders, and not necessarily their customers. The private sector has a huge contribution to make, but the government needs to be upfront and honest about the potential conflicts of interest. The Not-for-profit sector also needs to become increasingly business aware.
Involve the public
The customer has been brought to the centre of the room in a number of successful commercial businesses – citizen centred public services should do the same.
Whilst there is already a lot of work underway, the point was made that the pathway to reform in the CJS needs to be determined through interactions with the public, with the government supporting what communities want to do rather than telling communities what to do.
Management professionals in the public, private and not for profit sectors should be encouraged to collaborate with one another and the public in order to deliver beneficial outcomes. It was suggested that the public, as both users of public services and consumers of private sector services, do not care who delivers the service as look as they can interact with the service as they wish to. But, the question was raised as to who has the ability to both join this up and provide answers at scale.
Policing reform
On the policing side, Policing in the 21st century: reconnecting police and the people outlines the approach to making policing more accountable to the public. The Home Office envisages that public engagement will be made easier through police commissioners who will be directly democratically accountable to the community and will therefore give the community a greater say.
There is a need to think about how to stimulate mass engagement and create the conditions for engagement to flourish. Organisations like Neighbourhood Watch can help to make communities more active and help communities to find their own solutions and move away from the default position being to turn to central government.
Transparent information
There was a consensus that communities can engage more in local issues. The argument was made that the public will be able to become more involved in local issues if they are given more information. Information access could be direct (crime figures and satisfaction figures for a local area) or by giving the police more information which they could then pass onto the public.
However, if information is to be the mechanism for engagement, all members of the community need to be able to access this information so that some are not left behind. Moreover, the point was raised that engagement only occurs if the issues under consideration mean something. People don’t tend to engage with data, so questions were raised as to whether transparency a suitable mechanism to get the whole community engaged.
The public may also need help in understanding how to make difficult choices on the allocation of scare resources, and what the implications of it will be. For example, drugs policy currently prioritises people on the edges of society who are unlikely to enjoy much civic support or input in ‘Big Society’ civic decision making. Policy based on ‘moralistic’ decision making could conflict with the realities of the evidence and information.