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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:37 am
Time: 11:37 am
Results for criminal justice systems (northern ireland)
2 results foundAuthor: Northern Ireland. Criminal Justice Inspection Title: The Use of Consultants by the Criminal Justice System Summary: The use of external consultants is an important source of expertise and experience for the public sector. Effective use of consultants can provide innovative thinking, professional insight and technical skills beyond what is available in many public sector organisations. This can assist with the delivery of complex assignments to time and to established budgets, providing value for the organisations who engage them and ultimately, the end user of the services provided. The best consultancy firms invest heavily in training and the development of their staff. It is right and appropriate that the public sector utilise this experience to the benefit of service delivery. The past decade has been a period of significant change within the criminal justice system, most particularly in terms of the modernisation of the police and the establishment of the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPS). All organisations have experienced the challenge of change to some degree. This has entailed the use of consultants including the greater use of external support under job/staff substitution arrangements. This is only to be expected. It is important that staff substitution continues to be monitored along side spending on consultancy. Consultants are expensive resources and there is a responsibility on agencies to maximise the contribution made by consultancy support and the benefits it provides. There is a need to ensure that their use is planned for and appropriately procured, to ensure value for money. There should be a targeted use of consultancy support based on business need. Their assignments should be managed appropriately and the quality of what they deliver - as with any supplier of goods and services to the public sector - should be rigorously examined. This inspection examined the use of consultants across the criminal justice sector in Northern Ireland. Our inspection found that in general, the use of consultants followed practices similar to those which existed elsewhere in the public sector. Indeed, many of our recommendations repeat the findings of similar reviews undertaken by the Audit offices in Scotland, England andWales and Northern Ireland. While we did not find any major areas of concern around the overall process of procurement, there were some issues around the letting of individual contracts and the need to sharpen practice as a consequence. We did find the need to strengthen the planning and management of consultancy support. In particular, there is a need to widen the pool of suppliers for the justice system as there was evidence of dependence on a relatively small number of key suppliers and barriers to access to new suppliers. We also found the need to strengthen the post-benefit review stage that assesses the value of the support provided. Clarity of information and transparency on the processes followed, would also improve the overall management of consultancy support. Details: Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, 2010. 54p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 15, 2011 at: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/aa/aa38053b-44bb-4d7e-a72a-166110447208.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/aa/aa38053b-44bb-4d7e-a72a-166110447208.pdf Shelf Number: 121363 Keywords: ConsultantsCriminal Justice AdministrationCriminal Justice Systems (Northern Ireland) |
Author: Northern Ireland. Criminal Justice Inspection Title: A Review of the Voluntary and Community Sector’s Involvement in the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice System Summary: This review examined the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations’ contribution to the Northern Ireland criminal justice system. It concentrated on organisations that received or administered core funding for a criminal justice purpose - Community Restorative Justice Ireland (CRJI), Extern, NIACRO, Northern Ireland Alternatives (NIA), Quaker Service, Victim Support Northern Ireland (VSNI), the Department of Justice (DoJ), Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS), Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) and Youth Justice Agency (YJA) – but also sought and received helpful views from a range of other organisations. Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland’s (CJI) last review in 20061 found ‘a well-developed voluntary and community sector…’ The situation here compared favourably with elsewhere in the United Kingdom (UK), and while there were tensions, these were mostly healthy. There have been some important contextual changes since we last reported. These include: • justice powers were devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly in April 2010, and local politicians have become more engaged in formulating policy and in overseeing the criminal justice system than previously; • much of the Northern Ireland Office had been restructured into the new DoJ. The internal structures are different from its predecessor and new liaison arrangements were reported as positive for most of the VCS organisations that the DoJ sponsored; • the recession and changes to funding arrangements (there was more competitive tendering and less grant-inaid) were having an impact; • the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland had been established. While it had yet to become fully operational, organisations were gearing up to meet the governance requirements which it will superintend; and • Government policy in England and Wales envisaged a greater role for the private sector and VCS organisations in delivering criminal justice services. This was being tested by initiatives such as Payment by Results and Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). Some positive features from our 2006 review were still evident. The VCS continued to attract substantial monies from other sources to supplement local statutory funding; it could provide flexibility and innovation; and volunteering was a useful way of engaging ordinary citizens in the criminal justice system. There had also been improvements which included: • the involvement of VCS organisations with formal criminal justice structures was better than when we last inspected, not only in helping reduce offending, but also in improving access to justice, and examples were provided of VCS participation in relevant consultations and working parties; • the DoJ had protected its sponsored VCS organisations from financial cuts. Whereas statutory criminal justice agencies were subject to 5% cuts, the Minister of Justice had requested that cuts to the VCS be limited to 1.5% as he was keen to minimise the impact on them; and • restorative justice schemes had become more secure and had developed good relationships with operational agencies. Individual members of restorative projects and other VCS organisations were represented on relevant bodies such as Policing and Community Safety Partnerships (PCSPs), where they were considered to be making a valuable contribution. Not everything was positive. The existence of a wide variety of funding streams and methodologies created practical problems for VCS organisations as well as anxiety for funding bodies about possible duplicate funding. Short-term and piecemeal funding remained problematic, and some organisations had to manage without letters of offer for up to six months into a new financial year. These features mitigated against any possible centralised monitoring of total amounts paid out and there was no consistent measure of the impact and contribution of the VCS to the criminal justice system. An agreement known as the ’Concordat‘ had been put in place in 2011 to regulate engagement between Government and the VCS, and there was a Joint Forum to oversee operation of the Concordat. While the model of engagement was well designed and reported as working effectively in most sectors, several VCS organisations were less positive about its benefits in the criminal justice environment. There were mixed views about other Government departments’ contribution to justice issues. Devolution had helped and the DoJ was involved in areas such as health and education. However there was no statutory duty on all departments to enhance community safety which was considered a missed opportunity to deliver a truly cross-cutting approach. There were lots of relevant strategies, but not always action plans to support their delivery and it was hard to assess their progress. There were also logistical difficulties for operational justice organisations in being aware of, and where necessary able to influence, the funding decisions of other departments that affected them. Some VCS organisations were struggling for survival as philanthropic funding declined and pressures on Government expenditure increased. The option of providing lots of small grants was attractive for funders as it could purchase local goodwill, though some recipients did not really grasp the criminal justice rationale for the funding they received and it was impossible to assess the long-term impact of providing such monies. The accountability arrangements that were applied to VCS organisations varied considerably, depending on who allocated the monies. They mainly comprised measurement of inputs and activities to provide assurance to funders. Large organisations were by now well-used to extensive and varying levels of demand for feedback about their finances and practice and they had systems in place to deliver these. However there was scope for a more proportionate response, particularly with lower risk organisations. Likewise the requirement for VCS organisations to commission evaluations of programmes seemed excessive when many of these programmes were already extensively audited. Less compliance for its own sake would enable a reduction in bureaucracy with consequent savings in Government departments. Details: Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection, 2013. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 30, 2013 at: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/82/8253a731-9fb3-4ca7-81b4-24fabd7b0f8f.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/82/8253a731-9fb3-4ca7-81b4-24fabd7b0f8f.pdf Shelf Number: 128162 Keywords: Criminal Justice Systems (Northern Ireland)Voluntary and Community Organizations (VCOs)Volunteer Agencies |