Guidance

National Probation Service Sentencer update - Midlands Division

Published 26 March 2015

Applies to England and Wales

1. National Probation Service – working closely with Sentencers

Probation services have always valued close and effective working relationships with sentencers, and this has continued following the creation of the National Probation Service (NPS) last year.

The NPS and NOMS in Wales now work alongside the newly formed Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) to provide a full range of probation services. Throughout the changes that have taken place during the past year we have made every effort to ensure that the services you have required have remained of a high standard, and maintaining our positive relationships with sentencers is an important element of these efforts.

We also appreciate the importance of regular communication between sentencers, courts and probation services. That is why we have started to create news and updates on GOV.UK which we hope you will find both informative and useful.

The introduction of the Offender Rehabilitation Act in February has brought about considerable reform, including the introduction of supervision for the vast majority of offenders sentenced to under 12 months in prison. The numbers of offenders affected by the changes introduced by the ORA will increase during the coming months, including the use of the new Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR).

The NPS is arranged into seven divisions, each led by experienced senior managers. We hope that you are already familiar with the senior NPS managers in your area; however an article from each divisional NPS lead is contained in this section. We’ve also included a selection of news articles from each division to give a flavour of some of the activity happening across the NPS.

We hope the information provided will prove interesting and useful, but we would appreciate your input to tell us what kind of information you’d like to receive from the NPS in future. A short survey has been set up to gather your views and we’ll use these to shape future communications with you.

Thank you

Colin Allars, Director, Probation

Sarah Payne, Director, National Offender Management Service in Wales

2. Working with the new Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR)

The recently introduced Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) offers the opportunity for a greater range of work to address offending behaviour.

Sentencers will be aware that this new requirement is available for both Community and Suspended Sentence Orders and replaces much of what would have been previously undertaken using supervision and activity requirements. It is for the court to first decide whether a Community Order or Suspended Sentence Order with a RAR is an appropriate sentencing disposal and then to set the length of the sentence and the maximum number of activity days.

The RAR does not allow for a minimum number of days, only a maximum. The allocated Responsible Officer, (previously known as Offender Manager or Probation Officer), will then decide the content of the activity days, how they will be delivered, how frequently the offender attends.

In some instances, the content of the RAR activity may be decided pre sentence where there are bespoke interventions in place. Therefore while the court may be aware of the proposed content, it cannot set what specific rehabilitation activities should be delivered under the RAR.

Roz Hamilton, NOMS Deputy Director and Courts Lead for the National Probation Service, said:

“The National Probation Service continues to work closely with the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) in each division as they begin their rehabilitation services in line with the requirements of the RAR.

“This close working relationship will ensure that the NPS and sentencers are kept informed of what interventions and activities are available and also the impact they are having.

“The NPS will continue to provide the pre-sentence reports in all cases where sentencers feel that a Community Order may be suitable, and this will identify the areas of concern which may be usefully addressed with a RAR.

“The RAR will offer a flexible framework within which the provider will be able to identify the areas of concern in a person’s life and create bespoke interventions to address these.

“At this early stage of implementation we are working with courts and CRCs to arrive at the most appropriate approach to the new requirement that will offer the best outcome for offenders and communities.

“We look forward to working with sentencers to arrive at a shared understanding of these new provisions.”

3. Update from the Deputy Director - Midlands Division

NPS Midlands is formed of six former Probation Trusts; Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Midlands, Warwickshire, and West Mercia.

The overriding responsibility of the Division is:

• offender management of high/very high risk and MAPPA eligible offenders
• court reports
• approved Premises
• staff based in Youth Offending Service (YOS) and Prisons

Within the Midlands Division, the Community Rehabilitation Companies have responsibility for medium and low risk offenders, delivery of Community Payback and other interventions.

The former Probation Trusts were committed to engaging with partners and agencies, to attending community partnership and safeguarding boards so that we could reduce the risk of harm to the public and prevent reoffending.

This is something I am adamant will continue in the NPS Midlands. We will also maintain our commitment of financial and staffing contributions to partners such as Youth Offending Services (YOS) and Safeguarding Boards.

We have recently been focusing on the changes caused by the introduction of the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement, which replaced the Supervision and Specified Activity Requirements on 1 February.

Staff within the Midlands’ Division have been working hard to understand what this change means for courts’ and for offenders, with emphasis being on training and support for report writers.

The Divisional CRCs are getting ready for this change too, with sentencer information being made available via your local probation managers and liaison contacts. Interventions to support the rehabilitation of offenders remains the focus of the work for both NPS and CRC with increasing provisions being made available to address offenders needs around accommodation, substance misuse and training and education.

We are keen to make sure that the training we are providing fits in with the requirements of sentencers. Therefore if you have any questions or suggestions to make then please speak to your NPS staff in the court who will be able to help.

Sarah Chand, Deputy Director, Midlands Division

4. Sentencer Liaison

We are pleased to be maintaining sentencer liaison locally and need to ensure this continues, with relevant information from the Community Rehabilitation Companies also being shared.

Sentencer liaison is a key way of sharing information, receiving feedback and agreeing ways forward which work best for all of us. It will be even more important as Transforming Summary Justice comes on line.

As a division, NPS Midlands is working to ensure maximum consistency and harmonisation across its court work while still allowing for local need and flexibility. The Senior Presiding Judge is supportive of communication between sentencers and the NPS and this support is underpinned by the Deputy Directors expectations that we engage with sentencers and stakeholders.

As part of the whole division approach, we will be arranging a late afternoon meeting in late March/early April, to which we will be inviting the Bench chairs, Justice’s Clerks, and Probation managers.

This will lead to quarterly meetings, creating regular dialogue between sentencers and Court managers which will support making sentencing more efficient by looking at what do sentencers need and keeping them up to date with changes. We are confident sentencers will benefit from a greater understand the changes within the NPS and probation as a whole.

This meeting will be an opportunity to discuss how things are working and answer any of your questions. If you have topics you particularly would like to discuss, please let your local probation manager know and we will include them.

5. Give us your feedback

NOMS has always valued a good working relationship with Sentencers and we appreciate any feedback received about any of our communications.

Please could you take a few moments to answer the following questions which will help us to evaluate this publication and shape future versions.

Give us your feedback