Guidance

Probation Service Change Bulletin - Issue 18 - June 2023

Updated 15 December 2023

1. Foreword

Welcome to the bi-monthly Probation Service Change Bulletin – keeping you updated on what is happening across the Probation Service. I’m Kim Thornden-Edwards, Chief Probation Officer.

I’ve now been in post for nearly five months and am proud that I have the chance to champion the excellent work which the Probation Service carries out, often in challenging circumstances. Our mission is to protect the public and we do that most effectively when – working closely with a range of partner agencies - we support offenders to make positive changes to their lives. We also have a crucial role in holding people on probation to account when they are unable to stick to the sentence of the courts.

There’s lots of news and plenty going on in this issue with updates from One HMPPS, Electronic Monitoring, and the Probation Professional Register.

I’m excited about the Probation Exhibition which is set to open in Cheshire in August before touring venues across England and Wales for a year. Even for those of us who’ve worked in Probation for longer than we care to remember, there’s a lot of surprises and interesting facts and anecdotes the researchers have unearthed.

As well as the foundations of the Service and its religious roots the exhibition includes a lot of information about our current work and why it remains of the utmost importance. I’d urge you to see for yourself, and we’ll be sharing more updates soon.

I’m also enjoying reading about Community Payback’s 50th anniversary and keen to see the famous Golden Shovel at an event in Manchester in July.

There’s so much great activity going on and I hope these efforts are benefiting your communities wherever you are. If you’d like to see work taking place in your neighbourhood, please nominate a project (link in item 6 below) as we’d love to hear from you.

2. Visit our Probation Exhibition

Did you know that a charitable donation of five shillings was used to set up the forerunner of the Probation Service?

You can learn more at a touring exhibition exploring how the probation service was formed, which opens in August.

The exhibition contains information boards and artefacts and tells the story of Probation’s roots in the Temperance movement of the Victorian era (abstaining from alcohol) and the work carried out with people appearing before the Police Courts, initially in London.

The journey of the Service is told through a timeline and includes the initial donation, the links Primitive Methodism, the hostels set up to help residents and teach them skills such as farming and gardening.

The work of the modern Probation Service, including Approved Premises and the work of Community Payback, currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, also feature.

The exhibition is run in partnership with Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, in Cheshire.

It opens at Englesea Brook Museum in August and goes on to tour venues for a year, including Nottingham, Bristol, Bradford, Cardiff, Doncaster and London.

We’ll be sharing more details and information soon.

3. One HMPPS Update

One HMPPS has been launched to make sure our Probation and Prison frontline staff have the right support to be able to deliver the very best services.

Part of the plan is a new Area Model where Regional Probation Directors (RPDs) and Prison Group Directors (PGDs) come together under the line management of a new Area Executive Director for each of the six Areas in England, and Wales.

The benefits will include:

• increased focus on operation delivery
• shared expertise and stronger joint working across the prison, probation and HQ functions
• the right balance between regional services and national consistency
• a stronger regional impact through decentralised decision making where appropriate

Four new Area executive directors have now been appointed through our internal restructuring process:

• Sarah Coccia, London Area, currently Executive Director for Public Sector Prisons South
• Alan Scott, North-West Area, currently Executive Director for Public Sector Prisons North
• Chris Jennings, South-West and South Central, currently Executive Director for Wales
• Ian Barrow, Wales, currently Executive Director for Workforce and Recovery Programmes in probation

It is proposed the Area Model will launch in October, when AEDs will formally take up post.

Recruitment for the three remaining AEDs has now gone live. We will continue to keep you updated on developments with One HMPPS.

4. Electronic Monitoring

The latest electronic monitoring statistics were published in March. The statistics show that, on 31 March 2023, 17,530 individuals were fitted with an electronic monitoring device – an increase of 13 per cent from 15,394 on 31 March 2022.

This increase has been driven by the extension of the use of GPS monitoring tags for new offender cohorts, particularly for immigration bail, as well as the continued roll-out of alcohol monitoring tags.

From Monday 3 July we will see changes to Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YRO) with Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS) in London, Wales, the West Midlands and the North-East. New powers will be available to sentencers for the duration of the 18-month pilot for children managed by youth justice services.

The pilot will give the option to increase the maximum length of the extended activity requirement from six months up to 12 months, as well as the mandatory use of trail monitoring. Trail monitoring, which uses GPS tags, will enable youth justice services to retrospectively request information from the Electronic Monitoring Service about the location of the child.

An evaluation of the new powers will take place to determine whether they should be rolled out nationally.

5. Probation Professional Register

At the end of April, the Probation Professional Register interim policy framework was published which outlines the rules and guidance for probation qualified staff around professional registration, probation professional standards and loss of authority to practice.

The register will act as a method of documenting and recognising our qualified professionals as well as providing assurance to our external stakeholders that those working with people of probation strive to maintain the high level of skill and knowledge required of them.

The requirements relating to professional registration will not be mandatory in its first year, and in its initial phase, the register will only capture those probation officers who are in roles that essentially require the probation qualification as defined in the statutory guidance. Work is ongoing on subsequent phasing of the register.

The provisions around loss of authority to practice as a probation officer are mandatory, in so much as this policy framework replaces Probation Instruction 31/2014. This policy will be reviewed by the end of October 2023.

6. Celebrating Community Payback

Beach and canal cleaning and maintaining a tourist railway are among the ongoing activities marking the 50th anniversary of Community Payback.

Each month this year a golden shovel – symbolic of Community Payback work – is being passed from region to region as stories of current and historic projects and long-serving staff are shared.

In April the golden shovel visited Yorkshire and the Humber where lunch clubs were celebrated in the south of the county, along with long-serving staff and a motorbike training project in Leeds where people on probation are helping to maintain facilities.

In May, the shovel was passed to the North-East where people on probation are working on the Saltburn miniature railway.

Teams have been busy since 2015 maintaining the track, painting fences, and helping to plant cherry trees and install signs.

Earlier this month the shovel was handed to the North-West region where people on probation took part in beach clean-ups in Morecambe, New Brighton and Southport, and canal clean-ups in Blackburn and Burnley, as well as work at nature reserves.

Our Community Payback team, joined by councillors and volunteers, about to join people on probation for a beach clean at New Brighton on the Wirral.

In July and August, the activities and celebrations continue in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

Caroline Morrison, Community Payback Head of Policy, Projects and People, visited the beach clean at Morecambe.

She said: “We’re proud of the work taking place across our regions and the positive difference it’s making to lives and communities.

“It’s interesting to see the fantastic work being done and the skills people on probation are learning on projects as varied as tree-planting, rail maintenance, beach cleans and preparing meals.”

The public can nominate Community Payback projects in their local area via the nominations page.