Matters of Concern

Todays post reminds me of the story concerning the old lady who died and upon her house being cleared out of a lifetimes stuff there was a small box labelled 'string - too short to keep'. Along the way I keep noticing things or people bring to my attention stuff that, of themselves, don't really make a blog post, but are never-the-less worthy of note. I'll start with this image off Twitter this morning:-   

Somewhat ironic isn't it? All that time and effort put in by HMPPS command and control to find a suitable alternative to the long-held and neutral term 'client' via 'case' and 'offender' or 'probationer' and 'licensee' and eventually 'service user', only to come up with the cack-handed 'person on probation' or PoP. But here we have the MoJ casting all that aside and just going for straight labelling - 'burglars, robbers and thieves'. Maybe 'rapists, arsonists and murderers' next? Probation needs to be rid of the MoJ and HMPPS. 

--oo00oo--

Like all good bureaucracies, the MoJ and HMPPS love alphabet soup and acronyms and there's a couple here I recently spotted and have no idea what they mean:- 

New supervision structure for probation staff can only be described at best as overkill at worst as institutional bullying. Staff now have 6 types of supervision:-

1) Performance where 5 objectives are identified for the year and appraised every quarter - this aligns with the old appraisal system.

2) Competency Framework - to progress to next increment.

3) Reflective Practice - not really reflective! 4 x 1-1 sessions with manager and 2x observation - 1-1 are to enable manager to use touchstone to check work is up to standard.

4) SAQUA - case selected by offender manager 1-1 session with manager then appearing before a panel of managers and couple of peers to feed back and be questioned on case. 

5) RCAT 4 times a year case picked at random and quality assured using HMIP format.

6) Monthly supervision as current practice.

Firstly the SAQUA doesn’t acknowledge diversity issues. It also puts one person in front of a panel of up to 6 or 7 people which many would find intimidating and, in some cases, bullied.
There is no proper reflective supervision in any of the above, it is lip service only.

Some staff have suggested the RCAT format is so general and open to interpretation, some staff may be open to bullying, especially if they do not get on with their manager. Have other areas brought this in and has Napo been told of this system? It is operated via one note and each supervision type has a tab to open it. Line managers then have to record against each supervision type!

--oo00oo--

Of course the issue is a serious one and recently highlighted in a speech by HMI Justin Russell:- 

"We've got increasing concerns around the quality of management oversight too, with SPOs being so overloaded they don’t have the space to do the type of reflective supervision which is so important if probation practitioners, particularly newly qualified officers, are to improve their practice." 

It all smacks of this I saw recently:- 

"Probation has become an evil empire of surveillance, coercion and exploitation of both practitioners and service users." 

--oo00oo--

On that note I'll end with this from a reader:-

Hi Jim,

Well, where to start except to say we have moved a giant step towards an enforcement service. I'll keep it brief but, essentially, we now have a database called 'Open'. On one hand it can be useful as it's your caseload in 'real' time, not sure if it's nationwide or not but it tells you how many enforcement and unallocated appointments you have and what ISPs and breaches are due. However, management are using it for their benefit in order to haul us over the coals. 

Basically 3 x AAs and you get an email off your SPO to meet with them and justify the absences and if breach action has been instigated and if not why not, they then put a MO contact on Delius. This has all come about because the MoJ or whoever oversees HMPPS are not happy about all the UPW not being completed.

Anyway, I was asked about other AAs I'd given but they weren't for UPW but general office visits or the CRS ones. So, now not only is it UPW but all probation appointments.

A lad of mine picked up on warrant for a minor breach of FTA that normally I'd have given an AA for but because of the instructions to breach I regrettably did. Court rang with the result and said he was given a £500 fine - and it's just pissed me off so much. We have to work with these men, he isn't a dangerous man he's medium risk and only has RARs, I'm now in the situation of do I give AAs and face a meeting with the SPO or breach and get lads lumbered with huge fines/hours of UPW etc.

In other news, got my payslip today and I'm about £40 per month better off - a band 4 colleague reckons they only less than that - who the hell voted for this deal - we suspect we've been stitched up!

A Reader

Too Many Suspended Sentences 2

I notice Rob Allen feels the tide might be turning as regards short prison sentences in England and Wales:-

   
More Council of Despair?

All’s not well at the Sentencing Council. Chairman Lord Justice Treacy has had to remind judges and magistrates to use suspended prison sentences only in the most serious cases which would otherwise result in custody – and not simply as a way of giving lower level community penalties more teeth.

Treacy - and no doubt the Ministry of Justice - fear that if courts continue to ignore last year’s guideline on the imposition of custody but do pay heed to a forthcoming one on breach, the result will be “a high volume of activated suspended sentences”. That means more pressure on the beleaguered prison system which has reported record levels of violence and self-harm in 2017.

More than one in ten suspended sentences are terminated early for a failure to comply with requirements and 18% for a further offence. While it’s not known how many of these cases currently go to jail, the new guideline is expected to urge activation of the custodial sentence unless it would be unjust in all the circumstances. The draft of the breach guideline tells courts to remember “that the court imposing the original sentence determined that a custodial sentence was appropriate in the original case”. The problem is that in many cases they haven’t and it wasn’t.

The Council and Probation service have cooked up a plan to stop suspended sentences being recommended in Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs).  They’re proposed in about a third of PSRs and courts accept two thirds of the proposals. What will happen now? While the hope is that most suspended sentences will be replaced by community orders, there’s a risk that some additional custody may be imposed or even proposed.

Such unintended consequences would be nothing new for the Council. An independent review of its work by eminent criminologist Sir Anthony Bottoms has confirmed that two major guidelines - on assaults and burglary - have led to unexpected increases in the severity of sentencing, "which is bound to create anxiety among civil liberties groups”. The review is also critical of the Council’s failure, when drafting guidelines, to consider the relative cost and effectiveness of prison and other sentences in reducing re-offending.

The review makes largely technical recommendations about how the Council should both undertake and communicate its work in the future. There are good ideas here - a greater emphasis on personal mitigation in the guidelines, and a requirement that courts ask themselves "is custody unavoidable?" because sentencers may forget to do so.

Not surprisingly the Council has rejected the idea of opening itself up to a television documentary but it has promised to foster better links with academics, review research on the effectiveness of sentencing and engage more with stakeholders other than sentencers. An external agency will be appointed to examine issues of public confidence in sentencing.

Bottoms echoes several of the findings in the report I wrote for Transform Justice in 2016 -The Sentencing Council for England and Wales - Brake or Accelerator on the Use of Prison. He argues that a preoccupation with the prison population has blunted the impact of the Transform Justice report because “the current reality is that it would be politically very difficult for the Council, even if it wished to do so, to argue for a step change in the use of prison.” That may be true but does not excuse the fact that a body which could have curbed the unnecessary use of prison has largely failed to do so.

Actually, noises coming from the Ministry of Justice are more promising than for some time. Prisons minister Rory Stewart told Parliament this week that he will be looking at what more the Government can do to emphasise ​that a custodial sentence in the short term should be a final resort. He accepted there is a lot to learn from Scotland which has introduced a presumption against short prison sentences. Maybe the tide is finally turning?

Rob Allen

Michael Spurr Apologises

Regular readers will be aware of Carl Eve's sustained journalistic efforts regarding the Tanis Bhandari murder and I see that an official apology has been forthcoming from Michael Spurr, as reported here:- 

Apology for mother of man murdered by a known criminal

The man in charge of the service which monitors offenders has written to the mother of a murdered Devon man to apologise for failings which contributed to her son's death. Michael Spurr has written to Andrea Sharpe, mother of Tanis Bhandari, to apologise for errors in the handling of the case of Donald Pemberton, who was convicted of murder. Mr Spurr said he is “truly sorry” about the difficulties the family faced trying to get information about the monitoring of Tanis's murderer, reports plymouthherald.

The chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), said a Serious Further Offence review has revealed a litany of failings. He revealed he was “looking into the processes” by which the reviews were carried out and how the service could improve. He admitted the case was “assessed against current requirements and processes were not followed as they should have been” adding “the SFO review therefore found the management was insufficient in each of these areas”.

Since receiving the letter in late April, Andrea said she has had mixed feelings about its contents. Although she now feels vindicated in battling against the authorities for the truth, the letter has underscored her strong feelings that killer Donald Pemberton should not have been at liberty when he killed Tanis on January 1 2015.

She said: “I felt great relief having read the letter but it opened up worse feelings. For example, learning now that the killer could have been re-arrested on December 30 – that really broke me. He didn’t need to be on the street that night. I don’t know what else I can do now. I feel like I’ve come to an end.”

Tanis, aged 27, was murdered on January 1, 2015 at the Green in Tamerton Foliot by Ryan Williams, aged 21 and Pemberton, 20. Pemberton was on licence at the time, having served two months of a four-month sentence for having a sharp article in a public place. His licence terms stated he was “to be well behaved” but two weeks before the murder he was arrested for brandishing two meat cleavers in Anstis Street in Stonehouse.

As The Herald has since learned, Pemberton's licence details were not on the Police National Computer and he was bailed by police to return to Charles Cross police station on February 9, 2015. His probation worker was not made aware of Pemberton’s arrest until more than a week later thanks to a call from the mental health Insight team. A court date to deal with the breach was eventually arranged to be heard on January 16, 2015.

In December last year The Herald exclusively revealed how two internal investigations – by the police and the privatised arm of the probation service – into the sequence of events which led to the death of the 27-year-old revealed a catalogue of delays, computer inadequacies and human errors.

The police’s internal investigation found “there was a chance” that Donald Pemberton – now serving a life sentence for the joint murder of Tanis – “would not have been at liberty on that night” had key information been available to officers on the Police National Computer “and a recall to prison had been issued for him, as a result of his behaviour” two weeks earlier when he was arrested for threatening a group of men with two meat cleavers.

In addition, the police report found that the circumstances which led to the builder’s death could be repeated not just in Devon and Cornwall, but in any force area in the country because of failings by the prison authorities in informing the Police National Computer Bureau.

The police report warned: “The concern is that Prisons, nationwide are adopting different criteria for sending, or not sending, prisoner licence details to the PNC Bureau. While this practice continues, and until all prisoner licence details are sent to the PNC Bureau, there is every chance incidents similar to this case will recur.”

The Herald, working Tanis’s family, called upon local politicians to put pressure on the government into tackling the issue. In February this year The Herald reported how after meeting with Tanis’ family Plymouth Moor View MP Johnny Mercer wrote to then Justice Minister Liz Truss asking: “what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the findings of the Devon and Cornwall Police inquiry into the murder of Tanis Bhandari that omissions in the recording of license conditions on the Police National Computer are likely to recur.”

The question, sent on January 27, was answered by Brandon Lewis, minister of state for policing and the fire service, on February 2. He wrote: “The omission in the recording of licence conditions in this case related to a Post Sentence Supervision notification, which is applied to offenders released from sentences of more than one day and up to two years in custody. This issue has now been resolved. All licence conditions are now recorded on the Police National Computer and prisons are also required to notify local police and probation services when offenders are released from their custody.”

The Herald later learned there had been a follow up question by Mr Mercer to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, asking “on what date the issue of the omission relating to the recording of licence conditions on the Police National Computer was resolved”. It received the answer from Mr Lewis: “This issue was resolved on 19 April 2016.”

The internal police report, which discovered the issue of the PNC omissions regarding licence details, was signed by the investigating officer dated September 9, 2016. The police have said their report was not forwarded to any government department prior to its completion in September 2016. There is, as yet, no explanation from the Government as to how it resolved the nationwide error found by Devon and Cornwall Police before the force had even completed its internal report.

In his lengthy letter to Andrea Sharpe, Tanis’s mother, Michael Spurr noted how because of Pemberton being a youth offender and previously receiving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months for the meat cleaver incident, any breach of his supervision was not a separate criminal offence and meant he could not be recalled direct to prison on the day of the breach. Instead, he would have to appear at court at a later date.

He noted how Pemberton, having been sentenced to four months custody after being convicted of the possession of an offensive weapon, was released on October 31 on a three month Notice of Supervision. He admitted the “releasing establishment should have informed the police of his release so that this information could be uploaded to the Police National Computer (PNC) to record that Donald Pemberton was subject to supervision.

“Unfortunately, this did not happen and I apologise for this. The failure was that of a particular prison establishment rather than a system failure.” He went on to reveal that Pemberton kept two of his three appointments with his “Probation Service Officer (PSO) in November 2014 and was issued a warning for the missed appointment. He explained how the PSO “identified at an early stage that [Pemberton] had mental health issues and set up an appointment with his GP”.

In addition, he admitted that by early December the CRC [Community Rehabilitation Company] which took over the privatised arm of the Probation Service “had concerns about his compliance with his supervision and about his ongoing mental health problems, which were significant enough to require a short period of hospitalisation”.

Mr Spurr revealed how over the “next two weeks” Pemberton was seen by his PSO and by the mental health team. Following Pemberton’s arrest on December 15, 2014 he was bailed until February 9, 2015. Mr Spurr said he “cannot comment” on the police’s decision, but notes Devon and Cornwall Police internal review of the case.

He wrote: “We did not to tell [sic] the police about the Notice of Supervision as we should have done, but the PNC would have included a list of Pemberton’s previous convictions including his recent incarceration in a youth offender’s institution. As you are aware the investigating officers did not check the PNC, therefore were not aware of his previous convictions and did not identify he may have been subject to supervision.”

The Herald learned from the internal reports by the police and CRC that Pemberton’s PSO only found out on December 22, 2014 he had been arrested and bail, thanks to a call from staff at the Insight Mental Health Team. This delay meant attempts to discuss the matter further with the arresting officer and discussions with the National Probation Service (NPS) were equally delayed.

Mr Spurr has now revealed that the NPS enforcement officer “had some concerns as to whether there was enough evidence to prosecute the breach, as [Pemberton] had not been charged”. This was despite police investigators already securing and viewing very clear CCTV evidence of Pemberton threatening a group of men with two meat cleavers.

Mr Spurr notes that following further discussion about the risk Pemberton posed, “a decision was made to summons [him] to appear in court. On 24 December, a court date of 16 January was set.” He also revealed that the enforcement officer chose not to go to court to request an arrest warrant be issue as Pemberton had not yet been charged and had a fixed home address.

However, he confirmed that Pemberton “then missed an appointment with his PSO on the 29 December and unsuccessful attempts were made to contact him by phone on 30 December. “Following missed appointments, if an offender does not have a reasonable explanation for missing the appointment enforcement action is taken, however, in this case breach proceedings had already been instigated so there was no further follow up.”

Mr Spurr accepted Andrea Sharpe and her family were “entitled to be informed by the Witness Care Unit” of her right to ask for a Serious Further Offence Victim Summary Reports (VSR) and to be informed about the Victim Contact Service (VCS).

Tanis’s family only found out they were entitled to a report from the Probation Service about the monitoring of Pemberton because they were told by The Herald. Until that stage they had not been contacted by the Witness Care Unit and were completely unaware they were legally entitled to the VSR. Even their Devon and Corwnall Police Family Liaison Officer was unaware of the Victim Summary Report and that they should have been contacted about seeing it.

Mr Spurr said he has since asked Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Victims Policy team to work with Witness Care Units “to ensure that they are aware of their responsibilities and to reduce the chances of this very important piece of work being overlooked.” He admitted that in relation to Tanis’s family’s experience the HMPPS Victims Policy team has “already made contact with the Devon and Cornwall Witness Care Unit and they have now reviewed their processes.”

Mr Spurr said he recognised it had been a very difficult year for Andrea, compounded by trying to obtain information about the case while still grieving the loss of her son. He wrote: “I am truly sorry about the difficulties you have faced and the additional distress this has caused you.”

As a result he said he would be “looking into the processes by which SFO reviews are carried out. In this regard, I am considering how we can ensure that the SFO review procedures promote a culture of openness about learning; produce robust reviews; provide victims with information on how was [sic] offender was supervised and; where there were shortcomings, how any lessons learnt will be implemented.

He said current SFO Review procedures asked three questions “whether Risk Assessment was sufficient, whether Risk Management was sufficient and whether Offender Management was sufficient”. Assessing the case of Pemberton’s management against current requirements he admitted “processes were not followed, as they should have been. The SFO review therefore found the management was insufficient in each of these areas.”

He admitted the written assessment and plan of Pemberton “was not completed in a timely manner, was of insufficient quality and was not reviewed in response to changing circumstances”. He admitted there was “an escalating pattern of worrying behaviour that was not sufficiently spotted and risk escalation to the NPS was not considered”. In addition, he noted that the Probation Service Officer who tried to contact Pemberton on December 30, after he missed his appointment on December 29, “took no further action” after this date.

Mr Spurr said the SFO review “found that more should have been done at this point, including risk escalation to the NPS and consideration of contacting police. (The SFO review also stated it was not clear what action the police could have taken if any). I have looked at the review and concluded that a warrant could have been applied for at this point.”

While recognising the context of the decision making at the time and the police’s decision to bail Pemberton, Mr Spurr said “there were sufficient concerns about the possession of weapons and the risk Pemberton posed to justify an application and it would then have been for the Court to decide whether to issue the warrant.”

As a result of Tanis’s family’s battle to highlight the mistakes made and hold organisations to account, Mr Spurr outlined a series of future actions to “prevent, as far as we can, further offending in the future”. Among the raft of actions already agreed include underscoring the importance of prison establishments to notify police and the PNC Bureau about the release of offenders and details of their licences. He said this importance had been “reinforced and further reminders will be issued”.

In addition an audit “will be undertaken to make sure the relevant Prison Service Instruction is being followed”. He said HM Prisons and Probation Service was working with police “to improve the type of information stored on the PNC” but claimed the “technical changes” to the PNC were “a police matter so I cannot commit to a time scale for this piece of work to be completed”.

He said HMPPS would also issue guidance on the use of warrants “making clear the circumstances in which they should be used for public protection, including for any young offenders who may still be subject to the previous Notice of Supervision arrangements”.

He said the HMPPS “Contract Management Team” undertook an audit of liaison arrangements and relationships with “key stakeholders in the Dorset, Devon and Cornwall CRC”, adding that the findings would be “discussed with the CRC Chief Executive Officer and senior managers” to agree any further improvements required.

In addition, he said the CRC had implemented a “new case management model, including an evidence based risk assessment and allocation process and a centralised administrative and information sharing function”. Finally he said he would review the current SFO review procedures “with the aim to provide more comprehensive and straightforward reports to be shared with victims”.

Sentencing Council Get Short Shrift

I like the way the Howard League doesn't mince its words. Here they are telling the Sentencing Council to 'go away and try again'.

The Howard League for Penal Reform’s response to the Sentencing Council’s consultation on breach guidelines 

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Sentencing Council’s consultation on breach guidelines. 

About us 

Founded in 1866, the Howard League is the oldest penal reform charity in the world. We have some 12,000 members, including lawyers, politicians, business leaders, practitioners, prisoners and their families and top academics. The Howard League has consultative status with both the United Nations and the Council of Europe. It is an independent charity and accepts no grant funding from the UK government. 

The Howard League works for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison. We aim to achieve these objectives through conducting and commissioning research and investigations aimed at revealing underlying problems and discovering new solutions to issues of public concern. The Howard League’s objectives and principles underlie and inform the charity’s work. 

Since 2002 the Howard League has provided the only legal service dedicated to representing children and young people in custody. The Howard League provides administrative support to the All Party Parliamentary Group on women in the penal system.

We have drawn upon our lawyers’ experience in practice, our direct work with children and young adults, and our policy expertise in this response. 

The guidelines are punitive 

From the outset the whole tenor of the guidelines is punitive. The focus is on the level of sanctions imposed. It is not until page 10 of the guideline that it states that ‘the primary objective of the court is to achieve compliance with a community order’.

Throughout the guidelines, there is no consideration at all of the reasons why people are failing to comply with orders. People in the criminal justice system often have multiple and complex problems, including disabilities, mental health problems, homelessness, drug and alcohol issues and debt. Some will be the primary carers of children. Sentencers must enquire about an individual’s circumstances when assessing compliance. They should consider whether barriers to engagement with an order have been recognised by supervising officers and what steps have been taken to address any potential issues prior to the issue of breach proceedings. 

In Case Study A (p19) there appears to be no detailed investigation into D’s lack of compliance, when initial compliance with the order was good. It is not known whether D is the primary carer of his child or whether the best interests of the child have been considered. It is not known whether his childcare issues or his debt problems had been recognised or addressed by his supervisor. It is therefore disappointing that the penalty of custody in this instance is deemed appropriate. 

The guidelines do not consider external factors, such as the role of supervisory services including Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service. There is a general duty upon probation and supervising services to understand the reasons for a lack of compliance and work with the person to achieve compliance. Yet the guidelines do not encourage sentencers to enquire about the actions that may or may not have been taken by supervisors to problem solve and encourage compliance. 

There is evidence to show that CRSs and the National Probation Service are failing in their duty to support people on orders and enable them to comply. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation found that since Transforming Rehabilitation was introduced, over two-thirds of prisoners had not received enough help pre-release in relation to accommodation, employment and finances. A report published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation on the effectiveness of probation work in North London found poor levels of contact with too many service users and a lack of monitoring systems. Sentencers must consider the level of support that has been put in place to ensure compliance before determining the level of compliance. 

A lack of evidence 

The Sentencing Council states that is has consulted with professionals. There is no reference to consultation with people serving sentences in the criminal justice system. 

The Sentencing Council states it is issuing guidelines on breach to ‘ensure a consistent approach to sentencing breach of orders’. Yet on page seven of the draft consultation it states that ‘data was unavailable to ensure a thorough examination of sentencing practice for some of the breaches included’. The draft guidelines are being issued for consultation when the data is unavailable to show whether inconsistency is an issue. 

The Sentencing Council’s own resource assessment of the potential impact of breach guidelines for community orders, suspended sentence orders and post sentence supervision is limited. The Sentencing Council states ‘it is not known exactly how many breaches of these orders lead to a custodial sentence being activated, and if so, the length of the custodial sentence imposed’. 

The Sentencing Council has not published an equality impact assessment of the breach guidelines. 

Applicability of the guidelines 

There is a lack of clarity about the scope of the guidelines which ‘will apply to all offenders aged over 18, who are sentenced on or after the date that the guideline comes into force’. The Sentencing Council must clarify the position in respect of those aged 18 and over who have been re-sentenced for a conviction received whilst under the age of 18. In our opinion young people in this category should only be dealt with in accordance with the principles for children. 

Breach and the prison population 

The draft guidelines, with the emphasis on compliance rather than proportionality, are likely to encourage greater use of imprisonment when it is disproportionate and unnecessary.

Data from the Ministry of Justice shows that in the last 20 years the numbers of people in prison due to recall has increased by 4,300 per cent. The increased use of recall to prison for breach has been one of the main drivers to the prison population. Most recalls to prison are for technical breaches of licence conditions, not the commission of new crimes. 

The draft guidelines set a dangerous precedent as they state that sentencers should impose a custodial sentence ‘even when the original offence seriousness did not originally merit custody’. This contradicts one of the stated aims of the Sentencing Council to ensure that ‘all sentences are proportionate to the offence committed’. Use of prison should be a last resort, used for the most serious offences. The proposed guidelines are likely to lead to up-tariffing. 

If someone has committed a further crime then it should be investigated and prosecuted. A technical breach of a sentence should result in a swift but proportionate community response which considers the level of harm caused and the circumstances behind a lack of compliance. 

Disproportionality 

The guidelines, in failing to consider the factors relating to compliance, are likely to have a disproportionate impact on women, resulting in an increase in the use of custody for breach. Women are more likely to be convicted of non-violent offences. They are also more likely to be primary carers of children. 

The Corston Report emphasised that an excessive proportion of women were in custody for breaches. Baroness Corston recommended: Custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public; Community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm; Community sentences must be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments; The restrictions placed on sentencers around breaches of community orders must be made more flexible as a matter of urgency. The draft guidelines discourage sentencers to be flexible when considering breach and to only consider compliance. 

A report by the APPG on Women in the Penal System, published by the Howard League for Penal Reform, found that since TR was implemented in February 2015 there have been 797 recalls of women released from short sentences (Ministry of Justice 2016b). The vast majority will have been recalled to prison for 14 days. 

The penalty level for ‘wilful and persistant’ non-compliance, namely the imposition of a custodial sentence for an offence which is not serious enough to merit custody, is in direct contradiction of the UN Rules for the treatment of women and non – custodial sentence for women offenders (the Bangkok Rules). Rule 64 states that custodial sentences are extrema ratio and should only be used when “the offence is serious or violent or the woman represents a continuing danger”.

Conclusions 

The guidelines should be re-drafted to ensure sentencers adopt a critical approach when sentencing for breach. Consistency should be achieved through a process that promotes the use of community sentences. Sentencers must consider the reasons for a lack of compliance, including an individual’s personal circumstances and external factors. They must also consider what steps have been taken prior to breach proceedings to encourage compliance. 

I would be happy to meet with you to discuss any of these points further. 

Yours sincerely, 

Dr. Laura Janes Legal Director

Pick of the Week 21

Why hasn't the breach of contract by Working Links gone to the lawyers, that's what we pay for. Ian Lawrence is over his head and ability and wants to save the union funds for his redundancy, as will surely come with members leaving in droves due to his ineffective position. NAPO needs and deserves an individual worthy of the vast £70,000 salary who takes control, not is controlled by the CRCs. He stifles local reps and blocks the progress they fight to achieve. 

Lets face it, Mr Lawrence has no life time career invested here and will move on, hopefully sooner than later. He cannot understand the devastating impact being robbed of our EVR, pensions and erosion of terms and conditions as he has had none of it inflicted on his own terms. Good riddance to bad rubbish, bring on the election and find someone decent and capable.

*****
What breach of contract? If I recall correctly, Sodexo ran roughshod through the framework agreement and paid reduced EVR. They were condemned on moral, not legal grounds. It's easy to bash Napo, but instead of just throwing out the assumption that there has been a breach of contract, you should explain why you believe there has been a breach.

*****
All we are after from Ian Lawrence is a categorical statement that he has run the contracts past Thompson's and they have confirmed there is no case to answer over our insistence on EVR, (or otherwise). Then we will know where we are. Currently, OUR reading (SSW branch) is that there IS a case to answer. And I, for one, want my (considerable) monthly subs to be used to pay for this legal advice. I have to admit I am completely flummoxed as to why this hasn't happened up til now. The fact the MoJ Contract Managers appear to have avoided the ACAS talks to date suggests there is something to hide and their position is not water tight. Because, if it were wouldn't you rush to prove the Union is wrong with the legal position? Simples!

*****
Oh what a shower of shite. I was at London branch meeting Friday. Dean Rogers attended, nice enough chap but not a trade unionist. Spoke of the positives of CRC and made a pitiful comment about some members deserve being fired. I'm cancelling my membership come Monday.

*****
I have heard on many occasions the General Secretary blaming members in Sodexo controlled CRC's for their redundancies. I can assure you he takes no responsibility for their demise and Dean the same mould. These two shower of shites want to throw members to the wolves and lay claims on the legal advice to support their inaction. NAPO is dead unless it gets rid of these 2 jerks but the chairs are never going to deal with that. Don't forget the members got what they voted for, turkeys for Christmas.

*****
When union members are hamstrung & left in limbo by what seems a union leadership intent on inactivity, then sadly you are right to observe that people become frustrated, angry & ineffective. During the Sodexo clearances I have often wondered if the Napo leadership intentionally dragged their feet such that the VS option offered by the CRCs became the only guaranteed paid exit as compared to the insecurity & uncertainty of  "will we win?"... thus Napo (as well as the CRCs) got rid of those troublesome old guard. The current SW scenario seems to be drifting in a similar direction.

*****
About the latest OASys knee jerk in the London CRC: we were told earlier this year we had to do OASys initial sentence plan within 10 days of first contact. Any OASys outstanding from before April we need not worry about. Because of the inspection we have now been told we must do all pre April OASys after all. For most of us these amount to quite a few. They must all be completed within a month. Here are the catches, unresolved and unlikely to be addressed: If we do the backlog OASys, well we are even less likely to be able to keep up with the current on going work than we are already. Hence the backlog OASys are likely to be done really, really badly and not worth the paper they are not written on. What would be the point of that? Still, NOMS and MOJ will be happy to see boxes ticked. Further, if we do all the Backlog OASys as initial sentence plan, we will have thousands of "misses" since all of them will be from before April. I can't wait.

*****
Cannot imagine any well trained Probation staff wilfully not doing OASys as it a key tool (arguably overly cumbersome and difficult to navigate). My experience was one of too few staff, high sickness rates, temps coming and going, not enough hours in day etc. I did manage to just do all mine but I recognise team I was in was lower caseload than most others and we managed some stability re staffing. Quality, now that's a different question as was implementing the sentence plan. We/I were working like stink and doing our best. I am sure same is true for vast majority.

*****
Oh purleese, the sentence plan is already sketched out in broad terms in either the Community Order detail or encapsulated within the licence conditions, as any competent practitioner will tell you. Anyone worth their salt knows exactly the direction of travel in any given sentence and what input is required. OASys sentence plans were only ever a way of trying to quantify this by a Service beginning to lose confidence in its professional abilities and standing and feeling required to justify its self, rather than being allowed to just get on with the job. OASys always has been a repetition of info held elsewhere and a waste of time. Now sentence plans are just meaningless cut and paste exercises completed by overworked court staff in order to hit completion targets.

*****
About the London branch union meeting last Friday: It does worry me when it seems that those who represent us appear to accept uncritically certain things they are being told by managers in the CRC, such as: "there's no money". I would say: unless you show us your accounts to prove this statement I am not prepared to believe it, What I am prepared to believe is that your company is unprepared to invest money, even though all businesses accept that investment is needed in order for profit to be made.

*****
Caseloads in West Yorkshire are 70 to 80 for PSO, sickness levels according to the hierarchy are 1 in 5 staff members. No support from managers or recognition that this is having a negative impact on staff morale or staffs mental health or well being.

6 core modules is the reinventing of the wheel that insults the offender and treats them like a child. The induction paper and sentence plan takes exactly the same amount of time for a 1st time offender or career offender. Once the offender has been released from prison he or she may have had 4 or 5 offender managers. The PSS is causing a bottleneck of offenders that the turnaround time for sorting out accommodation etc is wilfully inadequate and addresses nothing.

The staff who remain are so disillusioned with the job that they have just given up the ghost. There is no scope left to specialise or move into new territory as we now deliver programmes, hold DRR orders, community orders, licence cases, PSS licence, IOM and PPO cases. Can the last person out turn off the lights.

*****
The Conference resolution was very principled but practically useless and toothless. Yes we all love collective bargaining, but the employers don't want to play ball - especially the NPS. The last couple of NNC meetings were poorly attended by employers (read the briefing paper produced at AGM by those who actually attend these meetings) who voted with their feet and those who did attend said nowt because of commercial secrecy. The NPS walked away then came back again to a stony silence and a half filled room. Most of the big players including the NPS are expected to follow MTCnovo and serve notice in the new year and Napo will be sitting in an empty room twiddling their thumbs with Comrade Chas and his sidekick stood outside selling their newspapers and dreaming of the winter of discontent. At least Raho has the balls to see the reality of the new landscape and not kid himself that probation staff will take to the streets and strike - they won't.

*****
Are you not clear that this is a democratic union? This situation splits the union puts London at odds with the national membership and discredits his poor NPS chair colleagues in this political disaster and no doubt Rogers the bodges put him up to it as that is what they wanted at AGM. All the Officials were manipulating. Members are just the bankers we get no say.

*****
It reflects a real live issue that will soon be facing every branch. You can ignore the train coming towards you but if you stay still it will roll over you. You cannot change the fact that the NNC is disintegrating and has been for some time. It is not fit for purpose. The motion was passed in accordance with all the relevant rules.

*****
National collective bargaining is now a farce. Napo members were duped at the AGM into voting for a motion that meant zilch/nudda. If the private companies decide to walk away, no one can make them stay. Do you seriously think the MoJ will force anyone to parley with the unions? Of course London is only interested in London although we can stretch to Thames valley at a pinch. No one has mentioned Manchester going alone.

*****
I would like to suggest that the London NAPO branches apparent willingness to accept the loss of facility time without a murmur (please someone, correct me if I am wrong), would certainly have given confidence to MCT Novo to propose walking away from NNC. The local vote last week has unfortunately only endorsed this position. I have read elsewhere recently of trade unionists not wholly in favour of relying on the law in discussions with management. In my experience however, no amount of hand wringing or special pleading cuts it with the kind of employers we are currently having to deal with. Nicey, nicey won't stop them riding roughshod over our roles or our basic (hard won) terms and conditions. If we are seen not to accept our own internal democratic processes (the motion passed at Conference supporting NNC) then why should management? London has done the rest of us no favours and Dean Rogers role in this is shameful. He should resign immediately because he clearly doesn't accept the AGM outcome.

*****
We will continue to run around in ever decreasing circles until the politicians stop the rhetoric about being 'tough'. Try 'effective'. Try 'credible'. Try 'productive'. Try 'constructive'. But 'tough' is getting us nowhere.

*****
Fully agree, ever increasing applications of stick rather then carrot solves nothing. Indeed, prison is no longer being used as a last resort, but more of a naughty step. But I think the system is so broken now its beyond repair, and so offers great opportunities for a real change. Not just change in the numbers we send to prison or how we build them. But change in what we want prisons to achieve, and being realistic about what they can achieve. 

It's my opinion that any success in penal reform must come hand in hand with social reform. Drug laws need to be changed. Mental health issues require a whole different focus, individual wellbeing rather then criminalisation. Questions need to be asked about sending people to prison for 4 weeks or 6 weeks, what does that really achieve? What's the cost? Not just monetary terms, but the cost to the individual going to prison and the potential cost to society when that individual is released.

Rehabilitation is an overused word I feel, because many in our prisons haven't been habilitated in the first place. A whole new way of thinking is needed if we want an effective CJS. One that sees not only the punishment of people, but one that achieves something for everyone too. Unfortunately, to achieve radical changes in the CJS, people in power have to grasp some nettles, and Liz Truss, Gove or Grayling are not the people to do it.

*****
I have noticed a huge increase in the complex needs of offenders over the past 10 years. Most of those I work with now have complex needs such as mental health issues, personality disorders, alcohol and drugs, autistic spectrum, OCD, PTSD, ADHD, DV as victim, childhood abuse, etc. We deserve far more recognition and support for what we do and have become a dumping ground for the disadvantaged, abused and mentally ill.

*****
I have had a tough NPS day so sorry for not being upbeat, actually F*CK being upbeat. Also F*CK being professional and measured in responding and commenting. The IT doesn't work, the systems don't work, the prisons are hideous, the staff everywhere are in despair, about their jobs, their vision, their profession. Of course, this is the same in health, education ... (add your public service here). Our justice system is on a tipping point. I can't decide whether to grieve for the destruction of our public institutions, or for a man who has not got the release he has worked for and deserves, because F*CKING housing is non-existent. Rant over.

*****
I am spending increasing amount of time assisting depressed, suicidal and desperate individuals. Writing letters of support to ESA tribunals, working with bereaved, private company have no interest in this. I could do the minimum, meet the targets, take the money and run but I don't and neither do I see my colleagues doing that. They are on the phone regularly to support people who are quite frankly in a desperate situation regularly. There may be staff out there with that attitude but whoever you are I can tell you I have never known one in 15 years of service.

*****
The thing about "risk assessment": these are now very sketchy when done in courts, the basic layers, the minimum amount of info. Fair enough, that is all the staff have time for. But NPS were supposed to be the risk experts in TR landscape. They work with the risky clients. They alone can determine who is risky enough to be worked with by the NPS. Yet heavy risk assessment work now resides in the CRC, we the non experts must do full layer assessments on cases coming to us, after decision has been taken on sentencing based on very skimpy assessment. Not the court staffs fault. Systemic.

*****
Further problems arise over risk-escalation and ping-ponging between CRC and NPS. Have seen CRC staff, especially PSO's new to post, supervising complicated cases. Recipe for disaster if not receiving adequate peer support and line management. Teams being fragmented in WL CRC's - less staff support? More risky decision making?

*****
It will be even worse when we have no OASys. Too many people now involved in individual cases. The amount of breaches that are withdrawn due admin errors in the NPS. It's more luck than judgement that there are not more SFO's. We've been saying for the last 2 years surely it can't get any worse, but it does.

*****
Court closures have meant more cases going to already busy courts and no extra staff to undertake the expectation of all reports to be done on the day or written up by court staff. Of course they are going to be sketchy the majority of the time. Not the fault of the staff but those that think E3 is the way to go and bugger those who are trying the best they can in an ever increasing target-driven service. Staff should be able to work at a level they are comfortable with and let the targets take a back seat. Then maybe, just maybe the powers that be will see it as it is and decide public protection and staff welfare should be their priorities and employ more staff to squeeze into an already too small a working environment. One looks for 20 female staff and been told to use the public loos in the court foyer.

*****
Oral reports and short format reports are not based on risk assessment, but the formulaic outcome of a couple of risk screening tools.

*****
Another loss from TR: many of those writing reports and making proposals have never supervised anyone on an order or licence. Or they may have had pre-TR supervisory experience, but be totally unfamiliar with CRC post TR. This shows. We have DV perpetrators on 60 RARs but with no BBR although they could easily have done BBR and had never done it before. 

We have people with chronic orthopaedic problems being given 200 hrs Unpaid Work. Time was when end-to-end offender management was the ideal. We took responsibility of the whole experience from start to finish. This way relationship and trust were built, progress noticed, hurdles appreciated, investment in the process by service user as well as worker. Now we fail by fragmentation, by misunderstanding, by confusion and misdiagnosis.

*****
Rehabilitation has been well and truly 'Transformed' from an award winning service to a pile of excrement designed by people so far away from the real world who test out concepts on paper before decided what will work...E3 is the deskilling arm of this model designed purely to get probation work done on the cheap and the beauty of this are the SPO quislings who are pushing the model as if is the prelude to the second coming when in reality they're like the turkeys who voted for Christmas...

*****
Ah, the silent but deadpan Copsey, a behind-the-curtain career civil servant fixed in aspic rather than steeped in probation. I remember the sharp dressed bully from Lincolnshire many, many moons ago. He never liked social work training, was very pro-control & punishment; he will have fitted into the Noms' organism like a missing jigsaw piece. What, pray tell, does Head of Operational Assurance do (other than pocket a £120k salary)?

*****
Dame Glenys Stacey (HMCIP) ....... made a point of identifying impending areas for the Inspectorates attention, the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR's) being one area of supervisory concern - which followed on from my question on the current lack of accountability & transparency from CRC providers in offering information to sentencers on this 'innovative' option which if unaddressed threatened to undermine judicial confidence.

Certainly in the Magistrates' Court confidence in this disposal is very much undermined already. Sentencers have no idea 1) what is actually involved 2) how much real activity takes place 3) how the amounts proposed by Probation in court reports (eg 15 days, 20 days) are arrived at and 4) no means of relating amount of RAR to level of sentence.

Since privatisation of probation any contact between sentencers and probation has pretty much vanished; reporting of breach levels appear almost non-existent and indeed there is a strong perception that the number of breaches brought to court have substantially reduced.

*****
Greater flexibility in reporting frequency means fewer breaches. I avoid breaching like the plague. I would rather put half an hour into getting someone to attend probation than spend two hours on a breach which then gets rejected. Another thing that puts me off breaching: I don't get that two hours undisturbed, ever. And if I do take that time it will be at the expense of another vital task, which in this plate spinning CRC world in which I now work will result in further delays and frustrations, plates crashing to the floor. When I bend to retrieve one plate, others immediately come off their spinning poles and crash. What a circus.

*****
The RARs: a mystery indeed. The current London CRC wisdom is that the wording says: "up to x amount of days". That means we can do as many or as few as the need and risk of the service user demands. There is some assumption that the ideal would be to "send" the service user somewhere for their RAR. I have only ever been able to do this in three cases, and the service user accessed services which he had already set up in advance of his order: one was a psychological appointment, one was the AA meeting where attendance can be confirmed through a "chitty" system, and one was the local drug centre who are happy to liaise with us re people's attendance and are not perturbed by such a word as "criminal record". 

If no such options are open those "RARs" become supervision sessions, work for the probation worker. Why that would now be such a terrrible dirty word or undesirable situation I don't know. People who come for their supervision RAR with me get a chance to consider their situation with one other, me. I pay close attention to what they say, I reflect back, I assist with focusing their train of thoughts, I don't judge. Most have not had a chance to do this with anyone since they saw me last. They tell me they are clearer about what they need to do when they leave me. When they return they feed back to me how things have gone. It is personal and bespoke. 

I can no longer see people every week or fortnightly, because I have so many and there is so much bureaucracy to attend to when I do see the service user, I spend a good hour usually. I don't think we should be made to discount such bespoke RAR sessions as useless, they are useful and constructive. It is just that we need other things for the service users as well, like affordable housing, employment and social inclusion.

*****
I've had it confirmed that there is very little time factored into the proposed Working Links model of practice for bespoke 1:2:1 sessions. The assumption is that all clients will be farmed out to other agencies more or less - whilst the practitioners sit in front of their computers furiously logging everything in order to hit cash linked targets. Problem is, the proposed 'suite' of 16 RAR activities (homogeneous across all WL owned companies, is currently nowhere in sight.

*****
I can confirm that the number of breaches (throughout London) have dropped by 60 percent. The large majority of breaches relate to orders where the service user has not been seen for some months. Enforcement is now an agency whose primary function is to re-establish contact! (EO London).

*****
The experience in London has been that the majority of CRC breaches are rejected for the smallest of reasons. Many are simply not resubmitted and no one on either side seems to care.

*****
Staff shortages, overcrowding, and psychoactive drugs are very serious issues in our prison system. Too many people are being sent to prison, and many don't really need to be there. But I think it's worth remembering that Grayling, as well as cutting staff numbers also introduced some other very stupid and unintelligent reforms that I think should be remembered. He stopped many prisoners from wearing their own clothes, which apart from causing resentment amongst prisoners, created a need for extra resources, more prison clothes needed, clothes that need washing, and staff time to supervise kit exchanges. "Its easier to get drugs then clothes" is a common theme in many reports and commentary on the prison crisis. 

Grayling also stopped prisoners families from sending gifts on birthdays and Christmas (commonly known as the book ban), causing more resentment, especially when you consider what things you were allowed to be sent anyway was very little. Grayling also restructured the incentive and earned privilege scheme, making it almost impossible to climb the ladder, removing the feeling of progress achievable for prisoners, making those that did manage to climb the ladder the focus of suspicion (must be a grass or something) because no-one else can manage it, and very importantly, removing the ability of staff to use the threat of loss of privileges through the IEP system as a method of control, and leading to far more adjudications and days lost. Graylings staff cuts, prison closures with a growing population was stupid enough, but he didn't need to shake everything up like a wasps nest as well.

*****
Grayling has a lot to answer for and should be held to account for his evident failings. Prisons and Probation are in a mess as the result of his actions and failure to listen to anyone who actually knew what they were talking about. Evidence now clearly shows 'those on the front line' were right. I don't have much confidence in Truss either, however I would have so much respect if she were to stand up and say "We (Grayling/Tories) got it wrong". 

Will never happen though as this Capitalist Government will 'spin' their next move to make it look like they are improving things rather then state We created this mess and we are going to get out. "We're in this together" b*llocks - if we were in it together and you are reading this Ms Truss, as professionals in an extremely depleted "business" which seems to be the word of the day these days (I joined a Public Service), we would hold more respect for you if you admitted this mess is the fault of the Conservatives in the first place. #Blood on your hands.

*****
This is part of the great deception....they know that there's a retention problem in prisons.... the trouble is lots of officers are tied up with 'bothersome' rehabilitation work therefore to aid retention, shift all of those officers back onto the wings and fill their places with probation officers - genius...except the void will have to be filled with untrained (forgive me one days training per unit) PSO's who will now know the meaning of responsibility...prisons are dangerous places at the moment and we must resist going in at all costs until things have quietened down again.

Responses to Inspection Report

Let's not forget that this report is based on pre-arranged inspections, NOT random unannounced visits. It therefore beggars belief that despite being in a position to polish their turds, neither CRC nor NPS could produce anything like acceptable results. How can 25% or 33% failure to meet standards be even vaguely acceptable, let alone "more than two-thirds"? This is the impact of TR on what was previously a gold-standard public service.

*******
Yes, it is all true and as a CRC PO I am told to do all I can to avoid breach and go to huge efforts to get offenders through the door. I have no problem with that but being asked to alter a decision on a record from unacceptable absence to acceptable is something I will not do. Remember that as CRC staff we carry some of the riskiest and unpredictable cases, namely domestic violence, accountable for majority of murders in UK. Ok, if they do it they go to NPS but we are holding the risk before it happens. I refuse to massage the figures like G4S and will breach if I feel I need to as a matter of public protection. Do not forget fellow officers that if the shit hits the fan it is your name that will go up in lights and when you look back, there is no one there to support you. You will be on your own in the spotlight! So stick to your guns and breach if you have real concerns.

********
Fuck me! Probation in the headlines. What will we do to capitalise on some public awareness of the TR scandal that we already know all about? Not much if past form is anything to go by. On another note, maybe some bright journalist reading this blog might pick up on this story too. Its a good one. Here's your free headline. "Grayling's Reforms Cause Prison Drug Crisis". I am reliably informed that HMPS have identified a worrying new trend where people on PSS are deliberately breaching in order to get a two week lie down in their Cat B local. Back in with a couple of ounces of gear in a condom up your arse equals a highly lucrative payout. Perhaps Grayling would approve of this example of the entrepreneurial spirit or maybe the CRC's will use it as an excuse for not breaching? Great to see someone else is making money out of TR though, isn't it?

*******
60% staff gone in CRC Training Team through EVR or resignations since split. Several recommendations regarding insufficient training. Am one of 40% still in post and really concerned about future staff training and development. Focus however on impact of TR on operational staff.

*******
The BBC news item was welcome. I am a PO in a CRC and I am certain that with increasing regularity that breaches and recalls are not being made because of the contract. I know that when this happens people go on to reoffend when they otherwise might not have, a very few will reoffend in a way that grabs the headlines although some who are not breached and recalled when they previously would have been will do neither, but this is not the real story with TR. 

Rehabilitation for many of the people we work with, those revolving in and out of the Courts, cannot be done on the cheap and quick, certainly not the quick and I would say not on the cheap. The models the profiteers are working to want everything ticked off in the first 3 months of a community sentence or licenced supervision period with tokenistic interventions. For some cases this may appear to work but for the remainder, the people caught in the system more regularly, these are people who are usually faced with multiple problems, substance misuse, unemployment, homelessness, mental health, emotional affects from an abusive childhood or adult relationships, problematic peer associations, anti-social attitudes and much more. 

In these cases, all cases, a good starting point for effective and efficient work is a good initial professional assessment and then professionals who can develop a good working relationship to support people to bring about self-directed or guided changes in their lives. This can take quite some time, perseverance and effort and is aided by well trained, experienced and skilled professionals. Sodexo et al did not sign up to this vision and when they figure out that a profit cannot  be squeezed in the way that they had anticipated they will be gone, either that or Probation work will be?

*******
Could morale be any lower in CRCs? Every evening I get home (late of course) and contemplate resignation but at my age (50 ish) I would struggle to get another job and still have a mortgage to pay. I work in a resettlement team where stress related illness is rife and we are struggling just to do the basic custody screening (target of 95%) let alone any meaningful work arising from this. We try and focus on the most pressing need of soon to be released prisoners - housing, but have very few meaningful resources to achieve the target of 90% of 'sustained accommodation' (clients remaining in that accommodation for at least 3 months following release). 

We are struggling, to put it mildly, but face the wrath of managers and prison governors when we fail to deliver. Indeed, we are regularly held to account for the shockingly poor results of the pathways we are supposed to be addressing and we are constantly reminded that prison did resettlement so much better when it was in-house. Colleagues in the field also apply the pressure with 'well it's your job to find him somewhere to live.' Impossible with many of our medium risk revolving door clients who have fouled up with every housing provider in a 60 mile radius. Not sure where CRCs can go with TTG apart from to admit failure and push it back to governors.

*******
I'm sorry. I'm one of the people on the receiving end of the awfulness of Basic Custody Screening. It achieves nothing. I usually know the person being screened and have yet to see one that is true. It is a total waste of time and effort and you guys must be knocking yourselves silly trying to achieve the target. For the first time ever I have heard two people in one week talk about trying to get back inside so they can make a bit of money. It's totally and utterly fucked up.

*******
I was paid off by CRC last year on a non-EVR rate. I found myself between a rock & a hard place so chose to jump with a basic parachute rather than being thrown out without one. Within 24 hours I was cold contacted by two agencies offering me generous rates & "guaranteed" 6 month contracts, the higher offer being £34/hour as a private limited company or £25/hour as a PAYE staffer. They also offered to link me in with "a consortium" of independents who share the legal & accountancy costs... I gained the impression it was a tightly organised arrangement where everyone was in clover.

I refused & am quite happy pottering around doing gardens, painting sheds, occasional labouring to keep the mortgage company happy. The stress-free lifestyle is blissful. Its painful reading about the pernicious, divisive & abusive murky depths into which the probation landscape has been plunged.

*******
I'm agency. I'd jump at being permanent if there was a chance. I'd lose about £500 a month. I might be able to apply for a mortgage though and I wouldn't have that sick feeling when the SPO asked to see me. 3 placements already this year. 5 days notice each time when they finished me.

*******
I've just breached a class A user who agreed to UPW as he was looking at custody. It got him out of the mess in court but now he's hit a problem as he can't attend UPW - I think he's capable of doing it but his lifestyle is such that there's no chance. Anyway, he DNA court, picked up on warrant and not only have they not deleted the hours (as per my application) but they've also given him an 8week curfew for breach. Fecking joke and bet ur bottom dollar he'll breach again, get custody and lose his flat etc etc. I wonder if people are deliberately set up to fail?

*******
Absolutely right, some of the sentences coming out of the courts these days are absurd, the legacy of under-trained NPS staff not having enough time or enough information to do a proper job.

*******
FFS. Probation ALWAYS had worked with short term prisoners albeit on a voluntary basis before CG decided this group of people would make a good 'market' for profit. Those who didn't want the intervention weren't forced, whereas now they are forced and the non compliant running rings around their officers and playing the system, wasting everyone's time.

*******
South Yorkshire had one of the best Unpaid Work set ups in Probation, with an excellent compliance rate. However, under Sodexo, the compliance rate has spiralled down and down to 35%. Meanwhile, staff were told that they were breaching too much, and that the system could not cope, so every breach should be run past a manager. Clients are voting with their feet in regards to unpaid work, as are senior managers, and PSO staff.

*******
It took decades to build our workforce up and 12 mths for privateers to destroy it. Slash & burn with staff there will be no option but to re-merge soon purely to pool resources - one simply cannot survive without the other. Diversity of staff personalities is what cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet so when privateers were rubbing their grubby little hands at the prospect of shedloads of money, they totally under-estimated that ultimately they could only control some of the staff, some of the time and this has been their undoing.

--oo00oo--

The following 'guest' piece was submitted anonymously yesterday and sounds a timely warning:- 

The cost of saying yes!

It was interesting to read the latest update from the HM Inspectorate of Probation and I noticed the headline “Staff told not to take action against probation breaches”. Where does that leave hard working staff that are being pushed to achieve these profitable outcomes? It's worth going back to see what has happened to staff that have followed the line of “just do it” or “JFDI”.

Look at A4E and its management of the DWP contract, this from the Independent “A dossier of evidence and complaints given to Ms Hodge, details of which The Independent on Sunday has seen, include allegations of past financial fraud, in-work bullying, claims of bad treatment and accusations that the welfare-to-work company delivered poorly run services. One complaint, written by someone who describes himself as a former A4E employee and whom the IoS has agreed not to name, described A4E as "nothing short of a gravy train". He said fraud at A4E had been "systemic" and "common practice".

Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the public accounts committee, who said of the leaked document about A4E "This appears to be devastating evidence of systemic fraud within A4E. Either A4E failed to act or to inform DWP, or they did inform DWP and the department failed to investigate properly.”

The BBC noted in the report on A4E that "potential fraudulent or irregular activity is not confined to one particular geographical area… and shows a potential systematic failure to mitigate the risk towards this behaviour at both an office and regional level".

So what happened to the people who just say yes? This from the Daily Mail, “Four former employees of scandal-hit welfare-to-work firm A4E admitted swindling taxpayers yesterday. The guilty pleas follow a police investigation into the troubled company which is paid more than £200m by the Government each year. Julie Grimes, 50, Aditi Singh, 30, Bindiya Dholiwar, 27, and Dean Lloyd, 36, admitted dozens of offences of fraud and forgery. A whistleblower claimed forged signatures and blank timesheets were 'routine' techniques used for bumping up the numbers of successful job placements. The four former A4e recruiters admitted a total of 32 offences during a hearing at Reading Crown Court yesterday”.

Wikipedia noted “In March 2015 six former (A4E) employees were jailed for forging files in a scam that was said to have cost taxpayers almost £300,000. Another four ex-members of staff received suspended prison sentences.” Interestingly the Judge in the case commented "No amount of pressure justifies the wholesale fabrication of information in files or the forgery of other people's signatures on documents, all of which is designed to extract money from the Department of Work and Pensions." The judge also “said it was not for her to decide whether more senior managers should also be held to account”.

Wikipedia notes on its A4E page “A former employee from the Manchester office of A4E reports that pressure to meet quotas made fraud commonplace: 'Forging signatures used to go on all the time. You had no choice because it was made very clear to you that you would lose your job unless you reached your targets. That comment sounds vaguely familiar. The response of senior management at A4E was blunt “A4E chief executive Andrew Dutton said the company has a "zero-tolerance policy" towards fraud.

So what has happened to A4E, a small number of staff have been jailed or given suspended sentences. A4E move on they are now People Plus and according to their home page “We are a leading employment support and training services company with a mission to transform people's lives and businesses through work and training.”

It goes on to state:- 

“Justice relates to our operation of the probation service in Warwickshire and West Mercia through a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) formed as part of the Ministry of Justice’s Transforming Rehabilitation project. Across the country we also operate programmes to help ex-offenders take their first step back into work upon their release. This includes the delivery of the Offender Learning and Skills Service (OLASS) in ten prisons in the East of England. Our unique position as a provider of mainstream services both in custody and in the community enables us to provide a seamless transition into dedicated employment search and support upon release”.

 So where does that leave staff in a culture of “Just do it”? 

1. Don’t do anything without an audit trail
2. Keep copies of all relevant documents (off site)
3. Keep notes
4. If all else fails, record conversations.

TTG Not Working - Shock!

It's interesting to see that the BBC have picked up on at least one aspect of the latest report from HM Inspectorate of Probation as to how TR is going:-

Staff 'told not to take action against probation breaches'

Probation officers are being told not to take action against offenders who breach sentence terms, because their companies risk being fined, a watchdog in England and Wales has said. Since 2015, private probation groups have received payments linked to offenders meeting sentence conditions. But this may have deterred staff from taking action against people breaching community orders, inspectors found. The government said it was addressing issues raised in the report.

Government changes have seen the probation service split in two, with community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) supervising low and medium-risk offenders and a new National Probation Service (NPS) taking over the supervision of high-risk offenders. CRCs were transferred from public to private ownership on 1 February 2015.

'Discourage' community orders

Under the system, payments to CRCs are linked to offenders complying with the terms of their sentence and not committing further crimes. But the Inspectorate of Probation found a number of probation officers at CRCs said they had been told by bosses not to recommend to the courts that an offender's community sentence be revoked because their company would incur a financial penalty.

One officer said their organisation's approach was to "discourage" enforcing community orders or the conditions of a prisoner released on licence. Community orders are sentences imposed by courts in place of jail terms. They can include rehabilitation activities, unpaid work and drug or alcohol treatment. Offenders who fail to comply with community orders can have the terms of their orders amended to be more onerous and can even face prison sentences for repeated breaches.

The report also found that more than two-thirds of offenders released from prison had not received enough help from the CRC before release in relation to accommodation, employment or finances. In some areas a shortage of probation officers meant that CRC agency staff were allocated medium-risk-of-harm cases, for which they felt insufficiently trained.

The report, which related to inspections undertaken from October 2015 to February 2016, found the NPS and CRCs were now working better together but that "significant problems remain". Advice given to courts was less reliable in some cases, but the report also said the work the NPS did with many high-risk offenders was good and included effective joint working with specialists.

Dame Glenys Stacey, chief inspector of probation, said CRCs needed to do more work to prepare prisoners for release. She added: "Without sufficient preparation, those released are more likely to offend again and so find themselves back inside."

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From the report:-

Foreword 

This is the final report in a series looking at the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme. We report on the position as it is now, some 15 months after the transfer (from the state) of the ownership of Community Rehabilitation Companies. 

The National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies are now working and communicating better together than they were in the months following implementation. We are happy to acknowledge improvements made to date and pleased also to recognise the good work undertaken in parts of the National Probation Service and in some of the Community Rehabilitation Companies. Some court work and staff training and morale remain sticking points, however, and we found as well that not enough is being done for people in prison as they prepare for release. 

The new arrangements put an increased emphasis and dependency on the quality of court reporting, but it is still proving problematic, in part due to the demands of speedy justice. Oral reports are increasingly common, but a good system record and domestic abuse and child safeguarding checks are needed in all cases, so as to inform sentencing and enable Community Rehabilitation Companies to focus promptly and knowledgeably on the work needed to reduce reoffending. In addition, court staff need to be sufficiently aware of what Community Rehabilitation Companies can offer so as to advise the court appropriately in relation to rehabilitation activity requirements, a common feature of community sentences. 

The poor or patchy morale we reported on previously is still evident, mainly in some of the Community Rehabilitation Companies. Some staff expressed concern about their competence to undertake their roles, and training had not always been delivered in a timely way to equip them with the skills required to enable them to undertake new or changed roles. 

With the aim of reducing reoffending, Transforming Rehabilitation introduced supervision to all prisoners released into the community. We were particularly disappointed to note that in a substantial proportion of cases, not enough had been done before release to help the individuals with their accommodation, employment or finances. 

Community Rehabilitation Company leaders have been understandably focused on implementing substantial change. For some this has been at a cost to quality assurance and effective management oversight of the day-to-day. With the new arrangements increasingly embedded, we hope to see increased emphasis on the quality of work over the course of the year. 

By the time of publication of this report, our new adult inspection programme and methodology will have commenced. We will be reporting on the quality of probation work, and whether or not it is reducing reoffending, protecting the public and ensuring individuals abide by their sentence. In addition, we will take into account the findings from this and our earlier focus on Transforming Rehabilitation as we determine topics for thematic inspections this year. 

Finally, we hope that the detail we provide in this report will assist the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies as they review and develop their working practices.

Dame Glenys Stacey 

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Executive summary 

Assisting sentencing and allocation of cases 

Court staff from the National Probation Service prepare court reports to assist sentencing and then determine, on the basis of specified criteria, whether the case is to be allocated to the National Probation Service or to the Community Rehabilitation Company. Good court work is essential to assist sentencing, to allocate the offender to the right organisation and for effective work to start promptly. 

We found that reports varied in quality, with written reports generally much better than reports presented orally. Unsurprisingly, assessments were generally better for cases allocated to the National Probation Service than to the Community Rehabilitation Companies; these are the higher risk and Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement cases and were more likely to have been adjourned for a written report, allowing the author more time to gather information. In some cases the risk of serious harm presented by the offender was not fully assessed, sometimes because checks had not been made to find out whether there were concerns about child safeguarding or domestic abuse, or the results of such checks had not been received. Where information was missing at the point of sentence, this should have been recorded on the allocation documentation, but was often missing or not always read by the responsible officer to whom the case was subsequently assigned. In addition, in some cases there was no written record of the oral report which had been presented to the court. 

Some court staff had not received sufficient training, and lacked confidence in completing the necessary assessments. Some report writers did not know enough about the work offered by the local Community Rehabilitation Company, which made it difficult for them to propose interventions most likely to address the offender’s problems. Sometimes they proposed a rehabilitation activity requirement ‘to address offending behaviour’, rather than a more targeted proposal which would help the responsible officer assigned to the case quickly to plan the appropriate work. 

Inadequate assessment or recording at the court stage may result in the offender being allocated to the wrong organisation, or supervision proceeding on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate information. The National Offender Management Service had recently issued a new Probation Instruction to improve the quality of reports and information exchange. 

Early Work in the Community Rehabilitation Companies 

Work should start promptly after sentence or release on licence so that individuals can be actively engaged in addressing their offending behaviour and other related needs. We found that offenders were generally allocated quickly to a responsible officer, but some did not meet them for over ten days. Arrangements were more efficient in one area where there was particularly good liaison between the court team and the office based case administrators. 

In most cases appropriate sentence plans had been put in place to address an individual’s offending related problems. They had not, however, always been involved in any meaningful way, reportedly because of the pressure to meet performance targets for completion. Most plans recorded how often there would be contact with the individual, but in over half it was not clear how the rehabilitation activity requirement days would be filled, a consequence of the lack of clarity in why this requirement was proposed to the court. 

It was disappointing to find that over two-thirds of offenders released from prison had not received enough help pre-release in relation to accommodation, employment or finances; in one-third the necessary work had not started within four weeks of sentence or release. Notwithstanding the slow start to supervision, we saw many cases where responsible officers were working imaginatively with individuals to help them change their behaviour. Two-fifths had made progress on problem areas, although, with the exception of one area, where performance was much better less than one-third had improved their accommodation or their education, training and employment prospects.

The individual’s attendance at appointments was usually monitored well, and formal warnings generally given where there were absences or unacceptable behaviour. We were told that responsible officers were discouraged from enforcing an order through the court because of financial penalties applied to the organisation; the positive consequence of this was that they worked hard to secure the individual’s compliance. 

The Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service have to work closely together when it is necessary to return an offender to court because they are in breach of their sentence, or when the individual’s risk of harm appears to be increasing and it is decided to transfer their supervision to the National Probation Service. In the early days of Transforming Rehabilitation, these ‘interface’ areas caused some concern, but on the whole the arrangements appeared to have improved. 

Community Rehabilitation Companies are not responsible for managing offenders assessed as presenting a high risk of harm to other people, which means that the accuracy of risk analysis at the start of sentence is critical. We were impressed by Community Rehabilitation Company managers who told us that where a full analysis had not been undertaken by the National Probation Service, they expected their own staff to complete it. A number of Community Rehabilitation Company cases do, however, present a medium risk of harm, often because of domestic abuse or child safeguarding issues. In such cases we would expect to see a plan outlining how the risk will be managed, but these had not always been completed well enough. In some areas, a shortage of probation officers meant that probation service officers and agency staff were allocated medium risk of harm cases for which they felt insufficiently trained. Some senior probation officers were able to provide good quality, regular supervision, but others were stretched, covering several offices, and the quality of supervision they were able to provide was not good enough. 

Early Work in the National Probation Service 

Most offenders allocated to the National Probation Service saw their responsible officer soon after sentence or release, although a few waited over ten days for their first appointment, which was too long. Most received an induction to make sure that they understood what was required of them. Overall, more people subject to supervision were involved in planning the work that would be done with them during their sentence than in our previous inspections, but this disguised marked differences between areas. 

As in the Community Rehabilitation Company cases, resettlement needs had not always been addressed before release from prison, and constructive work did not always start promptly after sentence or release, although again some areas did better than others. In many cases we saw good, focused work to reduce reoffending and the risk of harm to others. Some individuals had, however, missed a number of appointments, some of which were recorded as acceptable without a rationale for this judgement. In threefifths of National Probation Service cases, progress had been made on problems linked with offending, a better outcome than in the Community Rehabilitation Companies, particularly in relation to improvements in accommodation. In common with Community Rehabilitation Company cases, improvements in education, training and employment prospects were more disappointing. 

Given the nature of National Probation Service cases, we would expect to see risk of harm to others assessed and managed well in all cases. Where a full risk analysis was completed, a quarter were not good enough, often because they had not been updated and did not draw on all available sources of information. Furthermore, one-third of risk management plans were not sufficiently thorough. Despite these deficits, we saw good work with many high risk offenders, with examples of effective joint work with specialist workers, good use of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements and an active contribution to multi-agency Child Protection procedures. Approved premises were used well to provide appropriate restrictions and manage the risk of harm to others. We were pleased to note that the use of purposeful home visits had improved since our previous inspections. In summary, while some aspects of work in the National Probation Service still needed to improve, in a number of important areas, work in the National Probation Service was better than in the Community Rehabilitation Companies.

As in the Community Rehabilitation Companies, some middle managers felt stretched and were now covering teams across a large area, with reduced administrative support. They reported that they felt the pressure to meet performance targets at the expense of quality. While probation officers felt competent to manage their cases, some probation service officers were less confident having not yet received relevant training, for example in managing people who had committed sexual offences. Some felt very well supported by middle and senior managers, but others reported that they received little supervision. 

Summary 

This is the fifth and final report in our series of inspections on Transforming Rehabilitation. In previous reports we have made a number of recommendations to the National Offender Management Service, the National Probation Service and the Community Rehabilitation Companies. Some progress has been made on a number of these recommendations but, given the scale of changes, it is perhaps not surprising to note that more progress is still required. We have not made any new recommendations at this stage but will be following up our findings during the course of our Quality & Impact inspection programme.