Campaigners are finalising plans for a major rally against Chris Grayling’s plans to privatise most of the probation service.

Members of Napo, the National Association of Probation Officers, from the Kent, Surrey and Sussex (KSS), and London branches, are organising the protest.

It will hit the historic market town of Epsom on Saturday, September 27.

They will meet outside Epsom Playhouse, in Ashley Avenue, Epsom, at 11am, when they will start marching with placards through the town centre.

It will end up with speakers – including national general secretary Ian Lawrence – addressing the group at a rally in Mount Hill Gardens at 1pm.

Mike Rayfield, chairman of KSS Napo, said: "We want to take our time marching through the town, engaging with people and handing out leaflets.

"We’re encouraging people to join us - this isn’t a union issue."

He said Surrey Police had been contacted about the protest, as well as the offices of Mr Grayling.

Mr Rayfield said there were plans to bring a large effigy of Mr Grayling to Epsom.

The giant puppet was last seen bobbing down London’s Whitehall on the shoulders of protestors campaigning against the justice secretary’s legal aid reforms.

Mr Grayling, 52, who has been Epsom and Ewell’s MP since 2001, has proposed a number of sweeping changes to the probation service.

They will see the service shifting the majority of its work to private companies and voluntary organisations.

A new public sector body, the National Probation Service (NPS), will continue to deal with high-risk offenders including those convicted of sexual offences and serious violence.

But the majority of the rest of the work, dealing with low- and medium-risk offenders, will be awarded to private sector and voluuntary and community sector bidders.

They will be paid a fee for monitoring offenders, which will be increased if they meet targets to reduce re-offending - ‘payment by results’.

A total of 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are to be formed to work with the low- and medium-risk offenders.

The CRC contracts will be awarded from October.  

In preparation for the new arrangements, from June 1, all staff who were employed by the London Probation Trust were transferred to either the NPS or a 'holding' CRC.

Napo has said that one of the things it has been concerned with is the process of allocating probation officers to their roles in the new system.

Its major concern centres on the danger it perceives will be caused to the public by privatising the probation service.

Speaking as chairman of KSS Napo, Mr Rayfield said Napo had organised the rally in Epsom for September 27 because Mr Grayling will soon be deciding on the CRC contracts and the organisation is trying to "oppose the share sale".

He added: "Surrey’s bid fell through three months ago because there were things in the contract which were ‘too much for us to bear’. 

"We still don’t know what that means."

Mr Rayfield said Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Kevin Hurley, shared Napo’s concerns, is opposed to the privatisation of the probation service and that his office has said it would "do what they could to help".

The Government also aims to provide supervision and rehabilitation in the community to offenders who are sentenced to less than 12 months in prison, who are not currently supervised ‘on licence’ by probation officers after they are released.

Speaking as KSS Napo chairman, Mr Rayfield said: "Fragmenting the probation service into 21 CRCs and Regional National Probation Areas will do nothing to improve service delivery. 

"These plans are dangerous and people could be harmed or even killed. 

"Low- to medium-risk offenders, most of whom would be managed in the CRC, can cause as much harm than those assessed as high risk. 

"Risk is dynamic and can change in hours or less, you need professionally trained staff in one united service to manage these people. 

"In many serious case reviews involving children, it is always recognised that risk is increased when agencies do not talk to each other. 

"To have 21 CRCs significantly changes the relationships of many professionals. 

"Police and social services regularly liaise with probation staff in difficult cases. 

"Will that still be the case when they have to liaise with private companies?

"The probation service is a people service.  It does not manage commodities that can be shifted around for business need. 

"Outcomes can be difficult to measure and a payment by results model has never been piloted. 

"We have grave concerns that cherry picking will occur enabling the private companies to pick the lowest hanging fruit to reap the highest financial reward.

"The real cost will be in harm to communities to victims and to those who have offended. 

"As with everything involving people, probation is about developing relationships and working with offenders to help them to help themselves to make the required changes. 

"This can often be a difficult and long process as many of the people we work with have a range of issues that need to be addressed. 

"For those that have offended it is not a lifestyle choice for them, it’s a consequence of past events and very often trauma in their lives. 

"In a cost-driven culture there will not be time to develop, build and sustain relationships, it simply will not happen.

"Probation and justice should never be about profit, it’s about people and community."

In a statement, Mr Grayling said: "Our sky-high reoffending rates have dogged this country for more than a decade, with almost half of all prisoners going back to crime within a year.  

"This is despite spending a massive £4bn each year on prisons and probation.

"The current system just isn’t working, so we are introducing a new approach to rehabilitation that will finally tackle this unacceptable issue.

"Through our reforms, each year an extra 50,000 prisoners on short sentences who currently get no statutory supervision on release will get help to turn their lives around.

"This will be vital in cutting crime and making our communities safer."

What do you think? Leave a comment below or email Hardeep Matharu on hmatharu@london.newsquest.co.uk.