Yesterday saw the eventual publication of the Beecroft report by the Government (Link) after the Telegraph leaked a copy earlier in the day. The leaked copy (Link) which would appear to be an earlier draft of the report, contains some elements not included in the official report. This has led to claims of political editing by opposition parties and groups and yet again the Government seem to be driven by events rather than driving the agenda themselves. Indeed, the Business Secretary, Vince Cable is not in full support of the report. His statement on the BIS website is clearly distancing himself and the department from the report (Link).

There is lots of negativity in the news right now, families facing the reality of public sector cuts, the risk of redundancy, uncertainty whether the private sector will really be able to pick up the shortfall in the employment market and now a double dip recession.

Many a wise person has already commented that the savings needed in the public sector should be conducted avoiding a non thinking “salami slice” approach.  Departments and other public bodies have been working hard these past two years to or more to deliver required savings without impacting service users. I have written here myself about the terrible and difficult choices having to be made in Prisons and Health as just a couple of examples.

We know that times  are tough, we get told about it at least five times a day, so it is interesting that now is the time that a number of Trade Unions choose to call for action , including strike action in relation to pay and pension claims.

I was really disappointed to hear reported in the news this weekend that the Chancellor has a plan to move away from National Pay rates for Public Sector workers: (Link)

My disappointment comes in several forms, firstly that we are living with apparently our first generation “professional” politicians, many of the people in power and in the key opposition positions have never done anything else, stints as SPADs don’t count. With this career history in mind it is my (probably naive) expectation that irrespective of party political persuasion, they are well versed  in the detail of  the history of previous administrations of the 20^th Century. Here’s the second big disappointment, the announcement this morning tells me that there really are no new ideas,  not even in this professionalised group of people. We have been here before. 

Ideas of regional variation have been floated before. It was dealt with by Local Pay Allowances, where certain locations attracted a pay addition that differentiated the National rate.

Ask anyone what purpose prison serves and they’ll be pretty clear in their answer. The NOMS statement of purpose and vision is very clear too:

‘We work to protect the public and reduce re offending by delivering the punishment and orders of the courts and by helping offenders to reform their lives.’

However, this simple two line statement actually translates itself into one of the largest organisational confusions that exist in theUKtoday.

Maybe it is the incredibly broad nature of the statement that allows for such wide interpretation, or maybe it is that regardless of the political bias there has not been a UK Government in the last 25 years that has known, let alone been able to articulate what they want from prisons.

The crucible of the confusion is around helping offenders to reform their lives. There is a vast and growing network of government bodies, charitable providers and private companies all involved in various programmes designed to deliver this aim.  Think of any of the seven pathways and they are well supported with any number of providers. In fact, it’s a bit like a rehabilitation hypermarket, pick a pathway and choose the provider.  In essence it sounds like the perfect commissioning model, just what the government need, tailored programmes for a specific population, delivered in the most cost efficient way.

I listened to a very interesting slot on the ‘Today Programme’ this morning. It was designed to cut through the significant polarisation occurring between proponents of the ‘Plan A’ ‘Plan B’ economic argument raging at the moment.

You can listen to it here (Link)

Apart from the early assertion that expansionary contraction is never likely to produce growth (no matter how hard the Government try to make us believe it will), the main point that hit home for me was that the answer is all about risk appetite.

News that the board of RBS approving a bonus for CEO Stephen Hester has caused much consternation.

The political and media pressure has resulted in Mr Hester waiving the bonus. There is much discussion at the moment between whether the bonus was a contractual clause or a matter of discretion for the board.

In the end Mr Hester has taken a course deemed by many to be the correct, propriety rather than payment.

However, is it right?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has today delivered the ‘Autumn statement’

A copy of the full statement can be viewed here: (Click Link)

Signal was pleased to attend the first NoOffence! Criminal justice conference yesterday. This relatively new group has, in a short space of time, brought together an impressive cross section of professionals all interested in criminal justice reform.

We at Signal are currently working with NoOffence! on a working group to improve employment support for ex-offenders and potential employers.

Signal were pleased to attend the second in a series of events run by Human Potential Accounting (HPA) on the subject of Human Capital Management (HCM) and it’s place in the financial reporting of UK business.

The event was held in the Dorchester Library of the Royal College of Physicians in London and was attended by a wide variety of interested people from many sectors:

• Finance
• HR
• Journalism
• Education
• Banking
• Professional Bodies
• Think tanks
• Corporate Governance firms

One area that was sadly not represented was Government, but more on that later.

The Independent Commission on Banking published it’s final report on September 12th 2011.

You can read the full report by clicking the link here: (ICB Report Link)