Recommendation 13

We last examined the Ministry’s progress in outsourcing its probation services in May 2019. We concluded that in its haste to rush through its reforms, the Ministry of Justice had not only failed to deliver its ‘rehabilitation revolution’ but left probation services underfunded and fragile. We warned that if it did not put into practice the lessons from its failed reforms, the Ministry was in danger of repeating the same mistakes again.26 The Ministry accepted that there were similarities between its transforming rehabilitation programme and its approach to outsourcing facilities management. It admitted that it had prioritised acting quickly and achieving savings that were unrealistic and had made mistakes as a result. It recognised that it had taken a complex service to a market that was brand new, with complicated contracts, cost incentives that were in the wrong place and assumptions that were not properly tested. It also explained that it had outsourced “hundreds and hundreds” of small contracts or in-house services and put them out to the sector “without what it was that we were asking the sector to do”. As a result, providers had taken on the facilities management contracts without being able to fully understand what they were taking on.27