Wednesday 23 September 2020

Napo and Sentencing Proposals

Published today and circulated to all Napo members:-

Napo responds to Government White Paper

Last week the Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland MP published his White Paper: A smarter approach to sentencing. Napo has scrutinised the document and highlighted a number of concerns we have with the proposals. This briefing has been shared with David Lammy MP and his justice team and Katie Lomas National Chair and Tania Bassett National Official met with him today to discuss them in more detail. Napo will continue to raise these issues across parliament to try to influence the policy further including through our parliamentary networks such as the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group and the Justice Select Committee.

White Paper Briefing: A Smarter Approach to Sentencing
 

The White Paper published 16th September 2020 outlines government proposals to reform sentencing and community orders. Below is Napo’s response to the paper and highlights concerns with the proposals as well as unforeseen consequences of the reforms. 

In 2019 Lord Woolfe said that there needed to be a full review of the terms of reference of the sentencing council as well as a full review of the guidelines as he felt it had lost focus of its original purpose, becoming more and more punitive. It is then disappointing that the Lord Chancellor did not undertake this as part of the paper. Napo believes that this is fundamental to any proposed sentencing reforms. 

Napo is also clear that longer periods in custody does not aid rehabilitation and this briefing is written within that context. 

Courts 

Courts have been struggling with listings for some time now as a result of court closures and staff cuts. Covid-19 has further exacerbated this with an estimated 45,000 cases now awaiting court time. As a result, we are seeing trials for even the most serious offences being adjourned to 2022 and beyond. In order for any effective reforms to sentencing to take place this issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency by re-opening courts and not closing Nightingale Courts (one of which has closed after just 2 weeks). 

As raised by David Lammy MP, problem solving courts introduced under the last Labour government, have proven themselves to be very effective and as such Napo agrees that there is no need to pilot these. Instead they should be rolled out nationally as soon as possible and courts given the funding required to do this. The closure of smaller local Courts does not create ideal circumstances for the introduction of problem solving Courts which should be connected to the local community. Their reopening (and the commitment to no further closures) could support the introduction of problem solving Courts while assisting in clearing the backlog of cases. 

Pre-sentence reports 

Napo welcomes the proposal to review the use of pre-sentence reports. As part of the last probation reforms an arbitrary target of 80% of all reports to be completed in a short format has contributed in a drop in quality in reports (as identified by HMIP) and therefore significant drop in courts ordering them (as identified by MOJ figures). Napo has opposed this target from day one as well as other stakeholders such as the Magistrates Association.

Napo believes that our members are best placed to determine what format a report should be written on based on the individual they are assessing, their needs and the risk they pose. Therefore, we see no reason to pilot “targeted” reports, simply allow practitioners to use their professional judgement. This would both improve the quality of reports (by allowing sufficient time for pre-sentence reports to be completed) and increase sentencers confidence in the assessments they are provided with. 

GPS, Tagging and Curfews 

Tagging has never really been fully utilised. In part because there is a lack of confidence in how they are monitored by the private sector. G4S and Serco have both been investigated by the serious fraud office for falsely claiming money for tags that have been fitted inappropriately or not at all. Whilst Napo welcomes the powers for probation to alter curfews as and when it is appropriate they have little control over the tagging process itself. For tagging to be both value for money and an effective supplement to other interventions this should be brought in house. Its effectiveness is currently undermined when providers fail to notify of breaches, are difficult to share information with and have little or no accountability. 

Custodial Sentences 

Napo is concerned that at a time when we need to be looking at developing a more progressive justice system the proposals to remove the automatic release at the half way point is a backwards move instead. Automatic release half way through a custodial sentence of 4 – 7 years was introduced by the last Labour government. With the exception of a few, very critical and horrendous cases, this has proven to be an effective way of using the licence period for more rehabilitation and public protection measures. Changing this back to two thirds reduces the amount of time probation have to work with an individual to reduce their risk and help to turn their life around during the resettlement portion of the sentence which can only happen in the community. 

Preventing automatic release for certain prisoners of concern and relying on the parole board to deem them safe before they can be released, appears to similar to the now abolished IPP sentences which proved to have been disproportionate and have left prisoners wallowing in prison way beyond their original tariff. Napo is deeply worried that this measure, which can be imposed even if no further offence has been committed and concerns about risk do not have to be connected to the index offence may be open to abuse. Much more detail is required to reassure both practitioners and prisoners on what exactly these concerns relate to, what evidence is required to support refusal of automatic release and what needs to be achieved for a prisoner to be considered for release by the parole board. There are currently prisoners serving an IPP that have no prospect of release as they are unable to achieve the targets set by the parole board (for example offending behaviour programmes that must be completed for release but are not being offered in the establishment they are held or are not accessible to them because of mental health issues). 

Rehabilitation and resettlement are not the same although they are both important. Rehabilitation can begin while in custody and will continue in the community. It is the process by which people make changes to their lives to enable them to desist from offending. It may include education and training, addressing substance use, changing thinking and behaviour patterns, getting support with emotional wellbeing and mental health issues. Resettlement only happens in the community, although it should be planned while in custody. It is the process by which someone moves from custody to community and reintegrates positively into society. When people are released at the end of their sentence they may have begun their rehabilitation journey in custody but their resettlement will be done in the community with no support or monitoring by Probation as they will have no licence period. This also means that there will be no risk management on release. 

It will also generate a considerable amount of additional work so reassurances are needed that the Parole Board will be adequately funded and resourced to prevent further back logs in the system. 

Wider Reforms 

Extending the victim service in probation is welcomed. However, the role of victim liaison officer (VLO) was downgraded by the Ministry of Justice during transforming rehabilitation. This has left our members feeling undervalued and sends a message to the public that this role is not really seen as critical. The changes will also increase workloads considerably for VLOs, many already working with hundreds of cases, so Napo would like assurances that there will be a targeted recruitment drive to increase the staff resource in this area. Napo welcomes the move to bring all interventions back in house under the NPS and the intention to integrate unpaid work into the wider community. Unpaid work is the most visible role that probation plays in communities. However, under Transforming rehabilitation many CRCs began to charge community groups for this service reducing access by small community groups to utilise it. Napo would like assurances that these charges will stop and that unpaid work can be accessed by all community groups. 

Tania Bassett, Napo National Official 
21 September 2020

19 comments:

  1. shouldn't NAPO be more worried about the fact that staff are leaving in droves, due to an extremely toxic work culture, with most offices being run by manager vultures? clique central. offices falling to pieces with lack of access to the most basic resources and staff at all levels left demoralised, unhappy and overworked. new starters left to pick up the pieces of lazy and unprofessional "colleagues" who think they rule the world and do whatever work they please. almost all of the core probation ethos has been lost. All started with NOMS and TR being the nail in the coffin. Probation will go up in metaphorical flames and it will probably do the world of good to start all over again.

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    1. Probably but I read it as a meeting of a labour MP of the opposition and years away from elections let alone any power so may as well have just anybody. I read "concerns" a napo generalism they use a lot but say nothing of those concerns in specific detail. The same old poorly constructed napo bleating and then realised another read to cure insomnia. Yawn !

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  2. Shouldn’t NAPO have something to say about the outstanding pay award?
    This should have been in the pay packets in April. It’s October next week and nowt.
    This might explain why staff are leaving in droves, along with the crap technology, the de-professionalisation, the erosion of role boundaries, the lack of career development, a bullying society as I say, not as I do,’ culture and a general lack of purpose or role identity.
    I am aware of PQuips leaving mid training, old hands taking early retirement and mid ranger’s simply balling out.
    Morale is none existent, the job is knackered but NAPO moved some propositions through the TUC and shared it’s thoughts with an MP. - the employers will be quaking in their boots!

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    1. of course it should and it has. Responding to a white paper about sentencing reform by raising the issue of the pay fiasco would be irrelevant. Please grow up and get involved

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    2. Agree with 2052. Napo are week and useless and in general should be doing something and updating staff about what it is they are doing about pay. Only interested in what concerns them and maintaining their salaries.

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    3. They don't need to be talking to the labour sympathisers anyway they need audience in the right place. Mr lammy has no real strategy for the future and Napo has less prospect of a future after the change over. Roll up unison the new and only voice for probation. Or anyone but this Napo keystone gang.

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  3. uk no-budget govt covid-19 data 23/9/20

    new cases: 6,178

    total for week sun-weds inclusive: 19,371

    FranK.

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  4. "New rules for MI5 and police to authorise crimes"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54274605

    Robert Buckland: "If I see the rule of law being broken in a way that I find unacceptable then of course I will go. We are not at that stage."

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    1. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/22/covid-chumocracy/

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  5. The White Paper is a Dumber than Dumb Approach to Sentencing. Buckland is yet another pointless, frightened lickspittle more interested in his own political survival than the welfare of the nation.

    As any fule no, the VLO role should NOT be a probation service task; it should be a discrete role under the PCC umbrella which has ready access to police and probation. Contrary to the MoJ/NPS view the VLO role is complex. There are too many conflicts of interest within the probation environment.

    Probation provision would benefit from dedicated teams focusing on aspects of the job in hand, e.g. courts teams (court diversion, breach, advice to court users); PSR teams; community supervision teams; etc. The jolly generic all-singing-all-dancing-appointment experiment has proven to be a failure. Too many people know too little about a lot (many are in management positions!) rather than developing a depth & breadth of knowledge about particular complexities of the job. Its time to reinstate a truly focused, professional workforce.

    That includes civil servants, other government positions including SpAds, cabinet ministers AND the Prime Minister. Waffle, bluster, bullying & bullshit do not cut it.

    The UK is spiralling into a disastrous state of calamity as a result of too many idiots with power & wealth interfering with things they know nowt about, people with scant regard for anything except their own superficial understanding of next-to-nothing.

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  6. Law Society Gazette today:-

    HM Courts & Tribunals Service has revealed that it will introduce evening courts to bring down the backlog of cases in the magistrates’ court.

    In a webinar discussing HMCTS’s crime recovery plan yesterday, deputy director Jason Latham said HMCTS was in the ‘final stages’ of identifying how to roll out evening sessions, which would run from 5pm-8pm, Monday to Friday.

    Latham said the evening sessions would hear cases requiring minimal involvement from a legal representative.

    Saturday courts will also be extended. Earlier this week the Ministry of Justice said magistrates’ courts were seeing the number of outstanding cases fall – dealing with around 21,000 cases a week against a pre-Covid baseline of 33,853. Latham said 90 additional sessions were currently running in the magistrates’ court every Saturday.

    To bring down the backlog of Crown court cases, Covid-19 operating hours are being tested at Liverpool, Hull, Stafford, Snaresbrook, Portsmouth and Reading crown courts.

    Asked about the potential discriminatory impact of Covid-19 operating hours, Latham said: ‘We recognise this could have different types of impact on different types of users, particularly legal professionals. But it has been designed in a way, by the working group, so that provisions are in place for legal professionals in advance of a listed hearing date to request that it be moved, whether it is because of practical issues or issues such as where they have caring responsibilities.’

    Latham added that the Covid-19 operating hours had been ‘designed in a way so people do not have to work longer hours. There is a choice of different sitting patterns available to them’.

    Around 360 people tuned into HMCTS’s webinar where officials were also asked about empty courtrooms.

    Delivery director Gill Hague said courtrooms might look empty but they were empty for a reason. She said they might be required for jury retiring or jury assembly arrangements, or they might not be being used because social distancing requirements cannot be achieved.

    On why HMCTS was regularly sitting benches of two magistrates, not the usual three, attendees were told this was due to being able to maintain social distancing requirements not just in court but also ‘everything back of house’, such as the deliberation room and shared facilities.

    Law Society president Simon Davis told the Gazette: 'We have significant reservations as to whether extended hours will in practice prove to be an effective way to increase court capacity.

    'In the Crown court, we believe the costs are likely to outweigh the benefits, and we are concerned about the impact on lawyers, parties and witnesses with caring responsibilities. However, we do see merit in extending magistrates' court hours to deal with minor offences involving unrepresented defendants, if those defendants would prefer to be able to deal with these issues outside normal working hours.'

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  7. Off topic boring napo rubbish we have Sunak spending less per capita than anywhere else including USA on helping people in new debt crisis led Britain. What a shame the people dont realise their tory voting trend for a profit orientated non public services bent government wont enjoy paying monies back. When the jobs go homes go and the private tory voting supporters will be looking for a Council property or a community home as the fall out comes there are not enough of them. Well they asked for it ?

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    1. They are I feel, pretty happy to keep things f***ed up at the moment.
      Thirteen weeks from now we leave the EU and there's still no sign of the oven baked deal promised.
      There's little bits of the problems ahead that stem from Brexit being slipped out quietly whilst everyone is focused on the virus and the individual concerns it brings to all of us.
      If they keep everything knackered up until December 31st they can blame the problems Brexit brings in the new year on the global pandemic and not on the bollocks they spouted loudly during the referendum.

      'Getafix

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  8. The Guardian.

    The Guardian view on crime and justice: dangerous neglect
    In courts and prisons, Covid-19 has made an already bad situation worse. Our society will suffer the consequences

    “If you’ve got nothing to do, and you’re just watching telly and sleeping all day, it just ruins you,” is how one teenager described prison during the pandemic. Six months after emergency measures were introduced, evidence of serious problems across the justice system is mounting. Unquestionably, the severity of the situation facing courts and prisons now is the combined effect of the pandemic and a decade of cuts. Since 2010, the Ministry of Justice’s budget has shrunk by 40%. The inspectorate that monitors the Crown Prosecution Service warned in the summer that the growing backlog could take a decade to clear. In the crown court in England and Wales, it stood at 37,000 cases even before lockdown.

    Warnings of “disturbing consequences” from the stoppage of face-to-face visits in children’s prisons, contained in a new report, are extremely worrying. Society simply cannot afford for the already poor prospects of this group of young people, a disproportionate number of whom come from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds, to get any worse. Yet this is the effect that disrupting their contact with relatives, and restricting learning time, is likely to have. At one young offender institution, Cookham Wood in Kent, inspectors found children allowed out of their cells for just 40 minutes a day.

    Also concerning is the situation exposed by Keith Raynor, the crown court judge who spoke out against the practice of extending custody limits, allowing people to be locked up for longer before they are brought to trial. Earlier this month he complained that he had come under “improper and undue influence”, after he was replaced on a case by a more senior judge.

    Perhaps Judge Raynor was being unusually outspoken. But he is far from alone in his view that the system faces unacceptable delays. Having closed half the magistrates’ courts in England and Wales to save money, the government has been forced to rent spaces for temporary “Nightingale” courts, including the Lowry theatre in Salford. Family courts too are under strain, with judges and others concerned about the impact of remote hearings when, due to legal aid cuts, most litigants have no legal representation. For some children, recent months have been especially painful: visits to parents in prison were stopped, as was contact with birth families for those in care.

    One problem, as campaigners have often noted, is that, to many people, courts, unlike schools or hospitals, appear remote: a sphere of life in which they have no stake (except perhaps for a few days serving on a jury). The truth is that a weakened justice system affects us all indirectly. Victims of crime as well as perpetrators (and defendants who will be found not guilty) suffer when trials are delayed. Lives placed on hold, or wasted in prisons that are unable to carry out meaningful rehabilitation, cause damage that ripples out from individuals to families and communities. Instead of fuelling outrage about crime with announcements about new rules and longer sentences, ministers should concentrate on essential repairs.

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  9. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8763869/amp/Carrie-Symonds-enjoys-five-star-Italian-holiday-Rishi-Sunak-unveils-urgent-measures-save-jobs.html

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  10. As the author of 20:52, I wonder if 15:17 can give some further advice after advising that one should ‘grow up.’
    15:17 says NAPO have said ‘something’ about the wages fiasco. Perhaps I missed it in the deluge of information auto members being sent out from HQ covering all aspects of membership.
    I didn’t see anything on the website or on twitter, I haven’t had an e mail. I haven’t seen anything in the media and nothing via my branch or even the blog
    I am obviously missing something.
    Maybe something was said to an inner circle and failed to reach me Please advise.

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    1. Napo GS paid 90k plus he's not interested in your salary the deal he sold us to agree and since then he has done nothing for his pay the employers rennaged on the agreement. In law is where that breach needs to be heard yet we hear nothing from the thumb twiddler table thumper rotund coward.

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  11. Tweet by Head of Operations, NPS West Midlands

    @nps_wmrHeadOps

    29th September... WMR will be celebrating our Hidden Heroes. All 1100 of you. Why not take a lunch break( virtual or otherwise) with your team to share hidden hero stories. I’d love to hear them or share them on twitter

    ———

    This is the bullsh*t these heads and directors spout. A lunch break is an entitlement not a gift. ‘Why not’ close the offices and protect your staff from the deadly pandemic then spend your time tweeting about our ‘hidden’ pay rise.

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    1. What the hell is a “virtual” lunch break?

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