History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes

Kevin Wong is responsible for leading the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit’s work on criminal and community justice and voluntary sector delivery of justice services. He has over 25 years’ experience in criminal justice as a researcher, policy adviser, commissioner and practitioner. 

Kevin is Co-Editor of the British Journal of Community Justice  a member of the Advisory Panel on Probation Learning, Chair of the Criminal Justice Alliance and a trustee of Manchester based charity Back on Track 

Kevin Wong

Reader in Community Justice and Associate Director, Criminal Justice,

Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU),

Manchester Metropolitan University

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” – frequently attributed to Mark Twain, this aphorism neatly sums up The Insights Festival.  As both contributor and participant since 2020, each festival has managed to combine comfortable familiarity, topics and themes that are evergreen and relevant, faces from yesteryear, with fresh ideas and enthusiastic ingenues.  All of which provides continuity (of quality), vitality, renewal and moments of: “that was really useful…I didn’t know that.”

So, what am I doing this year? A relaxed gig (I hope).

I, Chris Fox, other colleagues from Manchester Metropolitan University along with seasoned CJ blogger and independent consultant Russell Webster published a paper in the Probation Journal earlier this year with the somewhat clunky title:

“A realist review to develop a theory of effective front-line management in probation and youth justice”

Based on an evidence review commissioned by HMI Probation we argued that the public administration orthodoxy of New Public Management (performance targets, resource frugality, auditable standards, marketisation and so on) has taken a toll on public services, in particular the probation service in England and Wales.

As an alternative we proposed a governance reset which marries the components of effective management identified in our review (management oversight, clinical supervision, reflective practice, senior practitioner role and self-managing teams) with New Public Governance NPG, an alternative paradigm to NPM which emphasises collaboration, network management and public value creation. In summary, recognising that the human volition of frontline staff, managers and service users, their disgruntlement, despair, disappointment, relief, hope, betterment and satisfaction are at the heart of public services.

If you’re interested in having a chat about the paper, sign up to our Insights25 event and pop along to the online gathering on 20 November.

See you there.

Kevin