A Land of Opportunity or Empty Promises? Payment by Results in a Therapeutic Community for Substance Use

• In Event: Transforming Rehabilitation? Critical Commentaries on a Strategy of Criminal Justice Reform in England and Wales

Abstract

The fundamental aim of Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) is to extend rehabilitation to more (ex)offenders by changing the design, delivery and commissioning of services that work alongside those who are involved in the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2013:06). To achieve the aims and objectives of the strategy new payment initiatives, colloquially referred to as Payment by Results (PbR), have been introduced in and around the Criminal Justice System in an attempt to provide a degree of flexibility to do ‘what works,’ promote freedom from bureaucracy and encourage services to focus ‘relentlessly’ on reforming (ex)offenders. The aim of this paper is to critically reflect upon some of the practical difficulties which surround the implementation of an outcome-focused payment initiative, colloquially referred to as Payment by Results (PbR), in a drug and alcohol service situated in the North of England. Drawing upon the findings of a longitudinal study in a residential rehabilitation service, the discussion illustrates some of the tensions and dilemmas which surround the introduction of increasingly business-orientated decisions within a person-centered environment that is designed to work alongside some of societies most troubled and troublesome individuals.

Author

• Helena Gosling, Liverpool John Moores University, UK