Crispin Blunt, Minister of Prisons and Probation, will today face tough
questions from delegates at UNISON’s annual probation seminar, over plans
to privatise community pay back work in the probation service.
The union is calling on the government to ditch the privatisation plans, which
are due to go ahead in Spring 2011. The plans could see private companies
making profits from offenders doing work in the community.
UNISON, the UK’s largest public sector union, has pledged to work with
Probation Trusts to keep the work in-house.
Ben Priestley, UNISON National Officer for the probation service, said:
“Offenders should be paying their debt to society, not being used to boost the
profits of private companies. It is totally hypocritical of the government to be
going on about the Big Society, but be selling off the work of offenders to
private companies.
“There is no evidence that the private sector will be able to do a better job
than Probation Trusts are currently doing. Previous attempts to privatise parts
of the Probation Service have been disastrous. While it is extremely unlikely
that the promised cost savings will materialise, the service will suffer from a
race to the bottom on standards.
“UNISON will be working with Trusts to help develop in-house bids.”