,
16 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
So in 2013, I wrote this piece on Chris Grayling's privatisation of probation politics.co.uk/comment-analys…
Yes, I know the massive pic of me up top is insane. We had no idea what the fuck we were doing back then. Anyway.
The chief criticisms back then from experts - yes those people - and people working in the service were two -fold.
Firstly, that splitting 30,000 high risk cases, to be dealt with by the national service, from 220,000 low to medium risk cases, to be dealt with by private firms and voluntary groups, would create fragmentation. 
And secondly that the paid-by-result mechanism of privatisation was not well suited to probation because of the sheer weight of variables.
Did Chris Grayling care that most experts, trade unions and probation workers was against him and offering detailed, evidence-based criticism of his plans?
Did he cunt.
Skip six years - OH MY GOD I AM OLD - to today and the NAO publishes an assessment of how things are going. Here's the summary. nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
The failure is near-total.
Voluntary groups stayed away, no innovation, significant increases people being recalled to prison, inadequate help getting people back into the community afterwards.
But on three central issues, the failings were exactly as predicted when he first did it.
First, he did not understand the system he was reforming, because he didn't give a shit what the people who worked in it had to say
Second, the system fragmented in exactly the way he was told it would and is still not working smoothly again.
And finally, a payment-by-results model simply does not work for probation, no matter how much blinded ideological privatisation-loving zeal you to bring to it.
These trends, of ignoring experts and smashing up systems for your own dimwitted reactionary ends, did not start with Brexit. But they always have the same result.
Also, and with feeling: How. The fuck. Does Chris Grayling still have a job?
