Guidance

National Probation Service Sentencer update - South West and South Central 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 - South West and South Central Division

The South West South Central ( SWSC) Division of the National Probation Service has been working hard since 1 June on maintaining current liaison arrangements with sentencers and other criminal justice partners, building on the excellent work of the 35 Trusts nationally and the 7 which made up SWSC. We have inevitably inherited a range of working practices and arrangements. We continue to work through these while we review opportunities to improve our services to courts within the new operating model for probation.

The 4 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) within SWSC are now formally under new ownership and we maintain close working relationships with the CRC Chief Executives and their teams to ensure continuity of service across the division.

Nicola Webb (Head of Berkshire NPS) is working on behalf of the division with the National Court Strategy Group on a wide range of issues. This is will lead to changes over time to the way we work in the court we serve. These changes will ensure we are able to effectively discharge our responsibilities resulting from Transforming Rehabilitation and to activity engage with Transforming Summary Justice agenda.

In all of this, my aim is to deliver a consistent approach across this division whist ensuring that local arrangements reflect local needs and differences.

If you have any issues that you wish to raise with me please email angela.cossins@noms.gsi.gov.uk

Angela Cossins

Deputy Director South West and South Central Division

4. Pre-sentence Restorative Justice pilot extended

A pre-sentence Restorative (RJ) pilot running at Truro Crown Court for a number of months has now been extended to Magistrates Courts across Cornwall from March 2015.

The specific aims of pre-Sentence RJ are to:

• offer victims greater direct involvement early in the criminal justice process, giving them a voice and increased satisfaction
• reduce reoffending

Early pathfinder projects have shown that processes for the delivery of pre-sentence RJ can be complex. Effective partnership working between the police, probation, youth offending teams, victim services, RJ providers and the courts is essential.

To limit numbers for the pilot, cases are only deemed suitable if:

• there is an identifiable victim, who consents to participate
• the offender accepts responsibility, enters a guilty plea and consents to participate
• the offence is acquisitive crime, violent crime or criminal damage (with an identifiable victim)
• the defendant has been bailed to attend GAP (Guilty Anticipated Pleas) court
• a guilty plea is entered at first hearing

While suitable cases will be identified in advance, most of the time, initial contact is made with the offender at the first hearing and so an RJ facilitator will be present on GAP court days.

The NPS court probation officer will request that suitable cases are adjourned for 6 weeks to allow the RJ meeting to take place. For sentencing, the court will receive a separate report on the RJ activity attached to the pre-sentence report.

The RJ report will detail what was agreed, who participated, any outcome agreement or action plan (completed, on-going and/or planned) together with the views of the victim and the RJ facilitator.

If the RJ activity has not taken place, including if it was not possible due to withdrawal of consent or unsatisfactory risk assessment, the court should proceed to sentence.

Through RJ, the court may be able to gain an increased understanding of the harm caused by the commission of the offence, and the culpability of the offender involved. While an offender’s agreement to participate is unlikely to affect their sentence, the Court is encouraged to state whether the RJ process has had any impact on sentencing.

If further RJ is still considered appropriate it can be included within a Community Order or as a voluntary activity offered by the facilitators. Both the NPS and the CRC are represented at senior level on the project steering group.

In terms of future RJ delivery, planning is underway to offer post sentence RJ to both the NPS and CRC from 1 June.

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.

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