"It is having the best of both worlds" confirms Sir Stephen

because of the benefits of being a charity which is really a business, and the sometimes almost equal benefits of a business saying it is really a charity ...

Sir Stephen Bubb, head of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo), urged Jeremy Hunt not to water down regulations that would encourage more private companies into the NHS. The regulations, drawn up as part of the Health and Social Care Act, which came into force in April, require local health bosses to put almost all services out to tender. When the reforms ran into opposition there were reports that they might be watered down.

So, "private companies" ...

Last night Sir Stephen said: “I unashamedly believe in a greater role for charities in providing public services and have actively argued for this. Acevo believes that a level playing field in NHS commissioning means that charities can step up to the plate to deliver a wide range of services ranging from hospice care to mental health.”

suddenly become "charities" ....

Charity boss lobbied Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over NHS privatisation, documents show

"Encouraging"? In what sense pray, Justice Secretary?

From the BBC:

Between September 2008 and March 2010 Peterborough had a reconviction rate of 41.6%, which was considerably higher than the national average of 37.3%, according to the MoJ figures. Since the new scheme began at the prison in September 2010 the reconviction rate has fallen to 39.2% in the period up to March 2012.

At Doncaster Prison while the overall trend for reoffending is down over time, results show its pilot has proved to be less successful since it was launched in October 2011. The re-conviction rate up to March 2012 was 41.1% - lower than the 41.6% rate between October 2009 and March 2010 and the rate of 46% in the period October 2008 to March 2009. But this was higher than the 39.8% recorded in the period October 2010 to March 2011".

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said the interim figures were "encouraging".

He couldn't possibly mean "I consider the snapshot statistics that I now have for one of them provides ample, irrefutable and compelling evidence for my bringing in my 'outsourced rehabilitation revolution' as quickly as possible, an intention I announced last October?"*:

"Peterborough, the model I'm looking at, is actually very encouraging indeed," he said.

The [Peterborough] scheme provided offenders with help as they prepared for release from jail and then access to services they needed outside prison, including housing, employment and financial services.

Grayling told a meeting hosted by the Civitas thinktank in London that the schemes opened up the market to rehabilitation providers in the voluntary and private sectors so they could innovate. He said a new approach was needed because of stubbornly high rates of reoffending.

"Britain's problem is less about offending and more about reoffending," he said, citing the ministry's new research.

* Daily Telegraph 22 October 2012 We will 'push ahead' with prisoner rehabilitation plans before pilot is finished, Grayling says

Mr Grayling said that he was so "encouraged" by what he had seen in Peterborough that he was giving the green light now to a national roll-out.

“Of course we aren’t “gagging” public servants

"they are completely free to express how brilliant our outsourcing schemes are in any arena they wish !” said a government spokesperson, seeking to rebut suggestions that the government was becoming increasingly heavy handed in its treatment of public servants who voice “negative” opinions about the government’s vital “corporate welfare” initiatives. 

The intervention had been sparked by an article in the Guardian newspaper concerning instructions issued to staff working in the National Offender Management Service – colloquially known as the Prison Service and Probation Service – warning them, on pains of disciplinary consequences up to and including dismissal, not to write blogs or issue comments via Twitter, nor to venture such opinions to journalists etc. criticising Chris Grayling’s plan for “outsourcing” the management and rehabilitation of 'low risk' offenders to “the usual suspects”.

Referring specifically to the planned “Offender rehabilitation” outsourcing the spokesperson explained that “This idea builds on Chris Grayling’s experiences at the DWP; where he was the Minister responsible for the Work Programme, which as everyone knows is a cracking success, with results so far indicating that it is close to half as effective as having no “Work Programme” at all.   

He has invited those organisations that have benefited from the Work Programme to bid to run “offender rehabilitation programmes for low level, low risk offenders” under similar arrangements.  The long term likelihood is that by doing this he is safeguarding the jobs of NOMS staff because the successful bidders will need people experienced in this sort of work and, rather than incur the expense of recruiting and training them to an acceptable required standard will probably themselves simply publish offers of “sub contracts” under the scheme that local Probation Services will be able to bid for – the “outsourced work being immediately re-insourced” if you will. 

This system is known to work because Atos, under the contract it has with the DWP for carrying out Work Capability Assessments, already re-insources some of this work to the NHS, and still manages to make a nice profit from the contract."