Guidance

Probation Service Change Bulletin - Issue 11 - March 2022

Updated 15 December 2023

1. Amy Rees, Director General Probation, Wales and Youth

Welcome to our re-launched Probation Change Bulletin for 2022. This bi-monthly bulletin will look to spotlight the latest news in Probation, covering all our portfolio change programmes - Reform, Workforce, Reducing Reoffending and Electronic Monitoring, as well as keeping you updated on any key developments across our business as usual areas.

A lot has happened since our unification on 26 June 2021, when we launched the new Probation Service, bringing together staff from the previous National Probation Service (NPS) and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). As a new unified organisation we have been able to integrate the services we deliver alongside core supervision - working in partnership to address the needs of people on probation and support the government’s ambitious agenda to cut crime. All of this while dealing with the backdrop of a global pandemic, ensuring the continued delivery of probation across England and Wales. Probation achieved a lot in 2021 and 2022 is set to be another year of enhanced delivery and continuous improvement, building on our unification.

Our next edition will be published in May, so please keep an eye on this page for further updates.

2. Responding to COVID and Recovery

Great strides were made towards the end of 2021 to move from operating on Probation Exceptional Delivery Models (EDMs) to all probation regions in England and Wales delivering to full or light National Standards. EDMs are a suite of documents that were created to adapt how the Probation Service delivered from March 2019, responding to the impact of Covid-19. EDMs looked to set out the level’s to which probation could deliver, dependant on government restrictions and staffing levels. This allowed for flexibility of delivery across England and Wales dependant on local circumstance.

Due to the upsurge in the Omicron variant, Probation Gold Command was reinstated in late December, and the decision was taken to reintroduce the Probation Supervision EDM across England through January. In response to Welsh Government announcement, Probation in Wales also reinstated the Probation Supervision EDM, as well as range of EDMs relating to service delivery for the month of January 2022, this did not include Community Payback and Accredited Programme delivery.

As of 31 January 2022, all regions in England and Wales have now successfully exited EDMs again and will be operating on the new ‘Prioritising Probation Framework’, allowing for a steady increase in delivery and providing Regional Probation Directors with a robust tool to help regions adapt to how they deliver probation locally according to numbers of available staff. The aim is to move towards full delivery as soon and as swiftly as is safely possible.

All Approved Premises across England and Wales also exited their EDM on 31 January 2022, unless they were classified as an outbreak site, in which case they will exit their EDM once the UK Health Security Agency / Public Health Wales declares the outbreak closed.

3. Reform and the Target Operating Model (TOM)

The path to Target Operating Model sets out Probations intentions for the future of the service over the 18-months post-unification. The initial focus up to June 2021 was to unify the service, ensuring the transition of around 8000 staff to the Probation Service from the NPS and CRCs.

The focus since June has been to stabilise the service and embed the structural changes across the organisation against the backdrop of Covid-19 and Omicron. The focus now is on delivering more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans, better assessment and management of risk and more balanced caseloads, with an improved case allocation process to support this.

For Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions changes are starting to be implemented that that will drive up completion rates and deliver better outcomes. Much of this will be through making programmes available locally, making improvements to the assessment and induction process and more regular reviews of active cases.

As set out in the TOM, the Probation Service is utilising commissioned rehabilitative services, working with external partners to meet key areas of rehabilitative needs, including: Accommodation; Employment, Training and Education; Personal Wellbeing; and Women’s Services.

Within Courts there is a focus on improving the pre-sentence reports in order to deliver quality advice to courts and improving sentencer confidence in the delivery of community sentences.

Probation is also working to modernise its digital tools to better support probation staff in supporting people on probation. The aim is to reduce duplication in systems, streamline processes and enable better data recording and analysis, to support workload management, decision making and engaging people on probation. Tools have been reviewed that were used to good effect in the NPS and CRCs prior to unification, and are being adopted and improved, as well as identifying gaps and building new ones.

4. Workforce

To support the reforms being undertaken in Probation and to meet the demands of society, in particular the response to the government campaign of recruiting 20,000 new police officers. Probation launched an enhanced recruitment campaign and are pleased to announce that the recruitment target of 1000 PQiPs (Professional Qualification in Probation) for 2020/2021 was met and Probation are looking to increase levels of recruitment even further in this financial year (2021/22) to 1,500 trainee probation officers. As well as PQiPs, there is a real focus on the wider recruitment of staff across Probation, ensuring the organisation recruits and retain the best staff possible. The continued work around recruitment has been a real achievement to help attract the staff needed to meet the growing demand of the wider justice system.

5. Community Payback

The importance of Community Payback was further recognised in the recent Spending Review announcement, with the government providing an additional £93 million of funding over the next three years. This is key to supporting initiatives to provide training opportunities for those on probation, helping them to develop skills to boost their employability.

A new approach to delivering Community Payback will see the Probation Service develop a range of partnerships with national organisation over the coming months to deliver projects across England and Wales. Many of these partnerships will look to focus on outdoor projects that help improve the environment across England and Wales.

Probation recently launched a recruitment drive to attract 500 extra Community Payback staff to join the service, helping to support the ambition to deliver an extra 3 million hours of Community Payback each year. For more information on the recruitment campaign and how to apply for a role in Community Payback, check out Recruitment drive to ensure offenders pay back for their crimes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Probation will continue to highlight the work undertaken around Community Payback via the HMPPS Twitter account – please check this out regularly to see the latest updates.

6. Reducing Reoffending

Last year’s spending review provided a substantial investment for reducing reoffending over the next three years. £200m a year will be invested by 2024-25 to improve prison leavers’ access to accommodation, employment support and substance misuse treatment, and introduce further measures for early intervention to tackle youth offending.

Work is now well underway on the delivery programme to provide prisoners and prison leavers with the support they need to lead a crime-free life. This includes:

• Delivering a Prisoner Education Service in England which equips prisoners with the numeracy, literacy, skills and qualifications they need to get jobs or apprenticeships after they leave custody;
• Transforming the opportunities for work in prisons and on Release on Temporary Licence, creating a presumption in favour of enabling vetted and appropriate prisoners to take up work opportunities;
• Scaling up specialist roles tested in the Accelerator Prisons project that provide the support that prisoners and prison leavers need to turn their back on crime;
• Introducing new Resettlement Passports that bring together into one place the essentials that prison leavers need to lead crime-free lives on release;
• Ensuring that every prison leaver at risk of homelessness can access the new transitional accommodation scheme.

7. Electronic Monitoring

Electronic Monitoring continues to be a core part of probation service delivery. We currently monitor over 13,000 individuals every day and are looking to increase the caseload to c.25,000 by March 2025. Further investment from the government of £183m for the Electronic Monitoring expansion projects highlights the vital contribution Electronic Monitoring makes to the justice system.

Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) is an additional tool available to the judiciary to address alcohol related offending and support rehabilitation. To see more about the new initiative to cut alcohol-fuelled crime, check out Offenders to be banned from drinking to cut alcohol-fuelled crime - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and No Christmas tipples for 770 alcohol-tagged offenders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). An Alcohol Monitoring on License (AML) pathfinder was also successfully rolled out in Wales and 3 women’s prisons on 17 November 2021, leading to a complete ban or monitored consumption when a person is released from custody. AML will be rolled-out across England in the summer.