Probation Service Change Bulletin - Issue 11 March 2022
1. Amy Rees, Director General Probation, Wales and YouthWelcome to our re-launched Probation Change Bulletin for 2022. This bi-monthly bulletin will look to spotlight the latest news in Probation, covering all our portfolio change programmes - Reform, Workforce, Reducing Reoffending and Electronic Monitoring, as well as keeping you updated on any key developments across our business as usual areas.
A lot has happened since our unification on 26 June 2021, when we launched the new Probation Service, bringing together staff from the previous National Probation Service (NPS) and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). As a new unified organisation we have been able to integrate the services we deliver alongside core supervision - working in partnership to address the needs of people on probation and support the government’s ambitious agenda to cut crime. All of this while dealing with the backdrop of a global pandemic, ensuring the continued delivery of probation across England and Wales. Probation achieved a lot in 2021 and 2022 is set to be another year of enhanced delivery and continuous improvement, building on our unification.
Our next edition will be published in May, so please keep an eye on this page for further updates.
2. Responding to COVID and Recovery
Great strides were made towards the end of 2021 to move from operating on Probation Exceptional Delivery Models (EDMs) to all probation regions in England and Wales delivering to full or light National Standards. EDMs are a suite of documents that were created to adapt how the Probation Service delivered from March 2019, responding to the impact of Covid-19. EDMs looked to set out the level’s to which probation could deliver, dependant on government restrictions and staffing levels. This allowed for flexibility of delivery across England and Wales dependant on local circumstance.
Due to the upsurge in the Omicron variant, Probation Gold Command was reinstated in late December, and the decision was taken to reintroduce the Probation Supervision EDM across England through January. In response to Welsh Government announcement, Probation in Wales also reinstated the Probation Supervision EDM, as well as range of EDMs relating to service delivery for the month of January 2022, this did not include Community Payback and
Accredited Programme delivery.
As of 31 January 2022, all regions in England and Wales have now successfully exited EDMs again and will be operating on the new ‘Prioritising Probation Framework’, allowing for a steady increase in delivery and providing Regional Probation Directors with a robust tool to help regions adapt to how they deliver probation locally according to numbers of available staff. The aim is to move towards full delivery as soon and as swiftly as is safely possible.
All Approved Premises across England and Wales also exited their EDM on 31 January 2022, unless they were classified as an outbreak site, in which case they will exit their EDM once the UK Health Security Agency / Public Health Wales declares the outbreak closed.
As of 31 January 2022, all regions in England and Wales have now successfully exited EDMs again and will be operating on the new ‘Prioritising Probation Framework’, allowing for a steady increase in delivery and providing Regional Probation Directors with a robust tool to help regions adapt to how they deliver probation locally according to numbers of available staff. The aim is to move towards full delivery as soon and as swiftly as is safely possible.
All Approved Premises across England and Wales also exited their EDM on 31 January 2022, unless they were classified as an outbreak site, in which case they will exit their EDM once the UK Health Security Agency / Public Health Wales declares the outbreak closed.
3. Reform and the Target Operating Model (TOM)
The path to Target Operating Model sets out Probations intentions for the future of the service over the 18-months post-unification. The initial focus up to June 2021 was to unify the service, ensuring the transition of around 8000 staff to the Probation Service from the NPS and CRCs.
The focus since June has been to stabilise the service and embed the structural changes across the organisation against the backdrop of Covid-19 and Omicron. The focus now is on delivering more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans, better assessment and management of risk and more balanced caseloads, with an improved case allocation process to support this.
For Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions changes are starting to be implemented that that will drive up completion rates and deliver better outcomes. Much of this will be through making programmes available locally, making improvements to the assessment and induction process and more regular reviews of active cases.
As set out in the TOM, the Probation Service is utilising commissioned rehabilitative services, working with external partners to meet key areas of rehabilitative needs, including: Accommodation; Employment, Training and Education; Personal Wellbeing; and Women’s Services.
Within Courts there is a focus on improving the pre-sentence reports in order to deliver quality advice to courts and improving sentencer confidence in the delivery of community sentences.
Probation is also working to modernise its digital tools to better support probation staff in supporting people on probation. The aim is to reduce duplication in systems, streamline processes and enable better data recording and analysis, to support workload management, decision making and engaging people on probation. Tools have been reviewed that were used to good effect in the NPS and CRCs prior to unification, and are being adopted and improved, as well as identifying gaps and building new ones.
The path to Target Operating Model sets out Probations intentions for the future of the service over the 18-months post-unification. The initial focus up to June 2021 was to unify the service, ensuring the transition of around 8000 staff to the Probation Service from the NPS and CRCs.
The focus since June has been to stabilise the service and embed the structural changes across the organisation against the backdrop of Covid-19 and Omicron. The focus now is on delivering more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans, better assessment and management of risk and more balanced caseloads, with an improved case allocation process to support this.
For Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions changes are starting to be implemented that that will drive up completion rates and deliver better outcomes. Much of this will be through making programmes available locally, making improvements to the assessment and induction process and more regular reviews of active cases.
As set out in the TOM, the Probation Service is utilising commissioned rehabilitative services, working with external partners to meet key areas of rehabilitative needs, including: Accommodation; Employment, Training and Education; Personal Wellbeing; and Women’s Services.
Within Courts there is a focus on improving the pre-sentence reports in order to deliver quality advice to courts and improving sentencer confidence in the delivery of community sentences.
Probation is also working to modernise its digital tools to better support probation staff in supporting people on probation. The aim is to reduce duplication in systems, streamline processes and enable better data recording and analysis, to support workload management, decision making and engaging people on probation. Tools have been reviewed that were used to good effect in the NPS and CRCs prior to unification, and are being adopted and improved, as well as identifying gaps and building new ones.
4. Workforce
To support the reforms being undertaken in Probation and to meet the demands of society, in particular the response to the government campaign of recruiting 20,000 new police officers. Probation launched an enhanced recruitment campaign and are pleased to announce that the recruitment target of 1000 PQiPs (Professional Qualification in Probation) for 2020/2021 was met and Probation are looking to increase levels of recruitment even further in this financial year (2021/22) to 1,500 trainee probation officers. As well as PQiPs, there is a real focus on the wider recruitment of staff across Probation, ensuring the organisation recruits and retain the best staff possible. The continued work around recruitment has been a real achievement to help attract the staff needed to meet the growing demand of the wider justice system.
5. Community Payback
The importance of Community Payback was further recognised in the recent Spending Review announcement, with the government providing an additional £93 million of funding over the next three years. This is key to supporting initiatives to provide training opportunities for those on probation, helping them to develop skills to boost their employability.
A new approach to delivering Community Payback will see the Probation Service develop a range of partnerships with national organisation over the coming months to deliver projects across England and Wales. Many of these partnerships will look to focus on outdoor projects that help improve the environment across England and Wales.
Probation recently launched a recruitment drive to attract 500 extra Community Payback staff to join the service, helping to support the ambition to deliver an extra 3 million hours of Community Payback each year. For more information on the recruitment campaign and how to apply for a role in Community Payback, check out Recruitment drive to ensure offenders pay back for their crimes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Probation will continue to highlight the work undertaken around Community Payback via the HMPPS Twitter account – please check this out regularly to see the latest updates.
6. Reducing Reoffending
Last year’s spending review provided a substantial investment for reducing reoffending over the next three years. £200m a year will be invested by 2024-25 to improve prison leavers’ access to accommodation, employment support and substance misuse treatment, and introduce further measures for early intervention to tackle youth offending.
Work is now well underway on the delivery programme to provide prisoners and prison leavers with the support they need to lead a crime-free life. This includes:
- Delivering a Prisoner Education Service in England which equips prisoners with the numeracy, literacy, skills and qualifications they need to get jobs or apprenticeships after they leave custody;
- Transforming the opportunities for work in prisons and on Release on Temporary Licence, creating a presumption in favour of enabling vetted and appropriate prisoners to take up work opportunities;
- Scaling up specialist roles tested in the Accelerator Prisons project that provide the support that prisoners and prison leavers need to turn their back on crime;
- Introducing new Resettlement Passports that bring together into one place the essentials that prison leavers need to lead crime-free lives on release;
- Ensuring that every prison leaver at risk of homelessness can access the new transitional accommodation scheme.
7. Electronic Monitoring
Electronic Monitoring continues to be a core part of probation service delivery. We currently monitor over 13,000 individuals every day and are looking to increase the caseload to c.25,000 by March 2025. Further investment from the government of £183m for the Electronic Monitoring expansion projects highlights the vital contribution Electronic Monitoring makes to the justice system.
Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) is an additional tool available to the judiciary to address alcohol related offending and support rehabilitation. To see more about the new initiative to cut alcohol-fuelled crime, check out Offenders to be banned from drinking to cut alcohol-fuelled crime - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and No Christmas tipples for 770 alcohol-tagged offenders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). An Alcohol Monitoring on License (AML) pathfinder was also successfully rolled out in Wales and 3 women’s prisons on 17 November 2021, leading to a complete ban or monitored consumption when a person is released from custody. AML will be rolled-out across England in the summer.
Electronic Monitoring continues to be a core part of probation service delivery. We currently monitor over 13,000 individuals every day and are looking to increase the caseload to c.25,000 by March 2025. Further investment from the government of £183m for the Electronic Monitoring expansion projects highlights the vital contribution Electronic Monitoring makes to the justice system.
Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) is an additional tool available to the judiciary to address alcohol related offending and support rehabilitation. To see more about the new initiative to cut alcohol-fuelled crime, check out Offenders to be banned from drinking to cut alcohol-fuelled crime - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and No Christmas tipples for 770 alcohol-tagged offenders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). An Alcohol Monitoring on License (AML) pathfinder was also successfully rolled out in Wales and 3 women’s prisons on 17 November 2021, leading to a complete ban or monitored consumption when a person is released from custody. AML will be rolled-out across England in the summer.
It's all very well recruiting more PQuips but also need to look at retaining staff.
ReplyDeleteAll known issues the wild Maslow scale back in focus come on Rees get something new going than this old rehash that has never been resourced before properly.
ReplyDeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"There was an unbearable lack of staff when I finished with it this summer. Massive impact on staff welfare and service delivery. I hope in the future staff welfare is at the heart of the much needed changes."
From Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"Really pleased that HMPPS and National Probation Service now use the more inclusive language of 'people on probation'. What I'm not sure about is why I seem to be seeing it used as 'People on Probation' (capitalised) which feels a bit odd....The 'people first' language is important because it sees people as people first. It'd be a shame if it gets used more like a label or a title, which is what the capitalisation feels like to me. Or am I just being too pedantic? It's probably the desire to turn things into acronyms/labels which is partly the issue. Fair enough with organisations (like HMPPS) but I think I draw the line at acronyms for people..."
I totally agree that this incessant need to call people on probation "POP" is ridiculous, stigmatising and patronising. If I ever hear people actually saying POP which thankfully I haven't yet, I will literally scream. At one point I thought we were supposed to say supervised individuals, which I'm fine with...supervised people, people on supervision, individuals supervised by the probation service....I have no idea why we need to be indoctrinated into total consistency, there are many options. But when I see POP in official communications I blow my top!
DeleteIf you work for HMPPS, then this article may be worth noting.
ReplyDeletehttps://portswigger-net.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/portswigger.net/daily-swig/amp/prison-service-for-england-and-wales-recorded-more-than-2-000-data-breaches-over-12-months?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16475295186225&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fportswigger.net%2Fdaily-swig%2Fprison-service-for-england-and-wales-recorded-more-than-2-000-data-breaches-over-12-months
'Getafix
The UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has defended its data protection practices following allegations it failed to support an employee affected by a data breach of an MoJ service.
DeleteThe employee’s sensitive personal data was apparently exposed because of unauthorized access gained to the Justice Academy, an online learning and careers platform used by MoJ and other public sector staff.
These claims were documented in a blog post published by CEL Solicitors, a UK law firm representing the employee.
CEL Solicitors also revealed that Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), part of the MoJ, recorded 2,152 data breaches in the 12 months up to September 2021.
One of the breaches was sufficiently serious to be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), according to a response from the MoJ, issued in October 2021, to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
HMPPS runs prisons in England and Wales and has more than 58,000 full-time staff.
The MoJ’s latest Annual Report and Accounts (PDF) revealed that 16 data security incidents were identified across the government department during 2020 and 2021 were reported to the ICO.
An MoJ spokesperson told The Daily Swig: “We handle millions of pieces of sensitive data safely and securely every year. While errors and data breaches are extremely rare, we take them very seriously and have introduced extra training and safeguards to ensure data is handled correctly.”
‘Reportedly ignored’
CEL Solicitors said its client was alerted by the MoJ that their full name, staff identification information, email address, national insurance number, and details of where they work and with which department or agency was compromised in the Justice Academy breach, among other data.
Believing the breach posed a particularly significant risk given the nature of their job, the employee “requested access to an occupational health specialist to help with their increased stress and anxiety”, but “this request was reportedly ignored”.
Mark Montaldo, director and data breach expert at CEL Solicitors, said the breach likely affected “many more justice and public sector staff” who used the portal, adding: “Many, due to the sensitive nature of their work will be incredibly worried about their data getting into the wrong hands. I would therefore urge anyone who is concerned to get in touch to discuss what this could mean for them and what their rights are.”
‘No further actions taken’
The MoJ spokesperson said the ICO “investigated this incident and was satisfied by the MoJ response. The ICO closed its investigation with no further actions taken”.
It added that “security features were also enhanced” in order to prevent a recurrence of the breach.
“We take all incidents very seriously and have taken significant steps to further enhance our management of data,” said the spokesperson.
From Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"No one ever says person or people on probation. They are just impersonally called pop’s. I hate the term."
SPOs and senior managers use the terms PoPs and PPs all the time. Nobody else does. I cringe every time I hear it.
DeleteTechnically SPOs should now be SPPS. Heads of Service (HoS) should be Heads of PDU (HoPDU).
I’ll stick with Probation Officer.
I agree...I trained as a probation officer I am a probation officer and that's how the people I work with know and understand my role. If Amy Rees wants to spend 20 million pounds putting people on tags, renaming the probation service and forcing us all to use the term POP she can at least refer to us by our job titles. People who work in probation without having trained as a PO could, if they think it suitable, be referred to Probation practitioners? Then Amy and other "Hopps" and corporate head office staff simply need to add a few more words to their corporate comms by referring to us as "Probation Officers and Probation practitioners".
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"Also, what’s the singular versus multiple - POP (people on probation) or POP (person on probation) when writing?! I mark PQiPs & the learners definitely struggle (as I would) to know what to put. SU versus SUs was much easier in that regard."
Just tell the users to write "people on probation"....why the need for the anacronym at all? When the term "offender" was used we didn't use "O" did we??
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
Delete"I loathe the new terminology. What has happened to the service? I particularly feel cross about being referred to as a PP."
From Twitter:-
Delete"Absolutely. I am not a PP I am a probation officer. I worked hard to get this qualification. I notice we still have senior probation officers not senior PP’s."
From Twitter:-
Delete"I always tried to keep ‘Probation Officer’ for the same reason. That’s the qualification I worked hard for. I hated ‘Offender Manager’ and always changed it in my signature in my letters where I could."
From Twitter:-
Delete"It's 'pops'; even clients don't understand what that means. It sounds belittling and I hate it. Can you imagine someone calling you a pop? I had a guy ask me after his release 'am I one of those pop things now?' We couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous it was. I apologised."
From Twitter:-
Delete"Offenders, service users pops. I have 30 years on the job, they were clients then and now."
From Twitter:-
Delete"20 years in… what’s a COM? I’ve been asked many times what my job is, perhaps I should just say “acronyms”! Some of them I use and have no idea what they stand for; we’re told once and then nobody says it ever again!"
From Twitter:-
Delete"This is the contradiction. Directive use pop as need to lose offender label. POM & COM clearly retain offender label. Couldn’t organise that thing in a brewery!"
Foolishly listened to the Tory spring speeches. Awful liers and glory standings. Sickening feeling listening to the zahawi curdling fanaticism of the Johnson slime club. Incredibly disrespectful Rees mogg as listing and mocking euro legislation. Nasty bastard. The P and O sackings while abominable are in fact a Tory prescribed way of managing employment law for the pay masters. They may cry out a little but it's insincere. This sort of practice will become normal as it's used more and it will be. Casual sessional and temp staff are cheap. Pensionable service holidays benefits overtime entitlements are not. The moj behaved in the same way against us in 2014. They were aided by the Napo GS if not by written it was by his complete inability to act properly. Despite his magnificent claims incredulous as they were I would not be surprised if he thinks PO will call him for some advice. This is modern conservative Britain and it will get worse.
ReplyDeleteI`m a temp, every office I`ve worked in has been in crisis some moving into orange sometimes bordering red. First statement to temps are please don`t leave, appalling management of a once excellent service
ReplyDeleteThere is huge thing about what we call people who commit crime and has been for years. Yet all the paperwork still says offender.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of empty phrases here...positive outcomes, delivery of rehabilitative services, modernise digital tools, tools used to good effect in CRC and NPS. I mean what does any of this actually mean.
ReplyDeleteThen this "The focus now is on delivering more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans, better assessment and management of risk"
The word "consistent" worries me in the context of sentence plans which are supposed to be individualised, meaningfully agreed and personal goals of the person themselves, not standardised. And we all know what better assessment means....more OASYS, QA, pressure to produce more and more assessments using the very tool which itself produces terrible assessments for which we are blamed!
I've just read the Gwent inspection out of sheer interest. It contains inherent and worrying contradictions.
ReplyDeleteThe whole "Target operating model" is predicated upon the basis of "commissioned rehabilitative services" and, more concerningly, referring to "structured interventions" delivered by staff other than the PO. It's not a system I'm in favour of, we didn't ask for it, it's been imposed upon us and inevitably it fragments service delivery. Given the Gwent inspection found that ratings were worse where individuals had multiple officers, this is hardly surprising.
So it also came as no surprise to me that the inspectors found PO supervision appointments lacking in substance, often being "check-ins" and that staff felt they hadn't been given skills/training/encouragement to deliver meaningful supervision sessions. What else should staff deliver when the person they are supervising are attending X service for drugs, B service for ETE, C service for "personal wellbeing", a mentor service for personal support and the jobcentre to be sanctioned?
So despite staff in Gwent implementing the very model they are charged to deliver, the inspection then says there is too much of a reliance on these other services, that the "tap" of referrals need to be turned off, although where progress had been made it was indeed where these services were involved.
And then, the major contradiction: the need to stick to what they call the "fundamental basics of probation service delivery and habitually using partner agencies to assist in the maintenance of promoting desistance and managing risk of harm. Yet we have found that there is an overarching absence of the very minimum delivery of service that we would expect to see, as well as an absence of a reliance on partners."
An ABSENCE of reliance on partners??? Despite also saying there is an over-reliance on partners in
Gwent??. And I'm shocked - is the "fundamental basic" of probation to "habitually" rely on partners? Is that why our service exists?? This is why (in my view) staff are so unhappy and dusgruntled - what exactly are we here for? On the one hand the "fundamental basic" is to refer out, on the other hand staff in this area were not referring enough, but apparently the tap of referrals is too much?
We WANT to deliver meaningful supervision sessions - we are TOLD to "refer, refer, refer".
Final contradiction, or at least a concern - one reason they were rated poorly on reviews because, wait for it, reviews weren't being completed when there is a "change of officer" which according to the inspectorate is a significant change requiring an OASYS review. Imagine, then, that staff member X leaves and 25 of staff member's X cases are given to me to "caretake for a few weeks while we think of a longer term plan" - is the inspectorate really expecting me to complete 25 OASYS reviews, where the only change to insert is to put my name instead of the previous officer's name?
So staff of Wales, staff of Gwent, I'm sorry this has happened, but we are all next - it seems they must be working their way around all 300 or however many PDU's, sniping away at our souls as they travel through the country.