Guidance

Probation Changes Bulletin - Issue 5 – May 2020

Updated 15 December 2023

This bulletin provides an update to you, our stakeholders, on the progress of both the HMPPS probation reform and workforce programmes.

If you want to get involved or you have any questions about the programmes, please email the communications team using our designated mailbox: strengthening.probation@justice.gov.uk

1. Message from Amy Rees, Director General of Probation and Wales

As you would expect, the past few weeks have been dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and our response. I hope this message finds you, your family, friends and colleagues as well as possible in the circumstances. We have had to make significant changes quickly to how we work to ensure we were able to continue to deliver our essential services and protect the public. This has included implementing a range of exceptional delivery models to accommodate government and public health guidance and redeploying many of our staff to the front line. I am very proud of all our staff and how they have responded to this situation, as well as of the commitment and compassion they have shown each other and those under our supervision.

It continues to be an uncertain time and while there is clearly a long way to go, we are committed to the reform of our probation services. We have already begun the important work to plan our recovery, adapt the programme plan and consider the opportunities and challenges that this will present.

With this is mind I have asked Ian Barrow, Senior Responsible Officer for the Probation Workforce Programme to establish a programme for recovery which will closely align with our existing probation reform and workforce programmes. This will ensure that everything we do pulls together to deliver the probation system we want for the future and that we have a consistent approach to achieving this which minimises further disruption to front line delivery. We will continue to create our plans with partners across the criminal justice system; collaboration in recovery will be just as important as it has been in the early weeks of Coronavirus.

Further updates on the probation reform and workforce programmes follow, but I’d just like to finish by thanking all those across the probation system for their ongoing dedication and professionalism in these exceptional times.

2. Introduction

2.1 Jim Barton, SRO, Probation Reform Programme and Ian Barrow, SRO, Workforce Programme

First, we want to say something about the extreme and unprecedented times we are experiencing and working in due to the Covid-19. We recognise the pressure and challenges this is presenting to our all probation staff and we would like to thank everyone working across the Probation System for their ongoing dedication and efforts to maintain continuity of our services. Reforming probation remains one of our top strategic priorities for the Criminal Justice System and Ministry of Justice. The current issues we are facing does not take away the necessity for us to stabilise and improve how we deliver reduce reoffending, commit to our workforce and protect the public.

You can read more on the latest COVID-19 guidance from the MoJ for stakeholders, on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and prisons page. It is regularly updated when new advice is available.

With this in mind, we want to keep you updated with the progress of the probation reform and workforce programmes, particularly three key areas: the recent publication of the draft Target Operating Model and the new regional model for the delivery of probation services in England and Wales and developments in the workforce programme.

3. Publication of the draft Target Operating Model

Last month we published the draft Target Operating Model for the future probation system. This builds on the operating blueprint we published in June 2019, and explains in more depth our plans for the future service design of probation services in England and Wales. This draft Target Operating Model reinforces key commitments of the probation reform programme, most notably:

• the unification of sentence management which is currently split between the NPS and CRCs;
• changes to the delivery divisions in the national probation service; and,
• these structural changes support the creation of new regional leadership roles and accountabilities ;
• the introduction of a mixed market to deliver key interventions to our users;
• a commitment (in line with our HMPPS Strategy) to modernise probation buildings and technology for staff and our users;
• a focus on developing and valuing probation staff through the setting up of a new workforce programme that will implement a workforce strategy by end of the summer.

The design of the future system is a complex and iterative process and as such the draft Target Operating Model is work in progress that sets out developments thus far and supports wider programme activity. We are working towards having a fully detailed Target Operating Model published later in 2020. In developing our Target Operating Model, we will continue to engage closely with our key stakeholders so that you are kept informed and we stay in touch. While we experience the challenges of COVID-19, we are currently reviewing how to best engage with our stakeholders about the programmes during this time.

4. Regional Probation Directors take up their posts and Operations Heads appointed

4.1 A message from Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer & Executive Director for Women

On 1st April, the National Probation Service (NPS) announced its new delivery structures for probation in England and Wales, moving from 7 NPS divisions to a model of 12 new regions, with 11 in England and one for Wales. In England, the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) remain the same, they are not part of this structural change. The unified model has already taken place in Wales with the CRC now delivering interventions only.

As previously mentioned, we would like to now formally introduce you to our new regional probation directors who you will no doubt meet and be working closely with. They all bring with them rich and varied experiences from across the probation system. We would also like to welcome you to our newly-appointed heads of operations for these regions. Here they all are:

The 12 Regions	Regional Probation Director	Head of Operations
North East	Bronwen Elphick	Karin O’Neill
Yorkshire and the Humber	Lynda Marginson	Max Lanfranchi, Sarah Mainwaring
North West	Andrea Bennett	John Quick, Sarah Jarvis
Greater Manchester	Chris Edwards	Mohammed Farooq
West Midlands	Sarah Chand	Jamie-Ann Edwards, Ben Wild
East Midlands	Martin Davies	Carolyn Maclean
South West	Angela Cossins	Mark Benden
South Central	Gabriel Amahwe	Geoff Davis
East of England	Steve Johnson-Proctor	Denise Meylan, Alex Osler
Kent, Surrey and Sussex	Mary Pilgrim	David Moffitt
London	Kilvinder Vigurs	Carina Heckroodt, Andrew Blight, Stephen Carroll
Wales	Nic Davies (interim)	Peter Greenhill, Louise Forman

Due to Covid-19, each of the regions will make staged changes into their new structures. The number one priority is to keep our operational business stable and safe.

The new regions will co-exist alongside the CRCs up until June 2021 across England and Wales, maintaining critical delivery partnerships and making no significant changes to working processes. The full changes to the regions and the unified model will take up to 18 months to complete.

5. Workforce Programme Update

The Workforce Programme runs in parallel with our Probation Reform Programme. One of the priorities is to ensure that our probation staff have manageable and balanced workloads. To help support this, we have more than 800 new probation officers currently in training who will make a real difference as they qualify. We are also working on a new plan to ensure we recruit sufficient staff, diversify the workforce, raise professional standards and properly recognise probation qualifications.

As well as ramping up our efforts to fill vacancies, we will focus on making sure our probation staff are supported to maintain their specialist skillset and progress their careers through a world-class and evidence-based learning and development offer. We are committed to being an organisation that is open and constantly learning, and we are currently developing a new learning and development delivery model to provide more effective learning and development.

We also want to raise the profile of our dedicated workforce, ensuring that our probation staff are recognised for the crucial and skilled work they do, while also rolling out a series of initiatives focusing on enhancing their wellbeing.

6. Funding boost to steer more women away from crime

Finally, we’d like to draw your attention to the £2.5m which will be awarded to the women’s sector to support women and divert them from crime. The funding will be awarded later this year and the full announcement can be read here.

6.1 Stay in touch: have your say

We will be providing further updates as we continue to make progress this year. If you have any questions or would like to contact the programmes’ team please email us on: strengthening.probation@justice.gov.uk If you would like to receive updates on pages relating to Justice, you can sign up here.