In response to the MOJ consultation on Transforming Rehabilitation ACEVO has made a series of practical recommendations to help strengthen and support voluntary and community sector delivery of rehabilitation services, highlighting in particular the issue of contract size, the design of payment by results contracts and supply chain models to help implement the Rehabilitation Revolution.

ACEVO is urging the MOJ to work with the third sector, on:

• Contract size: ACEVO is concerned that the 16 Contract Package Areas may impede the Ministry’s aims to bring in a more diverse mix of providers.  The programme would benefit enormously from the expertise voluntary and community sector providers in prime contractor roles.

• Design of payment by results structures: The Ministry should seek to design contracts with a Payments By Result element of around 20%, with 80% guaranteed service fees. A 20% PBR element would be large enough to create a significant financial incentive to achieve high performance, whilst enabling a diverse range of providers to participate in delivery.

• Supply chain models: The Ministry must explore the alternative options including a frequency-based Payments By Results model, or a model which rewards certain agreed interim outcomes on the pathway to full rehabilitation, such as access to Education, Training and Employment services, or access to housing.

Welcoming the opportunity to comment on the MoJ’s plans to transform rehabilitation services, ACEVO CEO Sir Stephen Bubb said” The MOJ has a chance to work with the sector to tackle reoffending. Our responses to questions have highlighted a number of measures that could strengthen voluntary and community sector participation in the delivery of rehabilitation services. The sector has an enormous amount of experience working with the hardest to reach and successfully preventing reoffending. It’s essential that this knowledge is used if the Rehabilitation Revolution is to succeed.”

Ends

Notes to Editors

About ACEVO:

ACEVO is the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and we are the leading voice for chief executives in the third sector. With over 2,000 members nationwide, we support, develop, connect and represent third sector leaders.

www.acevo.org.uk

Charity leaders are today calling for urgent and radical reform of the criminal justice system. With prison population figures at record levels, reoffending rates stubbornly high and the Ministry of Justice facing a 23% budget cut, the charities argue that as an economy and as a society, we simply cannot afford to continue with the self-defeating status quo. ACEVO’s Reducing Reoffending taskforce is therefore urging Government to re-energise their commitment for a genuine Rehabilitation Revolution and work with the third sector to make sure it does not fall off track.

Back on Track, the Taskforce’s final report, launched today, encourages Government to be progressive and bold in their vision for reform. This means facing up to resistance from those committed to the “throw away the key” approach, and close a number of prisons in order to free up significant resource to invest in rehabilitating offenders far more effectively.

The report makes a series of practical recommendations to Government to help implement the Rehabilitation Revolution and succeed where previous administrations have not in tackling the engrained problem of reoffending.

The report urges Government to work with the third sector to:

-          FREE UP RESOURCES NOW: by redirecting the money used for discharge grants by ensuring that all prisoners leave with the basics set up before they leave the prison gate; benefits, housing, GP, bank accounts and access to the Work Programme. Secondly by making greater use of community sentences, giving probation officials more discretion and evaluating alternative provision for elderly offenders. The taskforce believes this could save as much as £40-70m per annum which could be invested as seed-corn funding for the new system and innovative ways of rehabilitating offenders.

-          REFORM HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS: creating a new system that delivers more effective and joined up services working with offenders to prevent recidivism.

-          REFORM COMMISSIONING: to ensure a level playing field between providers with services being commissioned on evidenced value not price; by reforming public sector pensions; tackling conflicts of interest by ensuring a split between commissioners and providers and extending the Right to Challenge so that voluntary groups can challenge poor services where they see them.

-          ENSURE DELIVERY MODELS DO NOT DISADVANTAGE THE THIRD SECTOR: by making sure that payment by results can work for the sector; ensuring that prime contractors are financially incentivised to manage their supply chains and to focus resources disproportionally on those offenders who are more problematic and therefore more costly to the tax payer; one that supports the key principle of competitive tendering based on quality outcomes not purely on price.

ACEVO’s taskforce was chaired by Rob Owen, chief executive of St Giles Trust - a leading charity with an impressive track record of tackling reoffending.

Speaking on the recommendations of ACEVO’s taskforce, Rob Owen said,

“It’s clear that the criminal justice system in this country needs a radical overall. With fewer resources and rising prison rates we have an impending crisis on our hands which will only drive higher rates of crime and ultimately lead to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more victims of crime; and, more worryingly, drive the destructive inter-generational cycle of crime yet further.

“Government promised a Rehabilitation Revolution, the principles of which this taskforce strongly supports. But as charities tackling, at the frontline, the cycle of reoffending we are extremely concerned that the Government is in danger of letting these principles be overcome by resistance from the 'Warehouse and throw away the key' school of thought, particularly after the August riots. Without urgent and radical reform, this revolution may well fall off track. For the wellbeing of society and for the hard pressed taxpayer we cannot afford for this to happen.

“Government needs to remain confident and bold in its commitment to the Rehabilitation Revolution and, if it is to deliver, work with us, the third sector, to help build an intelligent inter sectorial partnership to tackle reoffending. We are a sector with a long and impressive track record of working with the hardest to reach and successfully preventing reoffending – this knowledge must be central to the reforms if the Rehabilitation Revolution is to meet expectations.”

The taskforce put their recommendations to Minister Crispin Blunt and look forward to receiving a formal response.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About ACEVO:

ACEVO is the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and we are the leading voice for chief executives in the third sector. With over 2,000 members  nationwide, we support, develop, connect and represent third sector leaders.

www.acevo.org.uk

About Rob Owen

Rob Owen is Chief Executive of St Giles Trust, a multi award winning charity that helps break the cycle of re-offending. The cornerstone of St Giles services is their innovative use of trained ex-offenders who use their first hand experiences to provide services to others. Key services for St Giles revolve around housing and employment, providing intensive support to people leaving prison, work with gang members and work with families and children.  They also work with disadvantaged people in the community.

St Giles Trust was recently voted Britain’s Most Innovative Charity, as well as being a Charity of the Year award winner, a Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to work for winner and excitingly the first organisation to deliver the ‘Social Impact Bond’.

Previously Rob was an Investment Banker working in London, New York and Tokyo. He has led multiple arctic and high altitude expeditions raising money for charity and is a published author on the subject of sports sponsorship.

Members of the taskforce:

• Paul Jenkins, Chief Executive, Rethink
• Clare Jones, Joint Chief Executive,  WomenCentre
• Ginny Lunn, Director of Policy and Development, Prince’s Trust
• Clive Martin, Director, Clinks
• Andrea McCubbin, Development Director, Blue Sky Development
• Paul McDowell, CEO, Nacro
• Joyce Moseley, Chief Executive, Catch22 (replaced by new Catch 22 CEO – Chris Wright – on her retirement)
• Steve Rawlins, Regional Manager, Time For Families

[Download the press release here]

The ACEVO Commission on Youth Unemployment is warning that tomorrow’s youth unemployment figures are likely to be a “wake up call” to all those concerned about the future of young people in the UK, as new NIESR research undertaken for the Commission, and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, sheds new light on young people’s experiences of being unemployed, inactive and/or NEET (not in education, employment or training).

[Download the press release here]

ACEVO Chief Executive Sir Stephen Bubb will say in his speech to the ACEVO North Conference on Thursday that the time for warm words is over and that it is time to go 'full throttle' on public service reform in order to prevent public spending cuts from translating into a £81 billion-sized bombshell on vulnerable communities. He will also urge local government to avoid short-sighted and disproportionate cuts to voluntary-sector budgets, as a new survey of ACEVO members reveals more than a third have already seen their funding cut by 20% or more.

[Download the press release in full here]

David Miliband is to chair a taskforce set up by ACEVO on youth unemployment, reporting in winter 2011. The taskforce will be chaired by Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP, with a small number of othercommissioners from across different sectors taking part as commissioners, including Katherine Kerswell (CEO, Kent County Council), Prof. Paul Gregg (Bristol University),Baroness Stedman-Scott (CEO of the charity Tomorrow’s People), and onathan Portes (Director, National Institute for Economic and Social Research).

[Download the press release here]

The Government has pledged to increase transparency in central and local government spending on the voluntary sector as part of its response to the ACEVO Commission on Big Society report. The pledge was made at a meeting between Nick Hurd (Minister for Civil Society), Lord Rennard (Chair of the ACEVO Commission), Dame Clare Tickell, Nick Boles MP, Lord Boateng (members of the ACEVO Commission) and Sir Stephen Bubb (CEO of ACEVO).

[Read the Commission's final report]

[Download the press release here]

On the eve of the Government’s re launch of Big Society and the launch of a White Paper on Giving , the Chair of the cross party Commission on Big Society has written to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude asking for a meeting to discuss the Commission’s recent report.

The Commission was established by the charity leaders’ body ACEVO in December 2010. It brought together politicians from across the political spectrum and civil society leaders including Lord Rennard, Nick Boles MP, Lord Boateng, the Bishop of London and charity CEOs such as Dame Clare Tickell.

[Read the Commission's final report]

[Download the press release here]

The charity leaders’ body, ACEVO, has today welcomed Government’s plans outlined in the Giving White Paper to make giving both ‘easier’ and more ‘compelling’, but says Government still needs to “fill in the gaps” in their plans for building Big Society as identified by last week’s Commission on Big Society report.

Plans outlined today in the Government’s Giving White Paper cover both measures to increase giving and social action in the UK, including the introduction of a social action fund and reforms to the gift aid system, but ACEVO says whilst this is good news for the  sector it will not fill the £1bn funding gap that the voluntary sector  faces in the year ahead.

The final report by the cross party Commission on Big Society (established by ACEVO) found that only 13% of the public thought the government had a clear plan for building big society, and called for a variety of steps to ensure all parts of Whitehall pull their weight on the Prime Minister’s priority agenda. The report, “Powerful people, responsible society”, also called for a sea change in how businesses approached the Big Society agenda, in particular banks, calling on UK banks to commit a minimum of 1% of their pre tax profits to charities.

[Read the Commission's final report]

[Download the press release here]

A year on from the Prime Minister’s launch of the Big Society programme an independent, cross party Commission are calling on Government to “fill in the blanks” on Big Society.

Powerful people, responsible society, the Commission’s final report launched today, embraces the Big Society as an agenda that “should transcend party politics” but criticises Government for failing to articulate a clear plan on Big Society, as research conducted by the Commission finds that only 13% of the public believe the Government has a clear plan for Big Society.

[Read the Commission's final report]

[Download the press release here] 

New research by ippr North and ACEVO released today finds that many Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the North are missing out on the added value and benefits available to them by failing to engage effectively with local voluntary organisations and social enterprise.