Amy Ludlow

Transforming Rehabilitation: What lessons might be learned from prison privatisation?

Drawing upon empirical data collected during HMP Birmingham’s privatisation in 2011, this article explores the prospects of competition increasing performance in the delivery of ‘probation services’ in England and Wales. The constraints and challenges that stem from the public procurement rules and their manner of implementation are highlighted, alongside the adverse impacts that competition can have upon organisational culture. Together with current evidence about the (mixed) performance of privately managed prisons, the article argues that the Government’s faith in competition as a panacea solution to improve public services is misplaced and that too few lessons are being learned from commissioning mistakes.

Free Movement of Services, Migration and Leaving the EU

For many people the key question in the referendum is whether a vote to leave will enable the UK to take back control of its borders. So for them the focus is primarily on Article 45 on the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which allows free movement of workers. But for individuals much movement to other EU Member States is covered by Article 56 TFEU on the free movement of services. This article will argue that empirical research shows that there is in fact an interesting link between temporary migration under Article 56 TFEU and ultimately permanent migration under Article 45 TFEU. Brexit has the potential profoundly to affect both.

Privatising public prisons: Penality, law and practice

In October 2011, HM Prison Birmingham was transferred from public to private management, under G4S. This was the first time that an existing operational public prison was privatised in the UK. The move marked the third and most far reaching phase of prison privatisation policy, and was intended both to increase quality of life for prisoners, from a low baseline, and to reduce costs. Prior to 2011, private prisons had all been new-builds. Private contractors had thus far avoided the additional challenges of inheriting a pre-existing workforce and operating in old, often unsuitable, buildings. This article reports on a longitudinal evaluation of the complex process of the transition, and some outcomes for both staff and prisoners. As an experiment in the reorganisation of work and life in a ‘traditional’ public sector prison, the exercise was unprecedented, and has set the agenda for future transformations. The example illustrates the intense, distinctive and rapidly changing nature of penality as it makes itself felt in the lived prison experience, and raises important questions about the changing use of State power.

The Public Procurement Rules in Action: An Empirical Exploration of Social Impact and Ideology

Governments are increasingly turning to the market to provide public goods, works and (perhaps most controversially) services. Markets, and market values, have come to govern our lives as never before and the financial crisis appears to have done little to dampen governments’ faiths in markets. The public procurement rules define some of the parameters within which governments must engage with the market but the ideology of these rules, particularly how much ‘space’ they afford Member States to pursue non-commercial policies in their procurement decision-making, is deeply contested. This chapter argues that there is a missing empirical dimension to these ideological discussions. It seeks to partially redress this by presenting findings from an ethnographic study of a competitive tendering exercise at a British prison, from which it is argued that a more complex ideological picture emerges than appears from doctrinal analyses of the rules.

Social Procurement: Policy and Practice:

Public sector spending can be used to further social policy objectives, through social procurement. While the potential of social procurement has long been recognised, the scope for its lawful use in practice has been uncertain and contested. EU Member States have responded to these uncertainties in different ways, both at the level of policy and practice. This paper explores some of these divergences and uncertainties through two case studies of the implementation of Directive 2014/24/EU in the UK and the Netherlands. Through these case studies the nature of EU law and its operation and absorption within varied national contexts is reflected upon, as well as the prospects for social procurement following transposition of the new Directives.