This is all getting a bit predictable and I really do detest being the messenger, but here's another HMI report confirming what we all know - and indeed was confirmed last night in the latest episode of BBC2's Parole - probation is broken, in crisis and suffering significant staffing problems. OMiC has been an unmitigated disaster - just as predicted - and here's today's press release for yet more confirmation:-
“A wake-up call”: Chief Inspector raises serious concerns about effectiveness of probation work with released prisonersThe second part of a wide-ranging inspection looking at Offender Management in Custody, by HM Inspectorate of Probation, has shown the stark – and often alarming – reality facing those released from prison.
The findings affirm the warnings made following the publication of the first report: Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) – pre-release (a joint inspection with HM Inspectorate of Prisons), in November 2022, which found ‘root-to-branch issues’ and concluded that the model ‘simply isn’t working’, calling for a fundamental review.
This HM Inspectorate of Probation follow-up report, Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) – post-release tracked the same prisoners, from part one, for up to nine months after release from prison. It looked at the support put in place (such as housing), services to prevent reoffending, the analysis of risk of serious harm, and the staffing and workload of prison and probation services implementing the OMiC model.
It found:
- Only four out of every 10 prisoners in our case sample went into settled accommodation on release from custody.
- Just eight per cent of those available for work went into employment.
- Recall rates were high, with 30 per cent on average being returned to custody – four in 10 of these were within 28 days of being released.
- In some probation regions, almost half were recalled to prison.
“We are seeing, too often, a breakdown in communication between prison and probation staff. This is, in part, down to there being too few staff and too many cases to manage. However, our evidence also suggests that the model itself is overly complex and hampers efforts to plan for release – it needs to work in practice, not just in theory, and at the moment it isn’t.”
Serious risk of harm
In a familiar story, reflective of our recent regional inspections and independent Serious Further Offence reviews, work to reduce the risk those released from prison pose to others fell well short of expectations:
- Assessment, planning, and case reviewing to manage the risks of people on probation was of sufficient quality in only half of inspected cases
- Domestic abuse checks were completed in just under half the cases where required.
- Delays in receiving information from police and children’s services.
- Some practitioners lacked the professional curiosity to understand the prison leaver’s personal circumstances and who they were in contact with.
“We have been assured, in the past year, that domestic abuse checks should and have been carried out where needed. But, even in this relatively small case sample, it is not happening. Prison and probation practitioners must have access to, and use, all the relevant information about a person who has been released from prison.”
Resettlement and other services
Most recalls to custody were caused by homelessness, a return to drug or alcohol misuse or a failure to ensure continuity of a case pre and post release – not by re-offending.
Where the prison leaver had substance misuse, linked to their offending, we found that less than a quarter of the cases we inspected had received sufficient help with this need. Only half of the cases inspected had received sufficient support with finance and benefits advice or with employment and training. Only 51 per cent of cases showed an improvement in their accommodation status in the first six months after release.
Relationships between practitioners and service providers varied. Referral processes were often not well understood, and probation and provider staff had different views on the level of intervention needed for people on probation, especially for women.
However, we did find that the provision of temporary accommodation (providing housing for up to 84 days after release) – though not available to all probation regions – was working well.
Staffing and workload
Staff shortages and high workloads do not support the delivery of a high-quality service.
Of the practitioners we interviewed, 57 per cent stated that their workload was not so, or not at all, manageable. Practitioners told us that high workloads have a significant impact on the quality of practice and leave them little time to plan and complete structured offence-focused work. Some were visibly stressed and reported working long hours to try to manage their workload.
There are significant difficulties with staff retention. Inspectors were told that experienced, newly-qualified and trainee probation officers leave for a variety of reasons, including finding the work too stressful, moving to better-paid work, taking retirement and being promoted.
--oo00oo--
This from the full report:-
Introduction The vision of HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS)’s Offender Management in Custody model is that ‘everyone in prison should have the opportunity to transform their lives by using their time in custody constructively to reduce their risk of harm and reoffending; to plan their resettlement; and to improve their prospects of becoming a safe, law-abiding and valuable member of society’. Our joint thematic inspection of OMiC pre-release found that OMiC was not working as intended.
Part two of this thematic inspection focused on outcomes for prisoners after they are released. Inspectors considered how practitioners assessed, planned and reviewed the work required to support successful resettlement. We also considered the extent to which key outcomes were achieved when an individual was released from prison, including whether they secured settled accommodation and education, training and employment.
Methodology
Our post-release fieldwork was completed in seven probation service regions across England and Wales. Of the 100 cases inspected in custody, 96 were examined in detail up to nine months after release from custody. The range varied from two months (four cases) to nine months (one case) after release, with most cases (77) between three and five months. Four cases were excluded from the community sample as they had not been released from prison. Lived experience consultants from the organisation Doing What Really Matters (DWRM) interviewed 53 individuals from our sample. This included four who had been recalled to prison following their release.
In addition to our sample in each probation region, we considered evidence on staffing levels and caseloads; the services and interventions available in the community; the characteristics of caseloads; strategic documents; and delivery plans.
In each probation region, we held meetings and focus groups, including with senior probation leaders, service providers and community offender managers (COMs). We concluded with a week of meetings with senior HMPPS leaders with responsibility for delivering sentence management post-release.
A detailed breakdown of our methodology can be found in Annexe 2.
Leadership and staffing
OMiC governance arrangements are in place at a regional and local level, through senior leadership forums and local implementation boards, which bring together prison and probation leaders. Such arrangements primarily focus on pre-release work, and responsibilities are sometimes unclear, particularly where prisons are a national resource and prisoners are released to different probation regions.
As in part one of our inspection, we found that probation leaders were committed to making OMiC work. Some senior leadership teams were considering adopting a more flexible approach in order to achieve success with limited staff. For example, the London region was considering refocusing the probation prison offender manager (POM) role so that POMs completed pre-release work in regions where there was a significant shortage of COMs in the community.
Insufficient attention was given to addressing inequalities in the OMiC prison and probation population. Individuals with a disability and individuals from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are over-represented in sentenced prisoners. While probation leaders acknowledged that this reflects wider trends in the criminal justice system (i.e., sentences passed at court), we found limited evidence that they had attempted to identify and address this disproportionality.
There is a significant shortage of staff in probation regions, and this leads to high workloads for many probation practitioners. This has a direct impact on the quality of work, with many practitioners lacking the capacity to undertake structured offence-focused work with prison leavers. Staff shortages are widespread, including at probation services officer and administrator levels. The current shortages are further exacerbated by difficulties in retaining staff.
The impact of current shortages includes cases having to be reallocated when practitioners are promoted to senior probation officer level, and housing referrals being delayed because there are not enough staff available to progress them. We also found that lengthy referral processes, such as for approved premises or tier 3 community accommodation services (CAS3), reduced the time available for practitioners to engage directly with people on probation.
Services
Needs analysis is carried out at a regional level to inform the commissioning of services to meet the needs of people on probation. We found that there was a mismatch between the services needed and those that were provided. For example, accommodation services were oversubscribed, leading to long waiting lists, while other services, such as personal wellbeing, were undersubscribed.
Many practitioners found referral processes to be complex. Newly established digital processes, such as ‘refer and monitor’, were not well understood. Practitioners and service providers often made different assessments of the complexity level of the person on probation’s needs and the outcomes required from the service intervention.
CAS3 is currently being rolled out in Wales and has worked well in the five probation regions where it has operated since July 2021. Those in our case sample accessed this either directly from prison or as move-on accommodation following a placement in an approved premises. Just under one in 10 of our case sample were homeless on release from prison, and these were mainly in probation regions that did not have CAS3 accommodation.
Services to address attitudes towards offending, family and relationships and drug misuse were delivered in only one in three cases. Similarly, insufficient services were delivered to keep other people safe. Services to address risks of domestic abuse to others, family and relationships, attitudes towards offending and drug misuse were provided in only one in five cases.
Following the unification of the Probation Service, providers of commissioned services to probation no longer have direct access to nDelius, the probation service record system. This means that practitioners are not always kept up to date on work completed by providers, and that providers do not have direct access to changes in information related to risk or safeguarding status.
Services worked well when they were co-located in probation offices. This gave practitioners a better understanding of the services available and the different levels of need that could be met through them. It also enabled practitioners to provide more accurate information for referrals. The referral process worked best when it was completed through three-way meetings between the practitioner, provider and person on probation.
Approved premises are an option for a small proportion of prison leavers who require the highest levels of community-based public protection placements on release. Staff there provided good resettlement support to prison leavers. There was, however, scope for practitioners and approved premises staff to work more closely as a team to ensure that move-on housing referrals could be completed in a timelier manner.
People on probation
The importance of the relationship between the practitioner and person on probation was highlighted by our lived experience consultants. People on probation experienced probation induction following release on licence as ‘one way’. As with pre-release work, they felt that sentence management was ‘done to’ them, rather than ‘done with’ them. All too often, practitioners had not been able to establish a good working relationship with the person on probation, and then had to deliver unwelcome news about the licence restrictions that were now required. The reasons for these restrictions were often not fully explained to the person on probation, or well understood by them.
Where people on probation felt that their COM had engaged with and understood them, they could be more open in their licence supervision sessions. In some cases, however, frequent changes of COM prevented trusting relationships from being built. A clearer sense of being in a contract, with transparent responsibilities allocated to each side, would give the person on probation a much clearer sense of working with probation to make progress towards a crime-free life in the community.
Outcomes
Overall, inspectors found good levels of engagement with people on probation. Many COMs took a supportive approach, cemented by regular, and often weekly, contact. They took enforcement action appropriately when licence conditions were not being adhered to. Examples included issuing managers’ warning letters, and these often worked well to re-engage the person on probation and to secure compliance with their licence.
Not enough improvements were made in the factors most related to reoffending. In only one in four cases was sufficient progress made regarding family and relationships, lifestyle and associates, attitudes towards offending and substance misuse. Improvements in the key factors related to managing the risks of harm to other people were made in only half of cases.
As we found in our pre-release inspection, there was a significant shortfall in the information received from other agencies, such as police intelligence, and in domestic abuse and child safeguarding checks, to keep other people safe. Practitioners experienced difficulties in getting responses to their requests for this information, and in some cases had stopped trying. Some practitioners lacked the professional curiosity to fully understand the person on probation’s personal circumstances. This meant that they did not always know who was of risk of harm. Inspectors found some cases where the practitioner had underestimated the level of risk or reduced it too quickly following the person on probation’s release from custody.
Recall rates were high, with 30 per cent of the case sample recalled to custody within nine months following their release. The main reasons for recall were non-compliance with licence conditions, and this stemmed mainly from homelessness and/or relapse into substance misuse. There was a lack of continuity of care before and after release, which led to prison leavers not being able to access the right levels of support to sustain their resettlement.
Only four in 10 of the prison leavers in our case sample entered settled accommodation on release, and just eight per cent went into full-time employment. Some improvement was made in the first few months on licence, though, at the point of inspection, four in 10 prison leavers were in temporary accommodation, and four in 10 were unemployed.
Guardian today:-
ReplyDeleteHMP Aylesbury ‘thrown into chaos’ by MoJ policy change, says watchdog.
A prison which specialised in people convicted of violent crimes has been “thrown into chaos” by a policy change introduced by Dominic Raab’s Ministry of Justice to cope with a national rise in inmate numbers, an official watchdog has found.
HMP Aylesbury was “suddenly and without sufficient consultation, notice or support” changed into a category C training prison in October, the chief inspector of prisons said.
With rising numbers of prisoners needing accommodation elsewhere in the prison’s estate, hundreds of category C, or low risk, offenders, have been brought into the jail. About 23% of the prison population remain men aged 18-21 convicted of violent crimes and serving long sentences.
The change comes as the government prepares for the overall prison population to rise from 84,000 to 94,000 by March 2025.
Pressure on the prison estate has led to police cells being readied for prisoners. Last week, the MoJ began rolling out 1,000 rapid deployment cells across the prison estate to boost jail capacity.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said Aylesbury had been struggling with its existing role but was now a “chaotic” prison, which was releasing prisoners with “little or no work” to reduce their risk of committing crimes again.
“Challenges have been compounded by this sudden and chaotic re-designation to a category C training jail coupled with extreme staffing problems.
“The prison needs significant and immediate support from the Prison Service to mitigate the level of risk it presents not only for prisoners held there but also for the community into which high-risk offenders are being released with little to no work to reduce their risk of reoffending,” he said.
Inspectors in November and December found a shortage of staff in all grades and disciplines at Aylesbury. This included access to healthcare, time out of cell, education, skills and work and rehabilitation services.
In healthcare the situation was so dire that the Prison Service was unable to send prisoners over the age of 40 to because they could not be safely cared for in the jail, the report said.
Nearly 40% of prisoners were unemployed and had less than an hour out of their cells a day while many prisoners told inspectors they were unable to shower every day.
Those in employment, meanwhile, were frequently unable to benefit from this because of staff shortages, or broken equipment.
A MoJ spokesperson said: “We are investing £155m more every year into the probation service. As the report notes, we are also making real progress in providing stable accommodation to vulnerable prison leavers.”
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This report reveals why growing the prison population with little thought for the consequences creates more problems for everyone.
“An understaffed prison which has failed repeatedly to help young adults move on from crime has now been placed under even greater pressure because the government is resorting to panic measures to respond to rising numbers. The result has been disastrous, with little or no support to prepare people for safe release.”
In another report released on Tuesday, HM Inspectorate of Probation found that domestic abuse checks were completed in just under half of the cases examined.
DeleteThe report, which examined 97 cases of people released on licence in depth for up to nine months after their release, also found that:
Only four out of every 10 prisoners went into settled accommodation on release from custody.
Just 8% of those available for work went into employment.
Recall rates were high, with 30% on average being returned to custody – four in 10 of these were within 28 days of being released.
There is an 30% shortfall of full-time employed probation officers in post against the required staffing level of 6,160.
Peter Dawson, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “It’s absurd to be skimping on the services that help released prisoners to stop committing crime and to stay out of gaol. But that’s exactly what the government is doing. Endless reorganisations and under-resourcing have undermined that process, and put the public at avoidable risk.”
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We have already taken decisive action to address the concerns raised in this report, including bolstering frontline staff and increasing access to education and work for prisoners.
“As the public would rightly expect, we’re also working with others across the criminal justice system and making sure the prison estate is being used effectively while we push ahead with delivering the biggest expansion of prison places in a century.”
Down grading a prisons category was something that happened a lot in the 1980s when the prison population started to spiral. Cat Cs are cheaper then Cat Bs and require a lower officer to prisoner ratio.
DeleteI read last week in an MoJ bulletin that the Government are looking to cut public spending by £1b by introducing more automated and digital services and tackling issues like drug use in prisons. There currently handing out funding to explore how these cuts can be achieved. One such initiative is this:-
"Another project led by the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service was awarded over £933,000 to tackle drug misuse in prisons by monitoring wastewater. Following successful fieldwork, the trial is due to launch later this year."
It seem a lot of money to discover something you already know. Prisons have a drug problem!
Returning to the original post, I dont think all of probations woes are caused by external factors. Some of its problems are to be found within.
I think theres a very corrosive and toxic culture been allowed to grow within probation. I think much of it stems from the primary focus of probation shifting to public protection.
Probation has always had a public protection ethos, but in recent years it's become so dominant that it's drowned all the other aspects of probation work, and it's that work that's been drowned that saw probation being given its gold standard service status.
In reality probation has become the biggest open prison in Europe.
Recognition that those no longer in custody and in the community ARE actually also members of the public has somewhere gotten lost, and along with all the responsibility that comes with being a member of the public comes all the problems that everyone else has.
It's a situation that basically dictates that probations duty is to protect the public from other members of the public.
Does that create a police force? Does that divide the public? Does that create a division between the "deserving and undeserving" public? Does the current ethos hinder the potential success of those on probation, and therefore hinder the success that the probation service could achieve?
Despite high caseloads and all the external pressures foisted on probation, and I accept those are serious and significant factors, probation needs to change its mindset from within if it doesn't want to be seen as a very expensive service that doesn't really do what it says on the tin.
'Getafix
OMiC was introduced by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), in 2018.
ReplyDeleteFive years' later we have the same old schmoozy schyte from Justin:
"Our joint thematic inspection of OMiC pre-release found that OMiC was not working as intended... I continue to have serious concerns about the effectiveness of the Offender Management in Custody model"
BUT
"we found that probation leaders were committed to making OMiC work"
Justin - those 'leaders' are NOT committed to making OMiC work.
If they were, it would be working. But it isn't.
Those 'leaders' are shockingly pisspoor & have been unable to make anything work.
The whole system is in a state of FUBAR.
The highly paid 'leaders' are merely pocketing the dosh with impunity.
The frontline staff are being paid less, going through the motions of what they're directed to do by the 'excellent leaders' & it ain't working.
And there's a theme here that applies to many areas of public sector - education, NHS, social services, probation: its full of 'leaders', managerialists & consultants - all on serious money, draining the budgets - but way too short on staff who actually know or do anything; because they're paid fuck all & treated like shit.
And the public, who just happen to be funding the whole shitshow, are on the receiving end of the most dreadful, below-par haphazard lottery of services.
And its been a political tactic for generations. Many MPs loathe the public sector. They want to monetise everything for personal gain.
So, Justin, lets have some honesty. The 'leaders' - at every level - are NOT making OMiC work. It has never worked. It was never going to work. Because no-one listened to those who understand the system; it was forced through on political whimsy. Sound familiar?
Jim Brown: "OMiC has been an unmitigated disaster - just as predicted"
HJMIProbation: "Offender Management in Custody model ‘simply not working' "
How much (yet again) has a much-predicted unmitigated NOMS/HMPPS/MoJ disaster cost the public purse?
* Botched electronic monitoring scheme for offenders costs UK taxpayer £98m
* UK prison IT: Massive and 'spectacular' failure... Abandoned jail and probation computer project cost £155m
* MoJ’s “naïve” approach to outsourcing has failed the taxpayer and prisoners
* The National Audit Office estimated that problems with the privatisation had cost taxpayers nearly £500m.
"we found that probation leaders were committed to making OMiC work"
ReplyDeleteBut it doesn’t work so they’ll never make it work. OMiC was only introduced so they could remove all the longer term custody cases from probation caseloads. It didn’t resolve the workload and staffing crisis, it made it worse. Time to transfer all those probation officers in prison back to community probation offices for good old end to end offender management.
But good old end to end offender management was heavily criticised because prisoners had little contact with their officers in the community. This is no criticism towards practitioners, as the risks immediately presented to you in the community will always take priority, but ultimately it’s the prisoner who will suffer.
DeleteUnder OMiC a prisoner has no allocated officer in the community at all until close to the end of their sentence. I struggle to see how that is any improvement.
DeleteBoth end-to-end case management and OMiC suffer from the problem of trying to spread a scarce resource too thinly. At least under end-to-end there was a recognition that Probation is a community agency, whereas OMiC prioritises custody. Given that almost every person in prison will be released at some point, this has to be the focus.
HMPPS will never grasp this point while its senior leaders are worshipping at the altar of the Daily Mail and its creed of locking people up and throwing away the key.
As an SPO who has undertaken countless Management Oversights, the reality is the majority of practitioners knew little of their long term custodial cases. MO actions would roll over to the next year because practitioners will always need to prioritise. Having cases in your name, unless the work is completed with it, has little impact for that prisoner.
DeleteA decision could be made to remove all probation staff from prison and put them in the community, but the reality is they will be taking very large caseloads with them. This does little to ease current pressures. Whatever model you operate, if it’s not appropriately resourced, it won’t work.
There is no greener grass at the moment. Everyone is over stretched, both prisons and probation. It’s a really tough landscape for everyone.
"Some were visibly stressed and reported working long hours to try to manage their workload."
ReplyDeleteIn every inspection I had (past tense: I left last year due to working conditions) I was always warned that if the inspector found evidence of dangerous practice they would take immediate action.
I'd like to think that they take a similar approach when the whole structure is dangerous to the health and wellbeing of employees.
I have commented on this before but it’s worth restating. The Civil Service has a track record of failure when it comes to operational activities. Border Force has long been a shambles, the Courts are a mess, and prison and probation have been eviscerated. I have pondered what causes this level of failure and have come up with a list of observations:
ReplyDeleteA) Top down management fails to listen to operational expertise.
B) Senior managers are guilty of group think. Criticism is seen as negative and isn’t encouraged. This is a significant issue.
C) Senior managers are fearful of rocking the boat in case they are perceived as disloyal.
D) The organisation is unwilling to accept mistakes have been made so instead of learning from these errors they plow on regardless in the hope that something might work.
E) There is a major gap in in the organisation between policy and practice. To the extent that new initiatives are rolled out without any ownership at a local level. Or ownership is located in the wrong roles.
F) Constant change leaves workers confused and demoralised. Insufficient time is spent bedding in change and evaluating success. Change is inevitable but all too often it is chaotic and unnecessary.
G) Senior leaders don’t take responsibility for the failures. This is a constant theme in the HMIP reports. At some stage an inspection has to look closely at how senior leaders are functioning and how it’s possible to have such poor inspections without holding them to account. Ultimately they are responsible for the failures and until this is addressed they will continue in the same vein. In other fields this level of failure would have warranted the dismissal of senior leaders.
H) All too often decision making is political and not evidenced based. All too often decision making is expedient and not conducive to effective practice.
I) OMiC is a classic example of the above. It’s poorly conceived, rigged for operational necessity, chaotic, poorly planned and failing.
J) Evidence is ignored because it’s inconvenient.
The list is not exhaustive but I will reiterate that the Ministry of Justice is a failing organisation. It is a dishonest organisation that fails to learn and ultimately its dishonesty permeates all levels of management. It is cancerous and damages anything that it touches for all the reasons outlined above.
It really is the Emperor’s New Clothes, if the “probation leaders are committed to making it work” but “staff are visibly stressed and reported working long hours to try to manage their workload” the relationship between those two statements speaks volumes. Where is the duty of care to staff and how on God’s earth can they be described a leaders? How can the Inspector not call this for what it is? There is clear evidence of unsafe working practices but where is the accountability for those committed leaders?
ReplyDeleteToday's blog: There seems to be a theme developing...
ReplyDeleteSeveral Contributors & BlogMeister brown: Its been developing for over a decade, we've been screaming it, but no-one's fucking listening
MoJ/HMPPS: Find out who they are, take down their names, discredit them, punish them
From Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"There was no resource provided and those working in prisons were left to drown despite repeated pleas for support to the senior management teams. People were damaged as a result."
"Totally disagree with this as someone who managed OMIC implementation. Community probation officers invest next to nothing into their prison cases which leaves a void of progression. The plan is a good plan but you don't implement it before you resource it."
"I managed omu in two prisons across 5 years and i can count on two hand the number of P.Os who came in. Prisoners left unable to progress due to no sentence plans or recalled prisoners left without any further instruction. That's why omic had to happen."
"Fifteen years as a P.O and 5 as an SPO it was always the case that custodial cases were neglected. OMIC was a good idea it was just the launching it without probation officers that was the issue."
That’s just to be expected. Of course it was launched without sufficient staff that’s the Civil Service way. I managed a resettlement team years ago and all the custody cases were stacked. No money for prison visits. Latterly the workload pressures would push custody cases down the list. What’s really important though is staff are being shafted from all sides. Do not let this issue divide you though. All staff, prison officers, community probation officers, OMiC officers face the same problems all caused by the Ministry of (In) Justice. Stick together, stop finger pointing at colleagues and focus your anger on those that continue to fuck up at the most senior levels. I have never witnessed such a terrible shambles nor the impunity of those that have created this mess.
ReplyDelete