Published 2 February 2016
HMIP – Probation Inspection Report January 2015
Transforming Rehabilitation – Early implementation 4
On 15th January 2015 HMIP for Probation published a report looking at the arrangements for the supervision of offenders post privatisation. The report specifically focuses on systems and processes which underpin the quality of service and impact on rehabilitation. This is the forth report since the implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation.
Of note, Paul Wilson, Interim Chief Inspector writes in his introduction that the report does not include Through the Gate resettlement services. The implementation of this service has been slow in both prisons and the community and the disjointed provision currently available is a:
“long way from the seamless Through The Gate service so essential to the challenge of reducing high re-offending rates for this group”.
This is a real concern for Napo as Through the Gate resettlement services were a fundamental part of the government plans to “reform” probation services through privatisation and are a key aspect of the private contracts mobilised 1st February 2014.
Questions you may wish to ask:
- What measures is the Ministry of Justice taking to ensure that CRCs deliver on this key aspect of Transforming Rehabilitation?
- Has the Ministry of Justice taken any steps to hold CRCs to account for their failure to introduce this service which we believe should have been fully operational by May 2014 as specified in the contracts?
Paul Wilson also states in his introduction that their findings are broadly similar to the last HMIP two reports published in May 2014 and November 2014 and that many of the previous recommendations still apply. It is of concern that many of these previous recommendations have not been implemented or improved on almost one year after CRC contracts were mobilised.
Assisting Sentencing and Assignment of Cases
The Inspection found that there were no written records of over one third of *oral reports that had been presented to Court. Clearly this has a direct impact on the CRCs’ ability to manage and supervise an offender after the case has been transferred to them. Court reports are an essential aspect of offender management providing the supervising officer with key information about an individual’s circumstances and risk issues. This is further compounded by the MOJ proposing that oral and short format reports make up 80% of all reports to Court. This issue must be rectified as a matter of urgency to ensure that all information is shared between the different organisations.
*Oral reports are prepared on the day of sentencing following a short interview with the offender.
Questions you may wish to ask:
- Is the MOJ looking to increase the use of oral and short format reports to 80% and if so what assessments have been carried out to look at the impact of short reports on risk assessment and on going case management?
Some staff have reported a significant increase in the use of short prison sentences as a result of the Offender Rehabilitation Act. A key aspect of the Act was to give statutory supervision to those serving less than 24 months custody. Napo warned at the time that this could lead to more magistrates choosing short prison sentences knowing that the offender will be supervised on release. Whilst the Inspector was unable to comment on this has their sample pre dated the period by which this might have been detectable, this is an issue that should be urgently reviewed given the high level of the prison population.
Questions you may wish to ask:
- Can the government provide figures for short prison sentences prior to and following the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014?
- If there is an increase in these figures, what steps will the MOJ be taking to ensure that prison numbers are not unnecessarily increasing as a result of this legislation?
Case Allocation and Risk Assessment
The inspection found that one in nine cases had an incomplete or missing Risk of Serious Harm assessment at the point of allocation. The main reason for this appears to be missing information at the point of sentence and allocation. In particular missing information tended to be Police Domestic Violence checks and Children Services Child Protection checks.
Probation staff are unable to gain this information in a timely fashion due to delays from other agencies and the short turn around time they are given to complete short or oral reports. Full length Pre-sentence reports, which are adjourned for 3 weeks, are more likely to contain this information as they allow enough time for enquires to be made. Only one third of all CRC cases had a completed risk of harm assessment prior to allocation despite half of all CRC cases being assessed as posing a medium risk of harm.
- The rush to save time and money by increasing the use of short or oral reports is in our view preventing accurate and thorough risk assessments being completed. This leads to vital information being missed at the point of sentence and at the point of allocation. Domestic violence and child protection are serious issues that need to be managed safely to prevent further abuse occurring. Napo urgently asks the government not to impose targets for reports and allow for the NPS to decide what format of report would be most appropriate for each individual and that public protection and risk management should be the driving factor.
Work of the CRCs
There are a number of recommendations in the report directed at the CRCs and it is clear that they are not performing as well as the NPS in terms of meeting target deadlines and completing work. The reasons for this are not fully explored in the report but Napo is aware that many CRCs are using Probation Service Officers (less qualified, less experienced and less paid than Probation Officers) to carry out far more complicated work than previously. This highlights the need for adequate training and role boundaries to be enforced on CRCs who may well be looking to use cheaper staff at a cost to public safety and service delivery.
- Only half of cases had an appointment with their assigned offender manager within 5 working days of sentence or release. Evidence shows that engaging with an offender as quickly as possible is critical to building up an effective professional relationship and increasing their motivation to comply and engage. Some CRCs are using ‘intake teams’ to carry out initial appointments and complete sentence plans and assessments.
This appears to be driven by the 10 working day target to have sentence plans in place but results in 2 people having to familiarise themselves with a case rather than one and breaks the end to end supervision that had become good practice in Probation Trusts.
A lack of information sharing between the NPS and the CRCs is highlighted several times throughout the report. As previously stated this appears to be due to lack of written records and missing information at the sentencing stage.
However, the CRCs do not appear to rectifying this with many cases having missing risk assessments and reviews or ones of poor quality. The report also highlights concerns that Probation Service Officers lacked experience or training to adequately address risk of harm to others.
Delivering the sentence
In both the NPS and the CRCs there appears to be a lack of understanding regarding the Offender Rehabilitation Act and the new Rehabilitation Requirement. In 2014 when these were introduced Napo raised the issue that there had been very limited training to staff about the implications and the details of the Act.
The MOJ should run refresher training courses for both the NPS and the CRC’s to ensure that all levels of staff are confident in the details of the Act and its impact on supervision and sentence planning.
Home visits were only carried out in half of those cases that warranted it. Home visits are vital to contributing to public protection and compliance with a sentence, especially if there are issues of domestic violence and child protection concerns.
Accredited programmes designed specifically to address offending behaviour were being used on a minimal basis within CRCs. With the exception of the Sex Offender Group Work Programme all accredited programmes are now run by the CRCs for both their own cases and those in the NPS. The report says that a significant reduction in this service provision has resulted in CRC’s relying on individual work which may not be as structured.
Although the report does not specify which programme provision has been reduced it should be noted that CRCs are responsible for running the domestic violence programme Building Better Relationships. This programme is critical to addressing the underlying causes of domestic violence and protecting victims.
Anecdotally Napo has been informed by members that this provision has reduced across the country. Members in the NPS report significant delays in getting high risk of harm offenders on to the programme, in some cases failing to do so before the order or licence ends. CRC members have reported that some CRC are concerned about the cost of the programme that currently takes 18 months to complete and have stopped providing it. Some are looking to introduce their own none accredited none evidence based programme that would run for just 12 weeks.
Reviewing work with offenders
One quarter of offenders in the Inspection sample had gone on to be convicted of a further offence. The Inspector notes that this is noticeably higher than previous inspections. In less than two thirds of cases there was evidence of reasonable action being taken to minimise the offenders risk of harm to others and protect the public.
These key points are worrying. In 2011 the Probation Service won the Gold Award for Excellence and the performance of all 35 Trusts was assessed by the MOJ as excellent or good. Under the old Trusts re-offending rates were being reduced and this new evidence suggests that this may not be the case anymore. Whilst Napo appreciates it is too soon to measure the CRCs on re-offending rates we urge the MOJ to monitor this aspect closely. An increase in re-offending rates would indicate that the CRCs and in fact Transforming Rehabilitation are not providing good value for money to the tax payer or providing adequate public protection.
The report found that less than one third of cases had adequate management oversight. This is deeply worrying and is likely to be linked closely to the other issues raised particular the use of Probation Service Officers who lack training and experience. Staff must feel that they are fully supported when working with complex cases. Given many CRCs are now looking to significantly reduce their staff numbers it begs the question how this issue can be improved with less staff and therefore less management oversight in the future.
Nearly half of the cases in this sample had not had any form of review of the management plan or the risk of harm assessment and those that had were of poor quality. Risk is a dynamic factor and as such regular reviews enable offender managers to identify changes in circumstances and criminogenic factors that ultimately impact on how a case is managed. Risk escalation needs to be identified in a timely manner to avoid further offending and risk to others.
Questions you may wish to ask:
What action is the MOJ taking to ensure that this aspect of the work is being fully monitored?
Where a CRC is failing to deliver this work, what action will the MOJ take to hold them to account and enable them to improve on their performance?
Section 2.39 in the report states:
“Changes in risk of harm posed by the offender were responded to appropriately in less than two thirds of relevant cases. There was evidence that other people or organisations involved with the offender had been notified of changes in only one quarter of the cases. This contrasted with cases supervised by the NPS where this work was of a much higher quality.”
This is deeply worrying as risk escalation must be identified quickly to ensure effective risk management and if needs be an appropriate transfer to the NPS in a timely fashion. The underlying causes of this finding is not explored in the report, but must, in Napo’s view be investigated as a matter of urgency to avoid Serious Further Offences. It is possible that it is linked to Probation Service Officers holding more complex cases than their training allows. Or that CRCs are focusing more on reducing costs and less on management oversight as previously mentioned. We are aware that the MOJ has recently carried out a risk audit and urge the MOJ to share those findings with MP’s and the Unions. We also urge the MOJ to work closely with the CRC’s to ensure that professional standards are not being eroded and that they must have appropriate training for all staff.
Early Work in the NPS
The NPS fairs much better in the inspection performing considerably better than the CRC’s in the management of offenders, the quality of assessments and reviews and risk management. In particular it is noted that Child Protection and safeguarding issues were identified and clearly recorded in the majority of cases. This is likely due to the fact that most cases are being managed by fully qualified Probation Officers.
It was identified that, like the CRCs there was a lack of understanding of the new legislation, new requirements and the impact this has on the management of a case.
In contrast to the Cs, in the NPS less than one fifth of offenders had been convicted of a further offence. Changes to risk of harm were responded to appropriately in more than three quarters of cases with all other agencies and people being notified in a timely manner. There was also effective management oversight in over three quarters of cases inspected.
However, Napo has the following concerns which have been raised with us by our members that may not have been covered by this inspection.
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Since the split significant operational pressures have emerged due to NOMS ignoring evident risks relating to case allocation. CRCs are presenting more cases back to NPS and the predicted 70:30 caseload split is nearer 50:50.
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Consequently workloads are dangerously high, experienced staff are struggling with high risk only caseloads and burning out whilst less experienced staff are swamped. Sickness absence rises across the NPS is making the problem worse. The MOJ should conduct a staffing audit as a matter of urgency to identify gaps in staff numbers, run a recruitment process that can absorb staff being made redundant by CRCs on similar terms and conditions and invest more in the PQF training for new staff.
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Additionally morale is badly impacted by poor identification and preparation for harmonising softer terms and conditions. The NPS is inundated with soft disputes around parking, changes to leave etc. The MOJ instinct to centralise operations and directions, fuelled by a shared service model for HR, combines with budget pressures and limited local delegation has resulted in staff receiving the minimum in terms of outcomes which has further reduced morale. We would ask the MOJ to consider increasing local autonomy so that NPS Directors can respond to local issues with greater flexibility. There should be an urgent review of the performance of shared services which we believe is currently very poor and is not user friendly.
- Additionally, very few benefits from being a civil servant are being passed on to staff as the MOJ is stalling over harmonising policies e.g. non-implementation of civil service maternity and paternity arrangements. The unions will continue to put pressure on the MOJ to rectify this as a matter of urgency.
The NPS has been in existence for approximately 18 months now and it is unacceptable that staff are not benefiting from the new civil servant status.
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These combine to lower morale, performance and increase staff resistance / disengagement. NOMS are refusing to share the outcomes of staff survey. MPs may wish to ask for that staff survey to be shared with the unions and with the House.
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The E3 programme has been set up as a result of significant business risks being identified within the NPS. Whilst the unions welcome that the MOJ has recognised the challenges there is a danger that centralised answers and budget cuts undermine the efforts and merely highlight further conflicts. A failure to recognise local variations will result in a one size fits all which could be detrimental to service delivery. The E3 programme looks at issues such as specific service functions (victim work), equality and diversity and court services. Staff are involved in the consultation however this was only as a result pressure from the unions and the actual plan to resolve issues had already been published. Key issues have been identified already from E3 such as a lack of infrastructure in Courts for Probation staff with very limited IT access and still rely on hard copies of documents when the rest of the Court service is moving to a paperless environment. Many issues identified will require considerable investment by the Government in order to rectify them. We are asking the Minister to commit to this investment whilst also ensuring that solutions reflect local needs and are not driven by the centre.
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If CRCs fail the NPS currently has no capacity to safely absorb the work. This is real issue with one CRC already being place in “special measures” for failing the MOJ risk Audit (South Yorkshire). Napo believes that the MOJ MUST have a contingency in place now should any CRCs fail to deliver on their contract and be placed back under public ownership via the Golden Share rule.
- The NPS is much more directive than previous Probation Trusts with staff being told to go and work in a prison rather than open competition amongst those that want to. Culturally this has been a real shock to our members who have previously worked in a much more collaboratively style where individual needs and development were accounted for. Napo urge the MOJ to review this approach which is having a negative impact on staff morale and professional development.
- Local autonomy would give greater flexibility to Directors to respond to staffing needs.
Napo will be sharing our findings with HMIP with a view to helping to shape future inspections and identify issues that may otherwise go unnoticed.