Latest From Napo 79

BR 95/2015
MMcC/AV

28 September 2015

To: Branch Chairs
Family Court SEC (for info)
Cc: Probation Negotiating Committee
NEC Co-Reps
Napo Officers and Officials

Dear Colleague

Branch Briefing - Meetings between NOMS and probation Trade Unions

Please forward immediately to Napo members in your branch

As reported to last weeks meeting of Napo's National Executive Committee, the following meetings have taken place since BR 77/2015 was issued:

• Probation Consultative Forum (PCF) – 3rd September
• Probation in Prisons Briefing - 24th August
• E3 'meetings - 2nd & 16th September

The following issues are reported on in summary form below:

1. Probation Training – PQF etc.
2. E3
3. Approved Premises
4. Probation in prisons
5. ViSOR vetting
6. Vetting (general)
7. The potential for future CRC disaggregation
8. Equality & Diversity
9. Estates
10. Active Risk Management System (ARMS)
11. CRC ICT Transition
12. Employee Care & Workload Prioritisation Agreement

Please direct any queries on this Briefing to: mmcclelland@napo.org.uk

1. Probation Training - An update on the Probation Qualifications Assurance Board, the PQF Review Group and the work of the Probation Institute with regard to training is to be found under the Learning and Development tab on the website.

2. E3 (NPS) - The last meeting of the E3 Forum was in June and a report on this meeting can be found in BR70/15. Napo, UNISON and GMB/SCOOP attended an enigmatically named Trade Union Design Workshop in place of the E3 Forum on September 2nd. We were again presented with the Design Priorities which are reported in BR70/15. The position, from a union perspective, appears to be much as previously reported though there was some acknowledgement of the need for greater union involvement. Another meeting then took place on September 16th. As reported in NPS News, the Programme is due to produce an operating model ('blueprint') by the end of October and it is suggested that this will provide the basis for more detailed engagement with the Trade Unions. Central to these discussions will be exactly who does what? - PO/PSO in the NPS. No decisions have been made on this yet, but a favoured model is likely to be presented for consultation. There are unlikely to be any great surprises about the shape of things to come - though the scale and extent of role boundary changes will be critical.

Design & implementation items for discussion with the TUs were listed as follows:

Design: - Role Boundaries, Job Descriptions, Resourcing including caseload levels, Management Structures, Staff supervision & quality of practice, Admin support to LDUs, Line Management of operational admin, Use of countersignatures, Out of hours arrangements, Double Waking Night Cover, Use of agency or sessional staff in NPS (also volunteers), Harmonisation of sessional staff rates, Staff wellbeing (including clinical supervision)

Implementation:- Consultation & Negotiating Framework, Communications to staff, Restructuring, Displacement of roles, Managing surplus situations, Mobility & daily travel for redeployment purposes, Removal of legacy Job Descriptions, Pay Protection arrangements, Learning & Development, Vetting issues.

So lots to do. These matters will be pursued in various fora including the NNC and the PCF. At last weeks meeting of the National Negotiating Council the Probation Unions again requested high level confirmation that engagement in the E3 project should not count as Facilities time.

3. Approved Premises (NPS) - There was some discussion at the E3 meeting (see above). This centred around the FM contract which is due to be renewed next year. No firm decisions on this have yet been made. It was also acknowledged that there are a number of significant HR issues outstanding for AP staff - many of them legacy issues from Trust days. Work on these has stalled and the unions sought to have them 're-invigorated'. We will report further if this meets with any constructive work being done.

4. Probation in Prisons - The final decision with regard to the Custody OM review has now been reported, and the proposed model is out for formal consultation. The final recommendations have been endorsed by NOMS and work is due to commence on implementation following consultation. This was reported in the General Secretary's Blog on 11th September, where Michael Spurr's letter was commented upon. It will be interesting to see how consistent end-to-end case/offender management is to be achieved as prisoners move from establishment to establishment through their sentences. Then, plans to move PSOs out of prisons remain current on an establishment by establishment rolling programme. There have been briefing sessions for staff about this and further briefings are likely to follow. Rate cards and guidance, together with process maps on how TTG will operate have apparently been sent to NPS staff. Napo have requested copies of this documentation together with anything else in writing about the future plans for probation in prisons. Finally it is reported that, under the auspices of E3, work is being undertaken to improve parole and recall processes.

5. ViSOR vetting (NPS staff) - This was raised as a topic of concern at the last PCF meeting. Napo took the view that it was unhelpful for all front line staff to be classified as requiring ViSOR vetting - not all posts do require the use of ViSOR a and small minority of staff will either not wish to submit to this vetting or will fail it. Thus to retain a number of posts not requiring such vetting - e.g. those which are Court based, enables a degree of flexibility in accommodating such individuals. This proposition appears to have found favour with the NPS.

6. Vetting (general) - This was previously reported upon briefly in BR 70/15. It was discussed again at the PCF on 3rd September. Within the NOMS Security Group, we are told that a Vetting Steering Group has been established and it is this group that will apparently review the relevant Probation Instructions. To date, Napo has not been approached by this group for comment, although we have written to Digby Griffith (Director of National Operational Services - with overall responsibility for the Security Group) to express our concerns - notably about lack of transparency, lack of a clear appeals procedure and what is still a generally prison-centric emphasis.

7. Potential disaggregation of CRCs – It was our understanding of the CRC contracts that each CRC entity must be capable of ready re-construction in a disaggregated state either at the end of the contract or in the event that any one of them was terminated early. It becomes increasingly difficult to fathom how this might be possible in light of many of the current proposed operational developments. In the North and East, Sodexo is proposing to centralise all its HR/back-office functions for all of its CRCs in Salford, at its own pre-existing hub. In the Midlands, RRP is planning just one case administration hub in Derby to cover all work in both Staffs/West Midlands and Notts., Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland. In the South, MTC/Novo is planning to outsource all its case administration to Hewlett-Packard who will move the work North to Newcastle - this then covering all case administration for both London and Thames Valley as we understand it. No doubt other similar "rationalisations" are planned elsewhere. A good question that we have continually raised and on which we seek the views of MoJ contract managers is exactly how this could all be readily unpicked at a later date without placing service delivery at great risk- not to mention the livelihoods of staff.

8. Equality & Diversity - A recent discussion took place with Colin Allars and Eila Davis (NOMS Head of Women & Equalities) on the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) for the NPS. This discussion focused on the needs of disabled staff and sought to explore practical ways of implementing the NPS Equality & Diversity Plan. Apparently the Equal Treatment for Employees policy is due for a fundamental review for use both within prisons and Probation. Sadly this is not due until early next year and until then the situation remains as reported in BR 70-15. A 'How to' (make reasonable adjustments) guide is due to be issued shortly, as is an Equality Analysis Instruction. Napo has not been involved in the development of either of these. Indeed we have not seen them, so it is difficult to comment further. It is interesting to speculate on how the PSED might be more effectively achieved in CRCs and perhaps an approach to this through consultation with the owners of the various CRCs might prove productive.

9. Estates - The following was reported at the PCF: "The programme is now in delivery. The series of exits and moves agreed with the NPS and the CRCs has been grouped (CRC ICT Transition) into projects, and Regional Delivery Teams are in place to co-ordinate implementation of those projects. To date, around 20 projects are at various stages of the space planning, design and move phases and around 50 projects involving an exit, move or reconfiguration are due to be completed before the end of 2015, along with a further 100 where new occupancy arrangements will be agreed for the NPS, CRC or both.

Where a move impacts on NPS staff, current terms and conditions will apply pending harmonisation of relevant policies." We are questioning what this actually means and will be using the NNC and PCF mechanisms to pursue this. No schedules of these projects have yet been supplied to us nationally. It appears to mean that quite a lot of office changes are in the pipeline. Hopefully affected staff (locally) will be aware and because there is as yet no harmonised NPS mobility policy, pre-existing (Trust) policies will apply in the NPS - and also in CRCs unless there has been any harmonisation agreements within CRCs.

10. ARMS - The training for and roll-out of this system is now well under way for NPS staff. At the consultative stage (for the Probation Instruction), Napo made strong representations about the impact on workload, particularly around retrospective use on existing caseload. We were insistent that its use should involve a workload weighting. Reassurances were given but it appears now that in reality ARMS is, as we feared, being introduced with little or no account being taken of the workload implications. Our concerns here will be tabled at the next PCF in October.

11. CRC ICT Transition - Technical enablers - A presentation was given at the PCF on 6th September. This was previously reported upon in BR 70-15 (Item 5). Lots of technical language was used describing a Strategic Partner Gateway and a Data Exchange Bridging Solution. The latter is being tested with Sodexo CRCs this month with a view to enabling the bridging required for information exchange (NPS/CRC) to occur. Our view is that 'wing and a prayer' come to mind.

12. Employee Care & Workload Prioritisation - This is a bedrock agreement established many years ago as a basis for workload measurement and management. The principles contained within it still hold good although it is in need of revision to reflect the changing world of Probation. Napo has been pressing for many months for this revision to be undertaken and it was raised again at the PCF on 6th September. It is with the NPS to action.

A challenging bargaining agenda. Napo will be issuing updates on the above issues as soon as there is something substantive to report. These, and many other issues demonstrate how the union is trying to engage with a massively increased post-share sale bargaining agenda which reflects the significant pressures being placed on our members.

Yours sincerely

Mike McClelland      Ian Lawrence

National Official       General Secretary

A Call to Arms 2

Following on from the first post on this subject, I notice there has been an interesting exchange on the FOI website which sheds a bit more light on things:-

It seems like the Active Risk Management System (ARMS) for dynamic assessment of sex offenders is finally coming into use from mid-2015
https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news... 

Evaluation of the pilot project can be found at 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy... 

The precursor of ARMS called Stable and Acute was piloted in Scotland and its evaluation provides some useful information
http://www.rmascotland.gov.uk/files/5313... 

while some rather vague information can be found at
http://www.nota.co.uk/media/1106/duncan-... 

This lists the acute dynamic risk factors (eg alcohol use, disengagement) and stable dynamic risk (eg attitudes to sex) which were assessed using this tool. 

It would seem from this that ARMS would be used by Probation (NOMS) - that is for people on license just out of prison - not for the majority of MAPPA offenders managed by the police in the long term. (this may change in future but unlikely with austerity, given the greater pressures of public/child protection services (police, local authorities). Given this pressure on public protection using ARMS has got to be better than the just using RM2000 which only looks at static (past) factors - better targeting of resources etc.

Given that OASys (offender assessment system used by prisons and probation is cursed as cumbersome to use and the pilot evaluation also criticised ARMS for this - surely technology could play a role here - this might be a problem. Which is why it is worrying that this FoI request was denied.

********
Dear Xxxxx - thank you for your annotation comments. I made a similar request to Warwickshire Police, as they had some involvement with ARMS, but they also refused to provide any information.

My final comment, which has not been responded to read: However, I'm disappointed you are unwilling to disclose the information requested.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
The above document was informative, and both RM 2000 and SARN risk assessments mentioned are widely available.
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/co...
http://www.unafei.or.jp/english/pdf/RS_N...
It would seem ARMS is a combination of both?

Please confirm whether registered sex offenders are legally mandated to engage with ARMS? (and if relevant, which statutory instrument makes this a legal obligation?)

Do registered sex offenders benefit from the protection of ECHR? Specifically Article 8 - Right to respect for private and family life.

It is worrying to read, one of the protective factors (5) now omitted from the risk assessment was, citizenship/giving something back. I understand probation and police seemingly attempt to prevent RSO's from engaging in community activity. If not mandated by restrictions of their licence, community order, SOPO etc. Then formal disclosure to third parties effectively prevent the RSO from the opportunity to rejoin society, the imposed isolation can have a negative impact on wellbeing.

There are eight risk factors and four protective factors, which suggests an RSO has little or no chance of demonstrating rehabilitation and redemption, when retribution seems to be the focus.

My brother, before he killed himself, felt hounded by the intrusive nature of quarterly home visits. The collateral damage of viewing indecent images of children led to him losing his girlfriend, home, job, friends and ultimately his life.

If the CJS is genuinely trying to ensure sex offender desist, and I understand it is a matter of control not cure. Surely an open honest approach, seeking to ensure a person's need are met legitimately, rather than psychological games are required?

*******
Xxxxx, to try and answer your questions as best we can from information available...

I have not been able to find out what the protective factors are in ARMS - I suspect that the last two ('being busy' and 'giving something back') may have been merged as they are similar, but this is just a guess. ARMS (Active Risk Management System) is not a combination of RM2000 and SARN - it does not have the actuarial basis of RM2000 [that is basing risk on the outcomes of a similar group of offenders]; it might be thought of more as 'SARN lite'.

I have not found any Ministry of Justice or Home Office statement announcing the introduction of ARMS - the only reference was the working with offenders web site (which I linked to in my previous annotation). This in itself seems odd - you would have thought the Home Office would like to promote anything which looks like it is doing something about sexual offenders. I suspect that the upheaval in Probation Services (as part of 'Transforming Rehabilitation') and cuts to services may mean that ARMS is only being rolled out gradually or for a limited group of offenders - but again this is just a guess.

I think the question of offenders being 'legally mandated to engage' with ARMS is irrelevant - if they don't engage they will probably be regarded as a higher risk - as they would score highly on the ARMS risk factors of 'negative orientation to rules' and 'hostile orientation to others'. 

Everybody has the protection of ECHR (and the Human Rights Act) through virtue of being human! Although what this means in practice in relation to police monitor of sex offenders is unclear.

Certainly the prohibition on activities contained in SOPOs (now SHPO - Sexual Harm Prevention Orders) and licence conditions can limit the possibilities for engagement in the community and hence rehabilitation. It is a difficult balance - one that each offender seemingly has to navigate on his own. I am very sorry to hear of your brother's death and I agree that meeting a persons needs for autonomy, intimacy etc legitimately is the best way to prevent re-offending and further victims.

*******
Dear Xxxxx 

I shall read through your comments again, and respond separately. The pilot evaluation listed the following:

There were 13 risk and protective factors within the ARMS framework: 

Risk:
1. Opportunity to offend
2. Offence related sexual interests
3. Sexual pre-occupation
4. Emotional congruence (against children only)
5. Hostile orientation to others
6. Poor self management
7. Negative orientation to rules
8. Anti-social influences. 

Protective:
1. Pro-social network
2. A commitment to desist
3. An intimate relationship
4. Employment / being busy
5. Citizenship / giving something back (omitted)

At my brothers inquest, the police repeatedly stated they would/could not take any responsibility for my brothers mental wellbeing. It was even inferred that I was manipulated by him, and weak minded to believe all my brother told me.

Thank you again for your helpful comments.
Kind regards - Xxxx

Paying Over the Odds

Readers of this blog are certainly no stranger to stories of profligacy, inefficiency and incompetence at the Ministry of Justice, so there's no great surprises in this from The Channel and recently flagged up by Russell Webster:-

MoJ sprays cash everywhere after punting MILLIONS of Oracle licences to Steria

The Ministry of Justice has failed to make any cash savings from moving its 2.3 million Oracle software licences to the Cabinet Office's shared service centre, The Register can reveal.

The licence breakdown of 53 separate Oracle products includes 961,000 “internet expense” licences, 250,000 for three separate for human resources licences, and 100,000 payroll licences, according to a Freedom of Information response.

The FOI request was directed to the MoJ's headquarters, which has around 3,000 staff. But even if those licences included every single member of staff employed by the MoJ and its agencies, that would still total 33 licences per head across its 70,000 staff. That suggests the department could be paying for more licences than it needs. The MoJ refused to disclose how much in total it was splashing on Oracle – citing "commercial confidentiality."

However, it is not the only department to have an apparent glut of licences. The department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also has 2,000,000 Oracle licences. As a smaller department, that works out at 200 per head.

The MoJ transferred its people, services and IT to the Cabinet Office-run shared services centre in November last year, following its own botched attempt to build an ERP shared services centre for £56m. However, an FOI response sent to The Register revealed there had been no licensing cost savings yet to be associated with the move.

The licences themselves are held in perpetuity so never actually expire themselves, said the MoJ. However, it said its Technology Oracle Support and Maintenance Shared Services Oracle Support contracts will expire in April 2016. The MoJ said it hopes to save £100m over the lifetime of the shared services centre contract. But it is unclear if the centre has, so far, made any significant savings for the government. 

Earlier this month The Register revealed that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had a change of heart about moving to the Steria centre, embarrassingly citing the costs and risks of the project as "no longer viable".

One government insider remarked that Oracle is known to be "extreme in its defence of existing licensing agreements and in stopping any flexibility."

The article triggered a number of comments, including:-

Weird as it might be for a comparison, the comments about "commercial confidentiality" kind of remind me of a Watchdog episode involving people getting gas delivered because their town wasn't on the grid. All of them had been told they were being a discount, but that to get that discount they had to keep it confidential, and when the Watchdog guy went about asking everyone it turned out that all of them were paying more than they had to and some were paying about twice what the cheapest ones were. They just hadn't realised it because all of them were told they had to keep quiet about what they were being charged

It's larger scale, sure, but I can't help but wonder whether MoJ has been told they're getting a fantastic price for what it is and actually are being charged significantly more than other departments, they just don't know because all the departments have been told not to discuss it

*******
Precisely - government departments should have to publish details of every deal they do so we know who is getting backhanders from who. If the vendor doesn't like their prices being published then so be it - find someone who is not too embarrassed to share their price in public. It's *OUR* money they are spending, and we (should) have a right to see where it is going.

The background to this particular bit of MoJ profligacy is this from the Channel:-

UK.gov issues internal 'ditch Oracle NOW' edict to end pricey addiction

Exclusive. Whitehall bean counters have ordered government departments to find fresh ways to end their reliance on Oracle. The Cabinet Office is understood to have formally contacted central agencies within the last month and asked them to look for ways to “get rid of Oracle".

No10 is believed to be concerned about the amount civil servants are spending on the database giant’s applications and software. A Cabinet office spokesperson told The Register: "As part of our continuing digital transformation and efficiency programmes, we regularly review technical requirements within a department to see how they may have changed."

The chief problem is the sheer number of Oracle licenses in the UK government, not just their price, although the public sector spent £290m on Oracle in 2013, according to TechMarketView. Individual IT chiefs will have their own relationship with Oracle and pay for licenses rather than re-use licenses of those within their own department.

In January The Reg reported that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which has around 10,000 staff, was forking out for two million Oracle licenses at £155 per employee, for an annual cost of £1.3m per year. (That worked out at 200 licences per civil servant in the department.) That’s contrary to the Cabinet Office’s own guidelines of £93 on licenses, with a view to reducing that down further to £52.

Meanwhile, the mighty Home Office has tried to slash its Oracle budget by moving an ERP contract to a shared-services platform run by Steria. A Register source told us: “Nobody has a holistic view or how Oracle is used across the whole government or looking at economies of scale.”

The source described the the central communication as an “edict” that has been interpreted as an order to move away from Oracle. The trigger for the anti-Oracle edict was the end of extended support for Microsoft’s Windows XP back in 2014. The Cabinet Office negotiated a government-wide custom support agreement with Microsoft to continue building security fixes for government users.

No10 haggled Microsoft down to a price of £5.584m for tens of thousands of PCs. Microsoft’s official price was $200 per desktop for the first year, $400 for the second and $800 for year three. At the time, the Cabinet Office told The Reg this would lead to “projected savings in excess” of £20m. When it comes to Oracle, exacerbating the cost and complexity is the fact that there are so many different versions of its software that it continues to support.

It’s not clear how far this latest push to sever links will go, given the fact that past attempts to cut the dependency on Oracle and the amount of taxpayer money lavished on the giant have been foiled. When the Home Office attempted its Steria switch the bulk of its mega contract, $330m, was to remain in place until 2017.

--oo00oo--

An Oracle Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) is an arrangement in which an enterprise pays a single up-front fee to get as many licenses as they want for a specified set of Oracle products over a fixed time frame.

The most common ULA term is three years. At the end of that period, the enterprise must provide Oracle with documentation detailing the deployment of all Oracle products used. Oracle processes this information to determine the number of regular licenses to grant. For enterprises that grow during the prescribed time frame, the ULA can offer considerable cost savings compared with purchasing individual licenses up front. However, if the organization downsizes during the ULA term, it may end up overpaying for the licenses that it actually purchases in the end.

The issue of whether or not an Oracle ULA actually provides any overall benefit has given rise to controversy. The advantages of the ULA are cost savings, convenience, and simplicity. The agreements work best for companies that expect growth through normal business operations rather than through mergers and acquisitions. Oracle shops can get an array of Oracle products bundled together under one agreement and one bill, rather than a mishmash of complex licensing agreements for each product.

The drawbacks are "putting all eggs in one basket" and the need to negotiate intelligently and aggressively for favorable terms. Depending on the language in the contract, the ULA might not apply in certain situations that a careless enterprise fails to foresee, in which case the ULA does not in fact turn out to be truly unlimited in the long term.

More on Grayling's Legacy

Following on from yesterday's powerful view from a defence solicitor, here's respected legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg writing recently in the Law Society Gazette:- 

Repairing Grayling’s damage

As the Conservatives gathered for their party conference a year ago, I commented in the Gazette on the widely held view that Chris Grayling was ‘simply the wrong person for the job’ of lord chancellor and justice secretary. That view seems to have been heeded by David Cameron.

Unlike the chancellor of the exchequer, the home secretary, the foreign secretary, the defence secretary and several other cabinet ministers, Grayling lost his high-profile department after the general election in May. Since succeeding him, Michael Gove has set about dismantling many of Grayling’s more indefensible policies.

As you might expect, the former education secretary began in July by lifting the remaining petty restrictions on prisoners reading books. Inmates can now have them sent in by family and friends and can keep more than 12 books in their cells at a time.

Also in July, the justice secretary scrapped plans to spend an estimated £85m building a huge prison in Leicestershire for 320 young offenders. Although £5.6m had already been spent on Grayling’s ‘secure college’, the Ministry of Justice said it would be a ‘mistake to press ahead with such a development when resources are so tight’.

This month, Gove announced a much-needed review of education in adult prisons. Little wonder then that the justice secretary is confident enough to speak at a meeting in November arranged by the Howard League for Penal Reform. Grayling, by contrast, tried to undermine the UK’s oldest penal reform charity last year by accusing its chief executive of supporting the Labour party.

When dismantling Grayling’s legacy, Gove ensures that discredited policies are attributed to the ‘coalition government’ or the ‘previous parliament’. That was the phrase he used to distance himself from another project that Grayling had enthusiastically promoted during his two-and-a-half years as lord chancellor. Just Solutions international (JSi) described itself as the commercial arm of the National Offender Management Service (itself an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice).

Its brochure said it specialised in providing ‘offender management products and services to overseas governments’ — such as designing new prisons. The legal blogger David Allen Green, who worked as a central government procurement lawyer from 2005 to 2007 and who has made much of the running on this story, derided JSi as ‘an exercise in amateurism and obfuscation’, which allowed MoJ officials to go round the world ‘selling their supposed expertise to foreign despotic governments’ rather than running the prison and probation services of England and Wales.

Earlier this month, Gove said he had decided that JSi should ‘cease to operate’. However, one last deal would be honoured: a project to conduct a ‘training needs analysis’ for prison service staff in Saudi Arabia. Ministers had decided that ‘withdrawing at this late stage would be detrimental to the government’s wider interests’ – quite apart from the financial penalties involved. As far as Gove was concerned, though, there would be no more commercial work for foreign governments.

On legal aid, the justice secretary still has a long way to go. But at least he got the parties talking. Answering MPs’ questions this month, he thanked ‘the leadership of the criminal solicitors’ profession and the criminal bar’. Playing down the ‘action’ they had ‘felt it necessary to take’ during the summer, he praised their ‘constructive dialogue’ with his officials.

The one policy on which Gove has not yet relented is Grayling’s criminal courts charge, under which adults convicted of offences committed after 12 April 2015 must be ordered to pay either £150 or £180 if they plead guilty at the magistrates’ court but £520 or £1,000 if they are convicted after a trial, the higher charge applying to offences that are triable ‘either-way’. In the Crown court, you pay £900 for a guilty plea or £1,200 after a trial. The charge, which disincentivises putting the prosecution to proof, is in addition to fines, compensation orders and costs.

Gove promised MPs that the charge would be reviewed. But I am told that this was no concession: he was referring to the review he is required by statute to carry out after three years. He also claimed that the ‘payment of the charge in due course should be linked to the offender’s means’.

That was an apparent reference to the court’s power to cancel a charge if a convicted person has taken all reasonable steps to pay or if collection is impracticable. But you cannot even apply for a charge to be cancelled until two years after your most recent conviction. And who pays for the paperwork?

Gove may not be too worried by reports that more than 50 magistrates have resigned over the charge. But what should concern him is that this is another ineffective Grayling legacy that is wrong in principle and costly in practice.

--oo00oo--

Here's an article in the Independent outlining the lengths some sentencers are going to in avoiding the dreaded new tax:-

Magistrates let guilty petty criminals off without punishment to protect them from 'tax on justice'

Magistrates across England and Wales are letting guilty petty criminals off with no punishment in order to protect them from controversial new court fees, The Independent has learnt. They are increasingly resorting to a little-known sentencing option called an absolute discharge which registers guilt but hands out no punishment – effectively letting the criminal off.

Since it was introduced earlier this year, the Criminal Courts Charge has prompted a judicial revolt with around 50 magistrates resigning and several judges lambasting it from the bench. In recent weeks, The Independent has reported on growing opposition within the criminal justice system to the new levy, which some say amounts to a “tax on justice”.

The charge is payable by anyone found guilty of a crime in addition to any fines or costs. It is not means-tested or adjusted according to the seriousness of the crime. In the magistrates’ court it is fixed at £150 if someone pleads guilty, but it can rise to £1,000 if they are found guilty.

New figures suggest that more than £5m has already been billed to people under the new court charge in its first three months – and that less than £300,000 of it has been collected. Magistrates have no discretion over how much someone has to pay in court charges if they are punished for their crime. But if they grant an absolute discharge then no punishment is given and poorer defendants are protected from paying over the odds for minor offences.

Normally even minor crimes are subject to a conditional discharge, meaning that a punishment could be meted out if they reoffend within a A Berkshire magistrate gave a 51-year-old man on disability benefits an absolute discharge earlier this month after he was caught with around £5 worth of cannabis at home.

The defending solicitor, Mike Davis, had argued: “If you give him a conditional discharge he will still have to pay the £150 criminal courts charge – that’s an awful lot for a tiny amount of cannabis. If you were to give him an absolute discharge he wouldn’t have to pay it.” The presiding magistrate, Robert Lynch, agreed to the recommendation. “That’s only the second time in 10 years I’ve done that,” Mr Lynch said. A judicial source abreast of the picture across England and Wales said: “We’re seeing this a lot. Effectively this is magistrates being creative with their sentencing in order to avoid the charge. It’s always for low level harmless stuff. It’s happening around the country. We expect this to increase as the cycle of trials subject to the charge continues to kick in.”

Mr Davis, the defending solicitor in the Berkshire case, said he and solicitors across the county had started arguing for absolute discharges with increased success since the Criminal Courts Charge was introduced in April. “Generally it’s because it’s low level crime that would normally merit a conditional discharge but the defendant’s circumstances are such that they can’t pay [the court fees]. Previously I hadn’t asked for an absolute discharge in 20 years because it would have had to be a pretty exceptional case. But since the charges came in I’ve used the argument about five times to avoid disproportionate cost - and it’s worked twice.”

The new levy was introduced in April by the former Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, to make criminals pay for the upkeep of the courts. Campaigners hope his successor, Michael Gove, will consider scrapping the measure as evidence grows that it unfairly penalises those whose crimes are very minor and motivated by poverty.

The defending solicitor, Mike Davis, had argued: “If you give him a conditional discharge he will still have to pay the £150 criminal courts charge – that’s an awful lot for a tiny amount of cannabis. If you were to give him an absolute discharge he wouldn’t have to pay it.” The presiding magistrate, Robert Lynch, agreed to the recommendation. “That’s only the second time in 10 years I’ve done that,” Mr Lynch said. A judicial source abreast of the picture across England and Wales said: “We’re seeing this a lot. Effectively this is magistrates being creative with their sentencing in order to avoid the charge. It’s always for low level harmless stuff. It’s happening around the country. We expect this to increase as the cycle of trials subject to the charge continues to kick in.”

Mr Davis, the defending solicitor in the Berkshire case, said he and solicitors across the county had started arguing for absolute discharges with increased success since the Criminal Courts Charge was introduced in April. “Generally it’s because it’s low level crime that would normally merit a conditional discharge but the defendant’s circumstances are such that they can’t pay [the court fees]. Previously I hadn’t asked for an absolute discharge in 20 years because it would have had to be a pretty exceptional case. But since the charges came in I’ve used the argument about five times to avoid disproportionate cost - and it’s worked twice.”

The new levy was introduced in April by the former Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, to make criminals pay for the upkeep of the courts. Campaigners hope his successor, Michael Gove, will consider scrapping the measure as evidence grows that it unfairly penalises those whose crimes are very minor and motivated by poverty.

The Magistrates Association is calling for an urgent review of the policy, saying the poorest defendants are being encouraged to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit out of fear they will face crippling costs if they later lose their case.

The Government is also accused of burying the latest figures on the scale of courts charges handed out - and how few have actually been collected. When it published a list of all fees imposed and collected by courts it failed to separate out the Criminal Courts Charge. Instead it was lumped in with obscure court fees in the ‘other’ category.

Ms Crook of the Howard League said she was disappointed to see no individual figures on the charge. In the first quarter of this year just £744,000 was collated in the ‘other’ category. The only new addition to this category in April was the Criminal Courts Charge, causing the total charged in the next quarter to jump to £6.4m. Yet the amount of collected within one month was just £326,000.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “It is right that convicted adult offenders who use our criminal courts should pay towards the cost of running them. The legislation and guidelines to magistrates and judges make it crystal clear that the charge is separate to the sentence and should not be considered as a mitigating factor. “It was not possible to provide separate figures on the charge which met the data quality standards required in time for this publication. More detailed figures will be published in due course.”

Legal definition: Absolute discharge

Although the “absolute discharge” has always been an option for magistrates it was previously only used in very rare exceptional circumstances. It means that the court acknowledges a person is guilty but decides to give out no punishment at all.

It is useful in avoiding the Criminal Courts Charge as although the defendant still gets a criminal record, they are not subject to any fees, or other penalties. Previously magistrates preferred to give a “conditional discharge” to those convicted of petty wrongdoing, which means they will face punishment if they re-offend within a set period.

Judicial anger at the Criminal Courts Charge

A Leicester judge became the latest judicial figure to speak out against the Criminal Courts Charge this week, saying he does not think it has “any merit”. Recorder Timothy Raggatt QC made the comments in Leicester Crown Court when jailing an unemployed man for 10 weeks for possessing a knife.

Having been told defendant Moz Johnson did “not have any money,” Mr Raggatt said he did not want to impose the mandatory £900 criminal courts charge. “I will make the order only because it’s down to statute and not because I think it has any merit,” he said. “Those who impose these things may have the responsibility of collecting it and whether or not they can achieve anything is a moot point. I wonder how much that will cost the country in terms of administration?”

He is not the first judge to speak out about the charge. Judge Christopher Harvey Clark, QC, lambasted it while sentencing in Truro Crown Court last month. He said: “The charge has no bearing on your ability to pay. It is totally inappropriate for people of no means to have to pay this charge. It happens to be Government policy but as an independent judge I regard it as extremely unfair and, although I have to impose it, I do so with immense reluctance.”

Just Plead Guilty

This morning I was supposed to have a trial. I didn't have a trial because the CPS didn't serve the evidence which they were directed to serve two months ago. There was a specific court order telling them to serve it. They didn't. Instead, when they found out that their copy of the evidence didn't work (it was a CCTV recording) they just decided not to rely on it, and claimed that made everything OK.

When the CPS breach their disclosure obligations (which they had clearly done here) they are supposed to apply for an adjournment and if that is refused they are supposed to offer no evidence, and the case is dismissed. What they do instead, is lie, claim they haven't breached their disclosure obligations, refuse to offer no evidence, and the defence have to apply for the adjournment. That's what I did. The case was adjourned.

I went back to the office, and reviewed the batch of legal aid cuts that will be introduced in January. These introduce a flat, greatly reduced, fee for nearly all magistrates trials. Solicitors who get cases adjourned because the CPS haven't served the evidence that could exonerate their client, will swiftly go bankrupt as a result. In fact, solicitors who do any work on their cases at all will swiftly go bankrupt. The only way to stay in business will be deal with a large number of cases and pressure all your clients into pleading guilty. If you think that is a result which the government has achieved by accident, then you're a fucking idiot.

When I left the office I didn't go home. Instead, I added an hour to my journey by driving in the opposite direction to go and feed a client's cats. He got remanded a few days ago. The police suffered one of their frequent not-my-job-can't-be-arsed attacks and left his cats in situ. It's not my job either, but the RSPCA and Cats Protection will only take them if he signs them over for permanent re-homing, which seems a bit harsh as he hasn't been convicted of anything yet, and even if he was agreeable, he can't do anything right now because he's in prison. So I went and fed the cats, because no one else was willing to.

Don't worry, though. This sort of thing won't be the case for long. I'll be out of a job in a few months. Even if my firm manages to win a contract this autumn, no one who does the job well will be able to make a living at it post-January. The only advice you'll get after that is Plead Guilty, but it won't be from me. And there's no chance at all that anyone will feed your cats.

I'm not a good person. A lot of people I know are good people and they don't wish retribution on those who are creating this situation.

I'm not a good person, though. I do wish it. I wish for everyone who voted for this government to be arrested and charged with something they didn't do. I wish for them to fall into the meat grinder that our justice system is becoming. I wish for them to suffer the trauma and stress and injustice that they were content to inflict on others because they didn't think it would happen to them.

It won't though. The system works, you see. The system is that if you keep about a third of the country comfortable, you can pay for it with the blood and misery of the rest, and still keep getting elected.

Whether or not you put your dick into a pig's head doesn't really come into it.

TR Latest News 5

Director of Probation appointments – Thames Valley and London

Message from Rich Gansheimer, Chief Executive, MTCnovo

I am really pleased to announce two senior appointments as we move to an important part of the transformation programme over the coming months.

Gabriel Amahwe is to become Director of Probation, Thames Valley CRC from November, taking over from Paul Gillbard who is leaving after 11 years at TV. Many of you have known Gabriel over several years and he will be a key member of the senior management team going forward.

In addition, Helga Swidenbank will be joining us in November as Director of Probation, London CRC and will take over from Nick Smart after a handover period. Helga has wide experience in the justice sector, including working as Governor of HMP Bronzefield and for Sodexo Justice Services, and will bring fresh thinking at an important time for London CRC.

I would like formally to thank Paul and Nick for their expertise and support while we have been undertaking such great change. Maintaining highly professional services at a time of extended change is extremely difficult and both Nick and Paul have led their teams superbly during an unsettled period.

Helga and Gabriel will be closely involved as we make the end-of-year changes that will transform the way we work across both CRCs. I realise during transformation that the amount of change seems unending, but there will be a more settled period ahead, I promise!

Helga, Gabriel and I are determined that our senior management teams will work closely with all of you to create a fresh way of working with service users, and that will involve meeting as many of you as possible as we drive our exciting plans forward into 2016.

--oo00oo--

The Cohort Restructuring Project in the London CRC has now concluded. We have been advised that:

66% of PO’s preferencing on cohort received their first choice
34% of PO’s preferencing on cohort received their second choice
80% of PSO’s preferencing on cohort received their first choice
17% of PSO’s preferencing on cohort received their second choice
86% of PO’s preferencing on location received their first choice
9% of PO’s preferencing on location received their second choice
87% of PSO’s preferencing on location received their first choice
7% of PSO’s preferencing on location received their second choice

The consultation exercise that resulted in this project was very productive as management took on board most of our suggestions. This bodes well for future consultations about the other proposed changes in the CRC.

On behalf of the Branch, David Raho attended the CRC Drop-in session at BPR this week to hear about the planned IT upgrade planned to start rolling out later this year. He was joined by one of our members from CP who is an AT user. Given how reliant we all are on functioning IT to do our work, equipment and systems upgrades that work for everyone are of course welcome. The hardware supplied by Hewlett Packard is a big step up performance wise from current equipment. However, our main concern, given past and present problems, is that all our members should be able to benefit from the upgrade.

It appears that MTCnovo were not given detailed information about those in the workforce who require assistive technologies before bidding. They do seem to have been giving this some urgent attention since becoming the owners of LCRC. We understand that a dedicated AT support line will be available rather than having to use a call centre. The employers are keen to consult with the unions as they want to get things right first time and they are also keen to involve AT users in testing the new equipment and systems.

We will keep you posted with developments. In the meantime we would suggest that you try to attend the Drop-in sessions at BPR (there is another one scheduled for Tuesday 6th October 2-4 pm.) and let us know of any concerns that may arise during testing and roll out. We rely on you telling us how the new equipment and systems are working (or not).

Pat Waterman
Branch Chair

--oo00oo--

Jim, it has been brought to my attention that some people who have reached retirement age since TR have not received their pensions and despite many telephone calls and emails to Shared Services the issue has not been resolved. It has been leaked that the department do not have the information needed to identify the staff, so are unable to pay them. Shared Services do not know how to resolve the issue and people are left in limbo. It would be interesting to see how many people are affected. I am aware that some are about to take legal advice.

--oo00oo--

Purple Futures ‏@purplefutures  7h7 hours ago

The justice bid, mobilisation and transition team wins 'Team of the Year' for demonstrating the Interserve values #ingenuityatwork

Postscript

TO: NAPO MEMBERS

Nick Smart has announced that he will be leaving the London CRC at the end of December. Having previously been the Chief Executive of Surrey & Sussex Probation Trust, Nick was asked by NOMS to become CEO of London CRC on the understanding that he would see through the period from public to private ownership and assist with the new owners' transition plans. Nick may well be one of the last Senior Managers to have spent the majority of his career in probation in the public sector.

Earlier this week Rich Gansheimer, Chief Executive, MTCnovo announced that Helga Swidenbank had been appointed as the new Director of Probation, London CRC and will be arriving in November to take over from Nick Smart. He went on to say that Helga will be closely involved in the end-of-year changes being made by MTCnovo that will transform the way we work.

Helga Swidenbank joined the UK prison service in the 1990's. At the start of her career in the prison service she worked at HMP Wormwood Scrubs before becoming a Deputy Governor at HMYOI Feltham. She was there from 2004 until 2007 during which time the POA are on record as describing Feltham as an "unsafe establishment for both staff to work in and prisoners to reside within" and warned the governors that they were breaching health and safety legislation.

In 2007 she joined Sodexo Justice Services and was Director of one of their prisons (HMP Bronzefield) for over five years. Before her present appointment as Director of Probation, London CRC, she was the Account Director with Sodexo Corporate Services (International Large Accounts Division).

What concerns me is that, despite the claim by Rich Gansheimer that she has "wide experience in the justice sector..........and will bring fresh thinking at an important time for the London CRC", she does not appear to have any experience of working in the probation sector.

I have never made any secret of my views that probation services should have remained in the public sector but, for the benefit of all members who work in the CRC, it is vital that this union engages as positively as possible with the new owners and the new Director. As I have mentioned in previous emails, our experience so far of negotiations in the CRC has been good and I hope it remains so.

According to her own CV Helga is accomplished at working in partnership with staff associations and trades unions. I look forward to meeting with her.

Pat Waterman Branch Chair

Utterly Deluded

My attention has been drawn to a speech made yesterday by Andrew Selous MP, and delivered at the 15th Annual Criminal Justice Management Conference at the QE11 centre. This is an extract:-

Transforming rehabilitation

As part of this major programme of reform, we introduced the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014. This made a number of changes to the sentencing framework, most notably changing the law so that all offenders released from short prison sentences now receive 12 months of supervision in the community.

These provisions came into force on 1 February 2015, and apply to offences committed on or after that date. We are therefore building up a cohort of offenders who would previously have been released from prison with £46 in their pocket and little else. Now those offenders receive statutory supervision and assistance with their resettlement back in the community.

To enable the Ministry of Justice to extend statutory rehabilitation in the community to the 45,000 offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody, we needed to make significant structural changes both to the Probation Service and the Prison Service. Therefore, after consultation, the 35 Probation Trusts were re-organised into 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies, or CRCs, and a single National Probation Service, known as the NPS.

As you know, transition to the new probation structures took place on 1 June last year, from which date the NPS and 21 CRCs were live and supervising offenders. Offenders who pose a high risk of serious harm to the public, or are convicted of the most serious offences, are being managed by the public sector NPS, while medium and lower risk offenders are being managed by the CRCs. The NPS sits within the National Offender Management Service, while the 21 CRCs remained in public ownership until 1 February this year when 8 new providers took ownership of, and began running, the CRCs. The CRCs are being run by a diverse group of providers, including a range of voluntary sector providers, which have experience in rehabilitating offenders. These providers will be remunerated via a system which rewards them for reducing reoffending – payment by results.

Transforming Rehabilitation also brought about substantial reform to the prison system. To support improved rehabilitation outcomes, the prison estate was reorganised to facilitate a “Through the Gate” model where offenders are given help and support from within custody and in to the community to which they will return on release. In order to do this, the National Offender Management Service established a network of 89 Resettlement Prisons in what has involved a large scale re-organisation of prisoner allocation and re-configuration of roles for a substantial part of the prison estate. Short term prisoners and prisoners in the last 12 weeks of their sentence are being housed in those prisons where CRCs provide a Through the Gate resettlement service including support to offenders for accommodation needs, employment brokerage and retention, finance and debt advice and support for sex workers and victims of domestic violence.

It has now been 8 months since CRCs transitioned to their new owners. So how is the new probation system looking? It is encouraging, given the scale of change that the probation service has gone through, that, based on the wide range of information we published last November, and in July this year, performance is broadly consistent with pre-transition levels. Probation staff in both the NPS and the CRCs have worked very hard to implement these reforms and we of course continue to support them as the new ways of working become embedded.

In regard to the Community Rehabilitation Companies all the new providers have commenced the process of restructuring their CRCs in order to implement the business models which they set out in their bids during the competition to win the CRC contracts. As the 8 providers only took over the running of their CRCs on 1 February this year these changes are in the early stages. By opening up the market to these new providers the Transforming Rehabilitation programme aimed to ensure that new and innovative approaches would be used to reduce reoffending and bring in best practice from the public, private and third sectors. Initial innovation can already be observed as the eight providers establish new ways of working, ranging from streamlining back office functions and installing modern ICT to implementing new management styles.

One of the first priorities for the new owners of the 21 CRCs was to get their Through the Gate services up and running by 1 May. Resettlement services relating to employment and accommodation brokerage, and finance and debt advice are now in place. Work continues to drive up standards of this service in both custody and the community with a view to further reducing reoffending, and we are monitoring delivery closely to ensure that these resettlement services meets the high standards set out in our design.

Intensive contract management by my officials will ensure CRC providers continue to deliver as we go forward. Contract management teams, comprising regionally-based combined teams of operational and commercial staff, are managing CRC contracts, ensuring contractor compliance and consistent levels of performance and delivery of the contract, including all statutory functions.

The Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have made substantial changes to the way we manage offenders in England and Wales. And I am proud to be a part of the team that made that happen. There of course remains much work to be done as we embed these reforms, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank probation and prison staff for their continued hard work. They are doing a magnificent job and deserve widespread recognition.

--oo00oo--

The BBC's Danny Shaw reports that HM Chief Probation Inspector Paul Wilson tells criminal justice conference his "real concern" is that resources will become so "stretched"......there'll be more "inexperienced staff" with "unrealistic workloads" & "more distant managers" in probation. It's a "worry" says Paul Wilson.

This comment from yesterday:-

It is probably true that Mr Selous is told that all of these things are in place and that things are progressing well, his managers, lackeys et al are not going to tell him they are failing/have failed are they?

Some things are in place but they are NOT working. There are too many people in place that do not know how the system works nor how to do whatever role it is they are supposed to be fulfilling. There may well be systems and processes loaded up into a map or whatever, but people can neither understand them, have no time to access them and in any event many of these just do not join up or make sense practically or otherwise.

The systems and the people within it are breaking, many have already been broken. It is simply not possible and yet those 'at the top' keep churning out huge and unreadable documents, not uncommonly followed by a revised version a short time later. The 'tools' are time consuming, inefficient and are years behind the current need, evidently first developed during a different era and of even greater concern, actively act against the ability to complete accurate and fully informed assessments.

The previously, not brilliantly, but joined up working between the CJS organisations and partnerships are fractured and as people simply have too much to do, it is becoming close to impossible. The CRC's are working towards bonuses, payment by results etc and yet the NPS work and achievements are just taken for granted. NAPO was originally a professional body, not a Union and yet now it seems to be doing neither role effectively, if at all.

There was room for improvement, Probation Services and Trusts had been the people fighting for many of the changes, some of what is proposed would be beneficial. However, the way this has been done has been the most appallingly, horrendously, disgustingly, inefficient, ineffective, detrimental, damaging, poorly considered, badly implemented and downright dishonest period of change that could ever have been contemplated.

NEC News

There was an NEC meeting yesterday and I gather the General Secretary seems to be keen to blame the membership for the position we now find ourselves in, rather than admit to any shortcomings of his own. It will be interesting to see if he intends to pursue this line at the AGM in October. By the way, it would appear no miners lamp is on order, so some members look to be very disappointed indeed.

I gather that the subject of he-who-cannot-be-mentioned came up, Jonathan Ledger, the erstwhile and disgraced former General Secretary. Apparently Napo had written to him asking for some of the cash back, but it seems this met with a polite but sympathetic negative response citing the fact that the whole episode had 'ruined his life', but that he did regret not informing his employers earlier of the relationship. It should probably come as no great surprise that the NEC have decided that trying to chase him earnestly for money would be both a waste of time and money. I wonder if the membership will ever get a full explanation?

Finally, given the on-going loss of members, together with the need for a strategy to see the union through these difficult times, many might find it surprising that I gather no report was forthcoming from Campaign Committee. Is it any wonder that some members might feel there are some serious shortcomings in management at the top of this union?    

Big Brother Needs Bigger Batteries

Following on from my report about Electronic Monitoring from the Leicester conference last week, I see that the right-wing think tank Reform have given the MoJ another good kicking over the complete Horlicks they've made of the new tagging contract:-     

Cutting crime: the role of tagging in offender management

On any one day up to 25,000 people are subject to electronic monitoring (EM) in England and Wales, largely as part of a Community Order, Bail Order or post-release licence condition. In the last few years pilots have also been undertaken to test the impact of EM in tackling domestic violence, alcohol-related offending and prolific and priority offenders.

As technology has advanced, so too has the potential of ‘tagging’. The original radio frequency technology monitors whether an offender is in a particular location at a particular point in time, the global positioning system (GPS) technology allows continuous monitoring of an offenders location. Transdermal alcohol tags can continuously test the alcohol level in an offender’s perspiration. As with any technology there are limitations, but as shown in America, if used effectively EM has the potential to help reduce reoffending and cut criminal justice system costs.

The potential of EM has, however, been undermined by the Ministry of Justice’s poor procurement of the ‘new generation’ of tags. At best it will have taken four and a half years to deliver the GPS tags, and even when they are delivered the contract model will stifle innovation.

The report recommends that the Government:

• scrap the current procurement and establish a framework of approved suppliers for local services to contract with;
• extend the use of tagging to police bail, domestic violence related orders and serious offenders leaving prison on early release; and
• ensure frontline criminal justice practitioners can use the data generated from GPS tags to detect and prevent crime.

--oo00oo--

Whilst acknowledging that although the evidence might be lacking, tagging lots more people would make all kinds of sense commercially and save the government shed loads of money, there's just the small matter of battery life - the tags need to be plugged in every few hours:-

1.6 The limitations of electronic monitoring 

EM technology has evolved considerably, enabling increasingly sophisticated use as an offender management, punishment and public-protection tool. As with any technology, however, it has its limitations. In addition, this advancement in technology has raised concerns about the collection and use of increasing volumes of data. It is important for policymakers and practitioners to recognise these. 

1.6.1 Battery life 

As pressure rises to ensure GPS devices run more and more concurrent capabilities, the battery life reduces significantly. In addition, increasing volumes of data transfer drains the battery life of a device. Continuously tracking offenders to provide real-time intelligence requires much more frequent communication between the electronic anklet and central portal. Interviews for this report suggest that this type of tracking can reduce a tag’s battery life to just a few hours. 

In response to this problem some providers have developed a portable charging pack which can be clipped on to the electronic anklet. This negates the need for the offender to be near a charging socket if the battery runs low. 

1.6.2 The robustness of the data 

The accuracy of GPS data has greatly improved, however there continues to be a number of limitations. 

Drift 

The strength of a GPS signal can vary depending on the distance to the nearest satellite. When the signal is particularly weak this can cause drift. Drift, or movement in the accuracy of the signal, means that an offender may be recorded some distance from their true location (although this will often only be a matter of meters). When a subject has a number of inclusion or exclusion zones it is possible a violation can be registered. To combat this, ‘buffer zones’ can be built in to provide offenders and monitoring agents with an early warning that they are close to committing a violation.

The Scottish Government’s 2013 consultation on EM also highlighted that drift can occur when a subject remains stationary for a prolonged period and is close to water.

Whilst drift can be problematic it often does not, however, exclude a data set from being used as evidence of a violation. Generally only a minority of the data points in a series will be inaccurate, so by reading the set as a whole it is still possible to see the direction an offender was travelling and exclude the anomalies.

Cities and rural areas 

A GPS signal can be disrupted in built up areas where very tall buildings can block the satellites and cause the signal to bounce. Similarly, much like many smart phones, GPS tags may be less accurate in very rural areas. Whilst the GSM mobile phone network can be used as a backup when GPS signal is unobtainable, the level of accuracy provided by the substitute system is much lower. As GPS coverage improves across the country this will become less of an issue. 

Underground 

A particular problem for EM use in London is the lack of GPS signal on the Underground. Whilst agents can contact subjects approaching a tube station to confirm their travel plans and estimate a reasonable journey time before a signal should resume, the offender’s whereabouts cannot be confirmed for the duration of that journey. 

GPS jammers 

In addition to these geographical issues, GPS ‘jammers’ can be used to block or interfere with the GPS signal. It is not currently illegal to import, sell, buy or possess a jammer in the UK and basic jammers are easy to acquire. Experienced monitoring agents interviewed for this report have suggested that it is possible to identify when a jammer has been used, however there is a risk that an offence is committed before the jammer is identified, or that the offender has absconded in that time.

Tampering 

As well as deliberately blocking the GPS signal, offenders’ efforts to remove or damage the hardware of the tag can cause problems. 

Whilst a fibre-optic cable within the strap will alert the relevant authority if the tag is cut or tampered with, it does not prevent offenders who have successfully removed their tag from offending or absconding. The high profile case of Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed,46 who absconded whilst subject to a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure (TPIM), demonstrates this. Here, the technology had not failed and a tamper alert had been sent to the monitoring centre, but a delay between the alerts and the police arriving still allowed the offender to abscond. 

1.6.3 The accessibility and usability of the data 

Interviewees for this paper raised concerns that data collected by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) from the new generation tags will not be accessible for police and the Crown Prosecution Service. This inhibits the potential for the tags to be used not only for enforcement, but also to prevent and detect crime. Overlaying EM data with crime data could also enable more effective and efficient deployment of criminal justice system resources. 

This, however, raises privacy issues. Whilst it is desirable for multiple agencies to be able to exploit the intelligence harvested from GPS monitoring, it must be done within appropriate legal frameworks. It is important to consider not only the highly personal nature of the data being collected, but also that in some instances the information is being taken from victims – when being used for domestic violence tagging – or those on remand who have not been convicted of a crime. 

In Germany, data collected is erased after just two months, and must only be used where the offender has been convicted of a crime that is punishable with at least a year in prison. If the benefits of GPS enabled EM are to be fully realised, replicating this approach would be too restrictive. Nonetheless, there must be a clear and transparent framework identifying who can access the data and under what conditions.

Bureaucracy or Commercialisation?

We all know it's extremely difficult and often unwise to comment on cases when not in possession of the full facts, but sometimes you become aware of something that triggers a train of thought and some uneasy questioning. 

I was alerted to the following blog via Twitter yesterday and mindful of the whole TR omnishambles, it got me thinking about how all this was impacting on individual cases given the bureaucratic nightmare the split and privatisation has created. 

We know things weren't perfect before, but of course we now have commercial considerations to take account of where CRC's are concerned......  

  

Petrified and in Pain: Prohibitive Probation

Imagine finding out, aged just 49, that you have a heart condition. Imagine finding this out whilst incarcerated in prison, at the mercy of prison medical staff. Healthcare in prison is poor at best, every prisoner considered a hypochondriac who is swinging the lead to get stronger medication or a cushier ride. Imagine that heart condition getting increasingly worse. Imagine all the different medications you have to try just to be able to breathe and get through each day, and imagine how long it takes to actually get each medication when living in prison.

Imagine being taken out of prison to see the specialist while handcuffed to a prison officer. Imagine the fear of facing a potentially lethal condition, day after day on your own, knowing that every night you are locked up alone in a room, unable to summon help if you suffer a stroke or heart attack....

Now, jump forward four years. You have had two non-invasive, but still frightening and painful, procedures to try to solve the problem. Neither has worked. You have exhausted all the medication available. You are at daily risk of a stroke or heart attack and you urgently need a five and a half hour operation which is your last and only chance of a cure.

Imagine finding out you are finally listed for your operation, at your heart specialist's London hospital. Imagine the fear building up as you worry about being under general anaesthetic while parts of your heart are burnt away. But imagine the hope building up when you imagine a healthy future, a future where you can breathe properly, where your heart beats steadily and slowly, where you can once again be a productive member of society, where you can be the partner and family member you have struggled to be, where you can look forward to your wedding planned for next year, knowing you will walk down the aisle fit and strong.

My Scottish friend has her operation booked for Wednesday. It's an urgent operation and so she has been placed high up the list. But, as it stands today, she won't be going.........

She left prison 15 weeks ago. She served her time for a crime that she was manipulated into, that she admits was based on a wrong decision, and she has been a model prisoner. A first time (and only time I am sure) offender she is the lowest risk category. She has no direct victim, it wasn't a violent crime and she has nothing added to her standard licence. Those who have read my blogs will know that she left open prison in June as a textbook rehabilitated prisoner, with a full time job, a car, a partner and a new family. But, 15 weeks later, the Probation Service has managed to take away both her job and her car, and are preventing her continuing her relationship with her new partner. She is also isolated from her only family, who live in London. She is still unemployed and living in homeless accommodation in Scotland, nearly 600 miles from the place and people she considers to be home.

Nobody quite knows why Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC are being so awkward and prohibitive. They still refuse to respond in writing, to communicate effectively with Scottish probation, PAS. the Scottish lady herself or her legal representatives. The local CRC office refuses to make any decisions about transferring her case to England or even about visiting temporarily while having this necessary surgery. They insist such an "unheard of" request to live with another ex-offender has to be considered by a senior officer from the National Probation Service. But there are many, many examples of two ex-offenders on licence living together and marrying without any of this kind of prohibitive and vindictive behaviour from their probation officers. Different agencies working with ex-offenders and also other Probation departments have confirmed this. Nobody can get to the bottom of the KSS CRC decision making. There does not seem to be a ruling or prison law that forbids this. There is nothing in either person's background or behaviour that would forbid this.

Whether or not a higher officer has to make the decision though is not the crux of this matter. The extremely urgent and life threatening issue is that the request for transfer was originally made over three months ago, the paperwork was sent (more than once), the hospital dates were known about, and yet......... still no decision or communication is forthcoming. Imagine how scared you would be about undergoing surgery, and how frightening to still not have confirmation that you can actually attend just three days before!

On Friday the Scottish lady visited her GP. She has been told that the stress caused by Probation's appalling behaviour towards her has massively increased her risk of stroke and/or heart attack. She has now been prescribed Diazepam on top of all the other daily medications she has to take to try to keep a serious heart attack at bay. The GP, who works four days a week in the prison service, has written a supporting letter. In it he states:

"I believe if she went onto a myocardial infarction/heart attack whilst placed on yet another waiting list, the Probation Office could be found medically and legally liable"

This letter has been e-mailed to Scottish Probation, PAS, the solicitor, KSS CRC and the senior officer who is refusing to deal with the situation. Ironically an out-of-office reply came back from that same senior officer, saying she was out of office until 23rd (the date of the operation.......). But for those of you who are technically minded bear this in mind.......

The out of office reply was sent, not as an automated reply, not with alternative contact details, but with a short sentence in it, FIVE HOURS after the email was received!! Slightly suspicious don't you think??

It seems that the Criminal Justice System can behave in any way they please, break any rules they like, make up rules as they go along. But ultimately, this is a human being. They are risking the death of a 53 year old lady, a living breathing human, who has a daughter, a partner, a sister, a niece and nephew, a whole new family.......

I hope they sleep well at night, I know the Scottish lady doesn't.....

A Call to Arms

Implementation of the Active Risk Management System (ARMS)

1. Executive summary 

1.1 This Instruction introduces the arrangements for implementing the Active Risk Management System (ARMS), including the arrangements required for training. ARMS provides a framework for working with all male sexual offenders who are subject to statutory supervision. It is not in itself a risk assessment tool but will aid the assessment of dynamic risk and protective factors. For low risk of re offending sexual offenders, the use of ARMS will assist in identifying work that should be carried out using the ‘Maps for Change’ tool-kit. It should be noted however, that Maps for Change is not in any way intended to take the place of an accredited programme. In addition, where it is used with an offender whose risk is assessed as either medium, high or very high then the offender manager should liaise with the Sex Offender Programme Treatment Manager in order to make sure that there is no repetition of work and that sequencing of work is taken into consideration. 

Background 

1.2 There is currently no approved structured framework for working with male sexual offenders within the National Probation Service, where most sexual offenders are managed. In addition, there is no approved provision for low risk of reoffending sexual offenders and those who are deemed to be unsuitable for accredited treatment programmes for other reasons. ARMS will therefore provide the means for offender managers to structure the work they do with this group of offenders and this will enhance the completion of OASys risk management plans and sentence plans. 

1.3 ARMS will not replace any other nationally recognised risk assessment tool. It will however, assist in the assessment of dynamic risk. 

1.4 There has been a pilot of ARMS in two (former) Probation Trusts and within two police areas - Lancashire and Cheshire Probation Trusts; and Staffordshire and West Midlands and Humberside Constabularies. The Probation pilot involved approximately 40 sexual offenders. The results of the pilot were positive, and offender managers who were involved have stated that they found it useful in terms of providing structure to supervision and aiding the identification of dynamic risk factors and protective factors that could then be addressed and included in risk management plans. As a result of the positive results of the pilot within police areas, all police forces are now implementing ARMS. 

Desired outcomes 

1.5 The desired outcome is that ARMS will be used with all male sexual offenders who are subject to statutory supervision by the National Probation Service. 

1.6 For low risk of reoffending offenders it will aid the identification of “protective factors” that can be addressed utilising the ‘Maps for Change’ tool kit that is provided as an annex to this PI. 

1.7 There are currently 3 National Trainers who are approved to deliver ‘train the trainer’ events for ARMS. The intention is for the National Trainers to train (in train the trainer) a number of staff from the NOMS training unit and a sufficient number of offender managers who are experienced in working with sexual offenders from within the NPS, to train all NPS suitably experienced offender managers. 

1.8 Within 6 months of the NPS offender managers having completed their training, it will be mandatory to use ARMS as the framework for supervision on all new sex offender licence and community order cases and those that have commenced supervision in the last 6 months. More specifically, at commencement of a Community Order and at the point ofrelease for a licence. It can also be used on cases where the offence had a sexual element, but where the offender was not actually charged with a sexual offence. For all other cases, it is best practice and encouraged, but not mandatory to use ARMS. The National Trainers and trainers from NOMS will support the suitably experienced offender managers in cascading the training within each Probation Division.

Application 

1.9 Deputy Directors in the NPS should be familiar with the implementation arrangements for ARMS and so will ensure that a suitable number of suitably experienced offender managers are made available to attend the train the trainer events and that all offender managers within each NPS Division attend an ARMS training event. 

1.10 Local Delivery Unit (LDU) Heads should familiarise themselves with the contents of this PI to make sure that they identify suitably experienced staff for train the trainer training at the direction of the Deputy Directors within the required time frames. 

1.11 NPS Senior Probation Officers supervising suitably experienced offender managers, supervising sexual offenders should be familiar with this PI so that they are aware of the requirement for them to attend ARMS training and use the framework when supervising all new sexual offender cases. Senior Probation Officers and suitably experienced managers should also make themselves familiar with the operational guidance notes and the Maps for Change – a tool kit for working with low risk of re offending sexual offenders (see Appendix 2 at the end of this document). 

Mandatory actions 

1.12 Managers in the National Probation Service must ensure that their staff are aware of, and comply with the following mandatory requirements below: 

• Deputy Directors in each of the Probation Divisions must identify and make available 2 suitably experienced offender managers who will attend the two day ARMS training followed by the two day train the trainer event. 
• Each Probation Division must plan a schedule of training events in collaboration with the NOMS training unit to ensure that ARMS is rolled out to all suitably experienced offender managers in the NPS by the end of February 2016 All suitably experienced offender managers in NPS Divisions must attend and complete ARMS training. 
• Once trained in the use of ARMS all suitably experienced offender managers must use the framework in supervision with all new community order cases of male sexual offenders and those who have commenced supervision within the 6 months from when the offender manager is trained. Regarding those sexual offenders on licence, it must be used on all new cases and on existing cases that have commenced within the last six months of the offender manager completing the training and where the licence lasts for more than 12 months. 
• Suitably experienced offender managers must complete the training within 6 months of the train the trainer event having taken place. 

Resource Impact 

1.13 There are no capital costs associated with the implementation of ARMS. It will provide structure to the supervision that is currently undertaken with sexual offenders. Although it may take longer to complete ARMS in the early stages, over time it will not. Evidence from the pilot provides evidence for this assertion. The only human resource impact is that of releasing staff to complete the training.

Digby Griffith
Director National Operational Services, NOMS

--oo00oo--

That last point certainly doesn't seem to be conceded by Pat Waterman, London Napo branch Chair. This from Facebook:- 

"Meanwhile its business as usual in the NPS. Too much work and not enough staff to do it. I understand that Sara Robinson is making a Business Case to NOMS for extra resources and yesterday at the NPS JCC we brought to Senior Management's attention the extra work that will be required of members as a result of the introduction of ARMS. The E3 project rumbles on and it is expected that they will be issuing a “Blueprint” within the next couple of months. We await this with interest!"