Third sector consolidation in drug service provision

Citation

Klein, A. (2014), "Third sector consolidation in drug service provision", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/DAT-03-2014-0017

Third sector consolidation in drug service provision

Article Type: Editorial From: Drugs and Alcohol Today, Volume 14, Issue 2.

According to the UK Justice Policy Review published in the March newsletter of the Criminal Justice Centre UK government expenditure on law and order declined by 15 per cent over the last five years. The number of police officers, prison and probation staff has continued to fall matching a drop in reported crimes and the number of people who are being prosecuted and punished. By all accounts, this is something to be celebrated. A society that punishes fewer people and spends money on things other than law and order is surely a happier place than a police state.

Motivated primarily by a need for economy, reductions in the criminal justice sector have been accompanied by other cost saving measures including the outsourcing of non-essential operations. However, instead of a dynamic market teeming with hotly competing service providers, two companies, G4S and Serco, have established a duopoly, accounting for a good 40 per cent of the entire spent of the National Offender Management Service worth £600.

The Ministry of Justice contracts a mere £53.7 to the so-called third sector, but here too two thirds of funds are divided between three organisations – RAPt, Working Links and Nacro. A similar process of consolidation appears to be underway in the drug treatment sector. Organisations such as Turning Point and the Crime Reduction Initiative seem to be capturing an ever growing portion of government contracts for drug treatment. This is partly a consequence of substitution medication becoming the primary intervention for service provision over the last two decades. Methadone prescribing requires clinical oversight, and medical professionals apparently prefer working with large, well-resourced organisations.

This development is increasingly edging out smaller organisations catering for the specific needs of local populations. As Alex Mold and Virginia Berridge (Mold and Berridge, 2010) have shown, the third sector has evolved from voluntary initiatives and self help groups, often run by former users or people dedicated to helping those with substance issues. Their place is increasingly being taken by large “social enterprises” run on business lines not for the benefit of shareholders, but that of its staff. Working on the assumptions that “voluntary” sector services hold advantages over the statutory sector, and that all NGOs are the same, this development has escaped scrutiny. It is time, therefore, for a review of drug treatment funding allocations, similar to that conducted by the Criminal Justice Centre. It might also be a good place for coming up with a suitable definition. According to the National Council of Voluntary Organisations the median pay for directors in 2011/2012 ran to £71,000. Well deserved by most incumbents, no doubt, but hard to square with either the term “voluntary” or “charitable”.

Axel Klein

Reference

Mold, A. and Berridge, V. (2010), Voluntary Action and Illegal Drugs: Health and Society in Britain Since the 1960s, Palgrave Macmillan, London

Further reading

Garside, R., Silvestri, A. and Mills, H. (2014), “UK justice policy review”, Vol. 3, available at: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/uk-justice-policy-review-volume-3#sthash.mDAyoQgm.dpuf (accessed 17 April 2014)