Restorative Justice – hitting the mark?

You know there’s a game-changing Criminal Justice consultation going on right now – but there’s another one you can’t afford to ignore if you believe in justice.

The Restorative Justice Council’s consultation around a national quality mark has been pushed off centre stage by Chris Grayling’s transformation goals – and it would be a real injustice if Restorative Justice (RJ) practice suffered as a result.

Correctly delivered, RJ delivers massive benefits to victims, offenders and the communities in which they live. But right now, RJ isn’t being delivered in a consistent manner, compromising its effectiveness, just like the postcode lottery for other public services.

The outcome you get for RJ is currently dependent upon who provides your service, and whilst there are national standards for practitioners, the systems, processes and tools underpinning it lag behind.

So the RJC started a consultation around their idea of a Restorative Service Quality Mark. This is great, because if done well it will raise standards everywhere and help deliver better outcomes. Done well, however, is the telling phrase. And we believe the means to achieve this is hiding in plain sight.

We obviously applaud the intent behind the creation of more consistent, robust practices given lives and futures are at risk. However, the standard and its delivery needs to be pragmatic and cognisant of other organisation achievements. We must avoid a bureaucratic reinvention of the same old standards wheel, which simply costs more and delivers no better outcomes than where we are today.

Amongst a range of points in our consultation feedback, we suggest recognising other achieved accreditations such as EFQM and ISO in the provider organisations. For example Merseyside Probation Trust is already delivering quality assurance and the trust was the first public sector agency to win the British Quality Foundation’s UK excellence award (using pam). Many other public sector organisations already hold these related accreditations and don’t have time or funds to achieve another one from scratch.

Wouldn’t it be sensible to allow these accreditations to count for something in an RJ standard?

Anyone interested in delivering RJ should look at our ground-breaking work with Staffs and West Mids Probation Trust (SWMPT) too. SWMPT and its partners are about to deliver its ground-breaking RJ programme bringing together the police, prisons, probation and fire service, as well as victim support in one online secure space; restricted pam

And don’t just take our word for it. Paul Darby (no relation) is Victim Liaison and Reparation Services Manager at SWMPT and is pioneering with us. He said “We want to showcase this model in England and Wales, and even around the frontiers of Europe!”

Restorative Justice, of course, ties in with initiatives around Troubled Families, Safeguarding Children, Gangs, ASB, and more – all of which can be delivered in restricted pam, too. This is a great opportunity for joined up multi-agency working throughout the whole criminal and social justice ecosystem, delivering huge benefits to all.

Delivering RJ also requires top-notch multi-agency working, usually with restricted information being shared, which clearly needs careful consideration in this consultation. All of this is bread and butter to our new restricted pam service, which soon will be Pan Government Accredited and conforms to UKAS ISO27001. It will be the first in the country and we are proud of that.

It would be great if there were an umbrella approach to national standards in public service with a joined up quality mark that had specific themes, and one that encouraged pragmatic, yet very secure 21st century working. That would mean a cost effective assured service for providers and other stakeholders with no RJ postcode lottery for the beneficiaries. That would hit the mark!

We won't share your details with anyone else.