LONDON CRC

When MTCnovo – one of the leading providers of outsourced community rehabilitation services – wanted to rationalise their assets and transform the service they provided in south London, Kinnarps played a major role in developing a new vision for their working environment.

Using our Next Office Concept™ as the backbone of a transitional journey to a new way of working, London Community Rehabilitation Centre (London CRC) in Bromley has become an exemplar of how a modern probation service can operate.

With the goal of demonstrating to the Ministry of Justice how they had transformed the local probation service whilst improving the user experience to reduce reoffending rates, MTCnovo invested in change early, in order to realise these benefits in the lifetime of their contract.

Kinnarps undertook a Next Office consultation, interacting with 30 or so employees from across the CRC, including Probation Officers groups, Facilities Management, Operational and Health & Safety roles, plus the administrative and leadership teams. The use of workshops helped sow the seeds of change and develop new ideas from across the team.

Helga Swidenbank, Director of Probation and Susan Jilanee, Change Manager had visited a Birmingham probation office and noted the concept of different floors being used for different activities. They realised the new premises in Bromley would accommodate this concept perfectly with open access on the ground, accompanied access on the 1st floor and staff only on the 2nd floor.

Combining this idea with the workshop data, the traditional goals of what the building had to provide and the service transformation objectives, our Senior Designer Tom White developed a plan for the team to envisage how it might all come to life. The resulting new workspace is now split between a fresh, open and welcoming reception on the ground floor; an agile, activity-based operational 1st floor, for service users to interact with their probation officers; and a suite of administrative offices on the 2nd floor.

The 1st floor is where the transformation is most stunning. A combination of team break-out spaces, dining and social settings plus some administration desks sits comfortably alongside a Service User suite of meeting and interview settings which are open, bright and welcoming. The environment embodies the MTCnovo ‘Bionic Vision’ (Believe It Or Not, I Care)… a place where a caring culture for change is evident to all those who use it.