HMPPS Is Not Working

The content of the recent damning National Audit Office report on resettlement will come as no great surprise, but I wonder how much longer the politicians will need before concluding HMPPS is 'unfit for purpose' and probation must be set free. The NAO press release:-   

Improving resettlement support for prison leavers to reduce reoffending

The government is not consistently supporting prison leavers in resettling into the community and the quality of services has declined in recent years, a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.

The NAO report, Improving resettlement support for prison leavers to reduce reoffending, also found that HM Inspectorate of Prisons did not rate any prisons as ‘good’ for rehabilitation and release planning in 2022-23, compared to 3% in the previous year and 30% in 2019-20.

The Ministry of Justice estimated in 2019 that the cost to society of reoffending by all adult offenders identified in 2016 was £16.7 billion (in 2017-18 prices). Official figures included in the report show that 38% of prisoners released from custody between April 2020 and March 2021 reoffended in the following 12 months.

A severe shortage of probation officers, combined with high caseloads means that HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) is not completing all the resettlement work it recognises is essential. For example, between April 2022 and January 2023, key handover meetings between prison and probation staff and prisoners did not happen as intended in around half of cases.

In December 2022, 29% of probation officer roles were vacant while 92% of probation sub-regions were operating at or above full caseload capacity in August 2022 This follows the NAO’s report on probation services in 2019, which found that severe shortages and high workloads in the former National Probation Service were hampering its effectiveness. Today’s report also sets out the challenges caused by HMPPS’s reorganisation of probation services and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prisons and probation services.

The NAO found that important resettlement outcomes for prison leavers have been mixed. From April 2022 to January 2023, accommodation outcomes have remained stable, with 76% of prison leavers in settled accommodation after three months. Employment outcomes have improved in this period, with more than a quarter of prison leavers in work after six months, up from 17% in the previous year. However, substance misuse treatment outcomes have remained poor, with just 37% of prison leavers with a substance misuse treatment referral engaged in community-based treatment in 2021-22.

HMPPS does not know why different groups of prison leavers have very different resettlement outcomes. NAO analysis found that, in 2021-22, 8% of female prison leavers were employed after six months compared with 18% of male prison leavers, while 11% of black or black British prison leavers were in work compared with 18% of white prison leavers. HMPPS has not performed analysis to identify the causes of this variation.

The NAO identified several strengths or recent improvements in the service and welcomed steps that HMPPS has taken to address unmet need such as launching a new accommodation service in July 2021 for offenders at risk of homelessness. In interviews with staff, we observed a strong commitment among prison and probation staff to turning prison leavers’ lives around. HMPPS has also made good progress recruiting people to help prison leavers find a job. By March 2023 it introduced employment leads in 92 eligible prisons to support prison leavers into work, although it is too early to determine their impact.

With the prison population forecast to increase by as much as 25% between March 2023 and March 2027 – mainly due to an increase in police officers and longer sentences for serious offenders – the NAO urges HMPPS to plan how it will manage higher demand for resettlement services. The Probation Service may need to supervise around 5,900 more prison leavers by March 2025, an increase of around 10% compared with caseloads in September 2022.

Among its recommendations the NAO urged government bodies on the Cross Government Reducing Reoffending Board to publish a report in 2024 defining clear roles and responsibilities in the resettlement system. Better data is also required: HMPPS cannot currently demonstrate whether its Commissioned Rehabilitative Services contracts are making a positive difference to offenders, while its baseline audits of these contracts showed poor performance.

“One of the core purposes of prisons and probation services is to prepare prisoners for release effectively and ensure their smooth resettlement into the community. However, HMPPS and its partners across government do not do so consistently.

“While HMPPS has made some progress in recent years around issues such as accommodation it must ensure the basics are in place, including defining clear roles and responsibilities in the resettlement system.”

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO

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Background to the report

Prisons and probation services have two core purposes: to carry out the sentences given by the courts; and to rehabilitate people in their care and supervision to help them lead law-abiding and useful lives and to protect the public. In 2021-22, there were 58,915 releases from prison in total (including some people released more than once, see paragraph 1.2). Between April 2020 and March 2021, 38% of adults released from prison reoffended in the 12 months following their release (four percentage points lower than the previous year).

Reoffending has significant costs to society. This includes direct financial losses to victims and the costs that the criminal justice system must meet, from running police investigations and court hearings, to holding offenders in prisons and ensuring their effective supervision in the community. In 2019 the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) estimated that reoffending across all adult offenders identified in 2016 had cost society £16.7 billion (in 2017-18 prices).

Prison leavers are more likely to reoffend if they are not resettled into the community, for example if they have nowhere to live, no job or other income, and have poor continuity of healthcare. HMPPS and its partners aim to minimise the risk of this through their resettlement work.

While in custody, staff should regularly assess prisoners to understand their needs and risks throughout their sentences. Before someone leaves prison, there should be handovers between prison- and community-based staff. During and following a prisoner’s release, support should be available to help them address known barriers to successful resettlement.

Scope of the report

This report examines:

• government’s effectiveness in resettling prison leavers
• the factors affecting service performance
• what needs to be addressed to improve resettlement services in the future

Our report examines resettlement arrangements for adult prison leavers in England and Wales with a focus on services relating to prison leavers’ accommodation, employment and substance misuse treatment outcomes. We did not examine the resettlement of children and young people and did not review support for offenders sentenced in the community in detail.

While we examine how HMPPS managed the transition of resettlement services to its new arrangements, we did not audit its overall approach to unifying probation services in detail. This report refers to both prison leavers and offenders as some of government’s services and initiatives are available to all offenders, including those sentenced in the community. Where data are not captured for prison leavers specifically, we have used data across all offender types.

Conclusions

One of the core purposes of prisons and probation services is to prepare prisoners for release effectively and ensure their smooth resettlement into the community. However, HMPPS and its partners across government do not do so consistently.

Within prisons, HMPPS does not provide sufficient activities to prepare prison leavers and those it does provide are not at the required standard. The Inspectorates have reported a significant deterioration in the quality of release planning and rehabilitation services in recent years. Moreover, HMPPS does not have good enough data on its CRS contracts to know whether they are making a positive difference.

We observed a strong commitment among prison and probation staff to turning prison leavers’ lives around, but performance has been hampered by staff shortages and high workloads. Accountability arrangements and dependencies between departments’ work are unclear. In addition, data collection and information-sharing on prisoners’ needs and outcomes, particularly on substance misuse treatment, is fragmented.