Guidance

Probation Service Change Bulletin Issue 20 – October 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 Hannah Meyer, Executive Director, Strategy Planning and Performance. My role provides support for the Probation Service through business planning and performance assurance with responsibility for teams including the Strategic Development Group, Insights, and the Effective Practice and Service Improvement Group (EPSIG), among others.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading the latest bulletin and please do get in touch if you’d like to give feedback or there are things you’d like to hear more about.

It’s an exciting time for us as we recently launched our new recruitment campaign, which runs until mid-November and again in the New Year. The campaign’s strapline is ‘An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you.’ You may have heard the ads on radio or perhaps seen them at sports events or on television or online. The ads were created with valuable insight from people working for HMPPS, ensuring they reflect the reality of our work and we hope they will encourage people to join the service, helping to make an impact on reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

Watch the Probation TV advert and the Prison TV advert.

The Probation Exhibition continues its tour across England and Wales and is currently in the East Midlands following a stop in West Yorkshire. Please do go along to one of the venues if you’re able to and let us know what you think.

We’re also continuing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Community Payback with some fantastic projects in Wales and the South West, including a celebration of work carried out by Community Payback teams at Brunel’s famous SS Great Britain shipyard in Bristol.

Please also read on for the latest updates regarding One HMPPS and a new development in Electronic Monitoring which has just gone live in the East and West Midlands.

2. Probation Exhibition Touring England and Wales

‘Root and Branch – How five shillings, faith and belief inspired the beginning of the Probation Service’ continues its tour of venues across England and Wales.

Following its opening in Cheshire in August the exhibition moved onto Keighley in Yorkshire.

In late November the exhibition is at the Karimia Institute and Bobbersmill Community Centre in Nottingham.

In December you can visit us at our first venue in Wales – Wrexham Catholic Cathedral.

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 with 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.

We’ll share more details and information around forthcoming venues and dates in the exhibition blog.

3. One HMPPS Update

We were really pleased to launch our new Area Model recently and to welcome our new Area Executive Directors into post. Regional Probation Directors (RPDs) and Prison Group Directors (PGDs), outside long term high security will come together under the line management of a new Area Executive Director (AED) for each of the six Areas in England, and Wales. The Chief Probation Officer and Chief Operating Officer Prisons remain integral roles as part of our management structure.

Wales has been operating a similar model very effectively for a number of years and indeed the learning and best practice from this experience has fed into the new model thinking.

The geographical structure is a key component of changes which will enable frontline staff, stakeholders, and partners to work better together across HMPPS and further strengthen collaborative working to keep communities safe.

The introduction of the new model does not change operational structures for how we deliver prison and probation services. The model does not replace or vary existing PGD and RPD footprints, nor the localised structure of Probation Delivery Units, and is focused on supporting and adding value to partnership working at local, sub-regional and regional levels, not supplanting it.

We welcome the AEDs to their roles. The AEDs are:

• Helen Judge, North East
• Sarah Chand, Midlands
• David Hood, South East and East
• Sarah Coccia, London
• Alan Scott, North West
• Chris Jennings, South-West and South Central
• Ian Barrow, Wales

HMPPS remains in consultation with its recognised Trade Unions on the development of this model, next stages and on the wider aspects of the programme.

Our new AEDs will be keen to get to know their local stakeholders and will be in contact in the coming weeks.

4. Electronic Monitoring Update

We’re pleased to report that Electronic Monitoring for Domestic Abuse Perpetrators on Licence (DAPOL) is now fully live across the East and West Midlands Probation regions.

DAPOL enables Probation Practitioners (PPs) to impose electronically monitored licence conditions on eligible prison leavers serving Standard Determinate Sentences at the point of release from custody. This could include adding electronic monitoring (EM) to monitor curfews, exclusion zones, required attendance (at appointments for example) and trail monitoring. PPs can add one or more of these conditions, based on risk assessment and where it is deemed necessary and proportionate. DAPOL may also be imposed alongside Alcohol Monitoring on Licence (AML), where necessary and proportionate.

The project will test the effectiveness of EM for domestic abuse perpetrators on licence, to see whether it can help reduce reoffending, enhance public protection, and help provide protection for previous and potential future victims. The project supports the Government’s commitment to address the harms caused by domestic abuse, published in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan.

5. All Hands on Deck for Community Payback celebrations

Image: Community Payback celebrate work on the SS Great Britain in Bristol

Community Payback’s 50th anniversary celebrations have continued with activities including the maintenance of a Victorian walled garden and an historic shipyard.

Earlier this month Community Payback celebrated its work in Bristol where teams are carrying out work at Brunel’s SS Great Britain shipyard.

As well as carpentry and maintenance of metalwork the teams have been painting and varnishing at the shipyard, where the SS Great Britain was launched in 1843.

In September teams across Wales worked on projects including beach cleans in Rhosneigr, Llanddwyn and Llanfair PG in Anglesey and Southerndown in Glamorgan.

Teams have been working at Erlas Victorian Walled Gardens in Wrexham helping to maintain the site by laying paths, landscaping, clearing weeds, building beds and planters. They were visited by North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Andy Dunbobbin.

Work is also taking place at Dunraven Estate in Southerndown, Glamorgan, where people on probation are helping to maintain a fruit garden, the area surrounding the remains of a Victorian greenhouse, and an original grass court tennis lawn.

You can nominate Community Payback projects in your local area via the nominations page.

6. Independent Approved Premises (IAPs)

Approved Premises (APs) provide a critical community-based service to accommodate and manage high risk individuals serving community sentences and on release from custody. 

Provision of accommodation on release is a key factor in reducing re-offending and supporting transition into the community whilst reducing the need for prison places. There is currently 104 APs across England & Wales. Independent Approved Premises (IAPs) are run by independent contracted organisations. 15 of the current 104 APs in England & Wales are IAPs.

The MoJ intends to run a competition in December 2023 for IAPs located in both London and the North West Probation Service regions, with contracts starting on 1 April 2026. The IAPs will be single sex occupancy. The MoJ intends to run a two-phase procurement with the second competition for IAPs in five other Probation Service regions: North East, South West/South Central, South East, Midlands and Wales.

A Prior Information Notice has been published, detailing market engagement events/information sessions taking place at the end of October for the first phase of the procurement.  The Notice includes registration links for each of the sessions: Independent Approved Premises – Phase 1 London and North West Probation Service Regions - Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk) 

Additional market engagement sessions will be held in February 2024 for the second procurement group; further information on this will be posted in early-2024.

7. Transforming prisoner education for life on release

HMPPS is transforming prison education within England with a new Prisoner Education Service (PES) designed to provide people in prison with the skills, knowledge and qualifications that will help them better prepare for life on release.  

Statistics show that prisoners who participate in education while in custody have a reoffending rate that is 9 percentage points lower than their peers who do not, and an increased likelihood of getting a job on release.  

In September, potential providers were invited to bid to deliver the core education element of the new service, which will improve the numeracy and literacy of prisoners. 

The new contracts will run from April 2025 and will deliver a two-tiered curriculum that helps prisoners gain the necessary skills to live an independent life on release, and to access opportunities in vocational subject areas to help progression into employment or further education and training.  

Potential providers can see the contract notice on GOV.UK for more information and details on how to participate. The deadline for bids is 13 November 2023.