Grand Plans

What with morale being so low and us all distracted and worn down by Covid concerns, I guess we should have been paying a bit more attention to the government's sentencing White Paper published last September. We covered Napo's initial response here we raised an eyebrow at the aim for a world class service here and other cliche's here, but maybe a close look at the whole probation chapter would be wise:- 

A Smarter Approach to Sentencing

Strengthening the way that offenders are supervised in the community requires a stronger, world-class probation service – one that keeps the public safe through effective community sentences which combine punishment with tailored programmes and treatment requirements to address specific criminogenic needs. With the support of skilled practitioners, a successful period of probation supervision can challenge and motivate offenders to address the causes of their offending. Through our reform programme, our aim is for probation practitioners to have the time, support and tools to develop productive relationships with those they supervise, to deliver interventions directly, and to place offenders with other rehabilitative services.

3. Empowering Probation 

Chapter Summary 

The probation service has for too long operated in the shadows and with the work of its dedicated professionals not sufficiently valued or understood. We want this to change. Probation services deliver more than merely the supervision of offenders. With the support of skilled practitioners, a successful period of probation supervision will see offenders challenged and motivated to address the causes of their offending: supported to find stable accommodation and employment, and to make a sustained move away from relationships, associations or addictions that will lead to reoffending. 

Effective supervision is at the heart of our plans to improve probation services. We want probation practitioners to have the time, support and tools to develop effective relationships with those they supervise, to deliver effective interventions directly, and to place offenders with other rehabilitative services. We will do this through investment and reforms to the way that probation services are delivered, alongside improvements to the powers available to probation practitioners. 

Partnership working: We want to ensure that there is improved strategic delivery and local partnership working. A refreshed joint policing and probation strategy for IOM will be published by the end of 2020. 

Improving the service to victims and the wider community: Community sentences should also be seen to be served in the community and should be actively benefiting the community within which they are being served. We want to make sure that, in particular, there is a greater community voice in determining how Unpaid Work schemes should be focussed to bring about the most benefit. 

Increasing the powers of probation practitioners: We plan to consider the strong arguments for varying the responsibilities and powers available to probation practitioners to enable them to act swiftly and responsively on their professional judgement, to make sure we have a strong and responsive probation service that is delivering reductions in reoffending. 

Introduction

189  Strengthening the way that offenders are supervised in the community requires a stronger, world-class probation service – one that keeps the public safe through the effective supervision of offenders in the community, by delivering programmes and other interventions to address criminogenic needs, and by bringing together a wide range of statutory agencies and private and voluntary organisations to provide rehabilitation and support. 

190  In strengthening probation we want to ensure that services are effective and give confidence to judges, magistrates and the public, and that are structured in a way that supports local partnership working and is responsive to the needs of local areas.

Unifying probation supervision 

191  In May 2019, we announced that when Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts came to an end, all sentence management responsibilities for low-, medium-, and high-risk offenders would be held by the National Probation Service (NPS). This means that from June 2021, the NPS will be responsible for the effective delivery of community sentences, licences and other forms of post-sentence management by ensuring offenders are properly supervised, requirements are coordinated and delivered, risks are managed and enforcement action taken after any breach, including recall to custody. This will sit alongside and complement the existing NPS responsibility for providing advice to courts ahead of sentencing on the most suitable type of sentence for the offender. NPS Wales unified their offender management services in December 2019, and the learning from that process is helping to shape the future design for England. In March 2020 we published a detailed vision for the probation structures in the Draft Target Operating Model for the Future of Probation Services. 

192  In June 2020 we announced changes in this model in response to the experience of COVID-19. Under our revised approach to probation reform, Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions will no longer be contracted out but will instead be delivered by the NPS directly. We consider that bringing these services into the NPS in addition to sentence management will put us in the best possible position to respond to any further disruption caused by COVID-19 and enable a smoother recovery out of exceptional delivery arrangements we have had to put in place. Advice to court will continue to be a core duty of the NPS with increased focus on quality of assessment and pre-sentence reports. The NPS will build on the existing enhanced through the gate services with a new resettlement model which improves links with prisons, enhances pre-release planning by probation practitioners and provides increased focus on short term sentences. 

193  The revised model puts us in the best place to be able to deliver these ambitions. It will facilitate more strategic and integrated probation supervision through fostering close collaboration with strategic partners including local courts and Police and Crime Commissioners.

194  Our approach for all services for Day 1 of the new model will be to move existing CRC staff and delivery models into the NPS with minimal disruption with ongoing work thereafter to embed and improve service delivery. The transition to a level of service as envisaged by the Draft Target Operating Model for probation is likely to take time given the backlogs to Unpaid Work and Accredited Programmes created by exceptional delivery arrangements as well as a likely spike in court orders once jury trials resume. This would be the case regardless of which organisation delivery sat with, but we consider that bringing this work in-house gives us greater flexibility to deal with this. 

Structural and organisational changes to probation 

The National Probation Service (NPS) will be responsible for managing all offenders on a community order or licence following their release from prison in England and Wales. 

The NPS will continue to deliver those services reserved to the public sector such as advice to court. From June 2021, the NPS will also deliver offenders’ Unpaid Work and behavioural change programmes in England and Wales. 

The voluntary and private sectors will play an enhanced role in the probation system, running services such as education, employment, and accommodation commissioned through the Probation Services Dynamic Framework. 

There will be 12 probation areas across England and Wales, introducing 11 new probation areas in England, with existing arrangements remaining unchanged in Wales. 

In England, each area will be overseen by a new dedicated regional director who will provide strategic leadership and be responsible for the overall delivery and commissioning of probation services. 

The regional directors, along with the NPS Director in Wales, will work closely to ensure an effective, unified approach from the pre-sentence stage in court through to supervision in the community. 

We will take action to strengthen the standing of the probation workforce and also make changes that support continuous professional development. 

Benefits of the future model for probation 

195  In developing the future model for probation, we want to ensure that services are effective and provided in a way that judges, magistrates and the public have confidence in, and are structured in a way that supports local partnership working and is responsive to the needs of local areas. 

196  Unifying sentence management under the NPS should have a positive impact on the judiciary’s faith in probation’s ability to deliver, as we know sentencers have expressed greater confidence in the NPS, with whom they have a more direct relationship than CRCs. There will be a single organisation responsible for providing advice to court and delivering the sentence, and we anticipate that this will result in benefits in the preparation of pre-sentence reports (PSRs). 

197  Additionally, it will mean greater central control over the quality of services and enable greater clarity around minimum standards. It will also mean that there will be one probation voice in local partnership arrangements. 

198  The creation of a Dynamic Framework for resettlement and rehabilitative interventions will enable more local commissioning and support the direct participation of smaller voluntary sector and specialist organisations in the delivery of these interventions, something that has not been consistently achieved under the current model. This will help services to be more locally responsive and provide more ready access to services that better address individual needs, particularly vulnerable offenders and those with complex needs. 

Partnership working 

199  Across the system, we want to ensure that there is improved strategic delivery and local partnership working. In creating 11 new probation regions across England, alongside the existing area in Wales, we have sought to achieve the right balance between the potential for efficiencies across the probation system and arrangements that are closer to other criminal justice system structures and which can facilitate partnership working.

200  In England, each of the NPS divisions will be overseen by a Regional Probation Director who will provide strategic leadership and be responsible for the overall delivery and commissioning of probation services. In Wales, the Executive Director for HMPPS already has responsibility for all probation services and prisons, and this will remain unchanged. These leaders will have clear responsibility for strengthening engagement in local and regional partnerships. 

201  This will ensure there is greater transparency around probation performance, that services are responsive to local priorities, and opportunities are taken to co-commission those services that are key to reducing reoffending with partners such as Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), local authorities and health commissioners. 

202  We want to support probation providers to work with local partners to develop innovative services that respond to offenders’ needs. There are already schemes in some areas, and in future we would like to see arrangements develop in other areas. The plans set out in our response to the probation consultation for Regional Directors to have funding reserved for innovative, cross-cutting approaches, will support this.

203  We also want to re-focus how law enforcement partners work together to supervise offenders in the community, through strategic arrangements such as Integrated Offender Management (IOM). IOM enables the police and probation to jointly provide an enhanced supervision of priority offenders identified in local areas in line with the government’s crime reduction and reducing reoffending plans. We will publish a refreshed joint policing and probation strategy for IOM by the end of 2020. 

204  Community sentences should also be seen to be served in the community and should be actively benefiting the community within which they are being served. We want to make sure that, in particular, there is a greater community voice in determining how Unpaid Work schemes should be focussed to bring about the most benefit. This is why we are introducing a statutory duty for probation to consult a range of voices when designing and delivering Unpaid Work placements and schemes. Further detail on the design of Unpaid Work under the new model for probation is available in the ‘Supervising Offenders in the Community’ chapter of this paper. 

Probation Workforce Programme 

205  In January 2020, the Probation Workforce Programme was launched to ensure the wider changes happening in probation go hand-in-hand with positive changes for our workforce. Our staff are integral to the successful operation of the NPS model, and we need to ensure we have a motivated and professional workforce that can deliver for the probation service.

206  The Workforce Programme will seek to address the significant shortfall of trained probation officers in the system by focusing on four key workstreams: capacity and efficiency, capability, pay rewards and policies, and infrastructure. This will ultimately ensure that we have the right number of people with the right capabilities and appropriate support to deliver a strong and effective service both now and in the future. The workforce strategy was launched in July 2020 and we have already started recruiting new probation staff. This strategy set out our commitment to increase recruitment of probation staff this year and have a minimum of 1000 new probation practitioners in training by January 2021. Our ambition is to make sure probation officers have manageable and varied caseloads and are encouraged specialisms. As part of this work, we will explore options to improve the professionalisation of the probation officer and probation support officer role. 

Trusting probation staff to take action 

207  We want to make sure that probation practitioners have the necessary powers to be able to properly supervise offenders in the community, in particular, that they are able to act quickly and responsively to behaviour that needs to be addressed without necessarily needing to return to the courts. 

208  A core function of the probation service is to supervise offenders in the community. That is, to require an offender to attend an appointment so the probation practitioner responsible for their sentence can identify existing or emerging needs and risks, and either provide interventions directly or refer them to other organisations. For offenders released from custody, this kind of supervision is built into the duration of their licence. 

209  In contrast, not all Community Orders or Suspended Sentence Orders provide for this general supervision power for the length of the order. Unless an Order contains a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR), legislation as currently framed explicitly provides for supervision only in connection with the requirements imposed by the order. While offenders are under a general duty to keep in touch with their Responsible Officer in accordance with such instructions they may be given from time to time, the legislation does not clarify what ‘keeping in touch’ means and if it includes attending probation supervision appointments. 

210  In practice, this means that a probation practitioner who may wish to supervise offenders who have completed all of their requirements (but whose Order has not expired), do not currently have legislative cover to do so unless the Order contains a RAR. Also, practitioners who may wish to supervise offenders for reasons unconnected to the requirements of the Order do not currently have legislative cover to do so. 

211  We believe there is an important role for the Court in setting out the requirement(s) an offender should undertake as part of their community order at the point of sentencing. And the priority of the probation service must always be to support the purpose of the Order and the administration of justice. However, we also believe there is merit in probation staff having sufficient flexibility within their prescribed duties and responsibilities to respond to the unique journey of each offender as they progress through their sentence. Supervision unconnected to requirements, carried out after the completion of requirements, may be warranted for two reasons. First, the Responsible Officer may feel that supervision is necessary to address issues that either arise post-sentencing and are not strictly related to the original requirements, or after requirements are complete and remain outstanding. Second, the Responsible Officer may also feel supervision is necessary if there is reason to believe that the offender’s level of risk to the public has increased. 

212  We will therefore legislate to give probation practitioners greater flexibility to take appropriate action where they have concerns about an offender’s rehabilitative needs or risk to the public. In practice, this would empower Responsible Officers to compel offenders to attend supervision appointments and, where appropriate, participate in rehabilitative activities for the length of a Community Order or Suspended Sentence (either through supervision sessions or onwards referral to other organisations). 

213  Alongside this change, we plan to consider the arguments for varying the responsibilities and powers available to probation practitioners to enable them to act swiftly and responsively on their professional judgement. We want to take the opportunity provided by the Probation Reform programme to bring about greater change. 

214  It is currently possible for courts to bring community sentences to a conclusion before the original end date if the individual has sufficiently fulfilled the order’s requirements. Where offenders breach their order, there is a process where Responsible Officers can give warnings before taking enforcement proposals to court. 

215  We recognise that swift breach action where individuals fail to comply with a requirement of the court’s order is central in securing public confidence in community sentences, as well as having the potential to further influence and change offender behaviour. Effective use of community sentences relies on the relationship between the probation practitioner and the offender; we therefore need to ensure that probation has the right mechanisms, tools and powers to support and enhance this relationship. 

216  Other jurisdictions will mark progress made by offenders with events recognising the positive changes they have made. In England and Wales, we have seen examples of offender achievements being recognised with letters or certificates. For individuals who have experienced difficult relationships with the state, for example through the education system or the care system, it may be the first time anyone in authority has ever acknowledged progress. 

217  In view of this, as well as the potential to harness the improvements to the probation service brought about by reform, we will further explore the options and their implications. There is a spectrum through which we could consider giving probation practitioners a range of more immediate options before taking an order back to court: 

• ‘Administrative’ variation of existing requirements to respond to an offender’s changes in circumstances. We are pursuing this policy via the powers to vary timings of curfews, outlined in this paper. 

• Flexible enforcement of court-imposed requirements, that would allow the Responsible Officer to adjust and vary these requirements to encourage and influence changes in offender behaviour. Under this model, we would consider whether the sentencer (at sentencing) should specify the minimum and maximum number of hours to be completed at the discretion of the offender manager.

• Imposition of new requirements for non-compliance/breach. 

218  Options under this spectrum could mark a distinct change in the way in which probation supervise offenders in the community. We believe that enhanced powers could afford probation staff greater flexibility to respond to offenders’ needs in a way that reflects their professionalism and expertise. 

219  However, within this policy, it is vital that the flexibility afforded to probation is consistent with the court’s original sentence. Due to the importance of the relationship between the courts and probation, we will explore these options with relevant key stakeholders to decide on the most appropriate and effective powers to potentially introduce. 

Conclusion 

220  In order for community supervision to work effectively, it needs to be accompanied by a robust probation service, to fulfil the key aims of protecting the public while also providing support for offenders who wish to turn their lives around. 

221  This chapter has reiterated plans for the National Probation Service. By strengthening probation in this way, we want to ensure that services are effective for those who require them and give the public confidence in the system.