“Of course we aren’t “gagging” public servants

"they are completely free to express how brilliant our outsourcing schemes are in any arena they wish !” said a government spokesperson, seeking to rebut suggestions that the government was becoming increasingly heavy handed in its treatment of public servants who voice “negative” opinions about the government’s vital “corporate welfare” initiatives. 

The intervention had been sparked by an article in the Guardian newspaper concerning instructions issued to staff working in the National Offender Management Service – colloquially known as the Prison Service and Probation Service – warning them, on pains of disciplinary consequences up to and including dismissal, not to write blogs or issue comments via Twitter, nor to venture such opinions to journalists etc. criticising Chris Grayling’s plan for “outsourcing” the management and rehabilitation of 'low risk' offenders to “the usual suspects”.

Referring specifically to the planned “Offender rehabilitation” outsourcing the spokesperson explained that “This idea builds on Chris Grayling’s experiences at the DWP; where he was the Minister responsible for the Work Programme, which as everyone knows is a cracking success, with results so far indicating that it is close to half as effective as having no “Work Programme” at all.   

He has invited those organisations that have benefited from the Work Programme to bid to run “offender rehabilitation programmes for low level, low risk offenders” under similar arrangements.  The long term likelihood is that by doing this he is safeguarding the jobs of NOMS staff because the successful bidders will need people experienced in this sort of work and, rather than incur the expense of recruiting and training them to an acceptable required standard will probably themselves simply publish offers of “sub contracts” under the scheme that local Probation Services will be able to bid for – the “outsourced work being immediately re-insourced” if you will. 

This system is known to work because Atos, under the contract it has with the DWP for carrying out Work Capability Assessments, already re-insources some of this work to the NHS, and still manages to make a nice profit from the contract."