For better and smarter public services
Improving home affairs and criminal justice policies is a major public policy challenge. Police forces need continued reform and more effective collaboration, prisons face high incarceration and reoffending rates, and the borders are increasingly under pressure and must prepare for the outcomes of Brexit.
Reform undertakes work on how the right workforce, performance measures, devolved structures and technology can support services through these challenges.
Commenting on the Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland QC MP’s announcement that probation services will be renationalised, Aidan Shilson-Thomas, Reform Criminal Justice lead, said:
“Renationalising probation services is no silver bullet, and does not guarantee the quality of offender supervision needed to keep the public safe and reduce reoffending.
“It will be a huge challenge for the National Probation Service to take over from the private sector in such a short time, including recruiting and training large numbers of staff.
“Previous reforms have been rushed, and the next steps must be taken carefully. The Government must not make the same mistake of under investing, which crippled the current model, and avoid overburdening probation services with unnecessary centralisation.”
