Guidance

Probation Service Change Bulletin Issue 21 – December 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 am Amy Rees, Director General CEO HMPPS.

As we approach the end of 2023, I am delighted to see a real boost in recruitment into probation. There is a lot of great work going on in this area and to see numbers of senior probation officers increase by 13 per cent and also the recruitment of 1,514 trainee probation officers in the 2022/2023 financial year is a really positive way to end the year. We want to keep building on this positive trend and continue to recruit staff and, of course, retain them and their invaluable experience. We are also launching a Probation Alumni Network and you can read more about it below.

It is an exciting time for us as we recently launched our new recruitment campaign, which runs 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, on television or online. The Probation TV advert and the Prison TV advert were created with valuable insight from people working for HMPPS, ensuring they reflect the reality of our work. We hope they will encourage people to join the service, helping to make an impact on reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

You can watch both adverts on the HMPPS Youtube channel.

The Probation Exhibition continues its tour across England and Wales and is currently in Wrexham before moving to Cardiff in the New Year. Please do go along to one of the venues if you can and let us know what you think.

We are also reaching the end of our 50th anniversary celebrations for Community Payback and I am delighted to see prisons and probation working so well together to improve the environment at Medway Secure School in Kent. I have enjoyed hearing about the great work being done and thank our staff for their tremendous efforts which make a difference to communities and lives across England and Wales every day.

I’m pleased we have all our Area Executive Directors (AEDs) now in place and you can read on for more information about One HMPPS, Courts and Electronic Monitoring.

Finally, I wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2024!

2. One HMPPS update

Work continues to progress well with the HQ redesign and the area model has now been live since early October. HQ restructuring will commence in early 2024 following consultation with our recognised Trade Unions.

David Hood commenced his new role as Area Executive Director (AED) for the Southeast and East Area in November. He joins the 6 AEDs who formally started their posts in early October, who are:

• Helen Judge, Northeast
• Sarah Chand, Midlands
• Sarah Coccia, London 
• Alan Scott, Northwest 
• Chris Jennings, Southwest and South Central
• Ian Barrow, Wales 
• David Hood, Southeast and East

David joins us from the Ardagh group, having previously held commercially focussed roles within the MOJ and recently holding the role as Vice President and Managing director of MTC, which was the parent organisation for the Community Rehabilitation Companies for both London and Thames Valley.

David’s arrival cements another significant step in the development of our area model, which sees Regional Probation Directors (RPDs) and Prison Group Directors (PGDs) (outside long-term high security) come together under the line management of the new Area Executive Directors for England and Wales. 

We have launched the OneHMPPS to make sure our Probation and Prison frontline staff have the right support to be able to deliver the very best services. 

The new Area Model will bring the probation regions and prison groups together under 6 new geographical areas in England, and Wales. This will provide increased ‘join up’ between prisons and probation by bringing responsibility for both together at the area level, with more devolved authority to the areas to facilitate innovation and faster decision-making, closer to the point of operational delivery. It will also deliver a strengthened operational voice in both central decision-making and national services, and smarter organisation of area and regional resources to strengthen and better support the frontline.

3. New learning and development for Probation Court staff

We are really pleased to have launched a new learning and development package designed specifically for court staff in the South Central region on November 6. The learning and development modules focus on court skills and pre-sentence report practice and have been developed as part of the ‘Pathfinder to Improved Pre-Sentence Advice’ pilot that is being tested in the South Central region.

The Pathfinder pilot, being delivered by the Probation Court Strategy and Change Team, is testing a new delivery model for pre-sentence advice in 16 courts in the South Central region. The focus is on improving the quality and timeliness of pre-sentence advice, both in informing sentencing and providing the right start to the defendant for their journey through the criminal justice system.

This comprehensive learning and development package has been developed as part of this project to ensure probation court staff have the right court craft skills to deliver the high-quality pre-sentence advice required by the judiciary. The learning and development package will be reviewed based on feedback from South Central probation staff to help inform the final design and content prior to wider national rollout.

4. 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 and Nottingham.

Throughout December you can visit us at our first venue in Wales – Wrexham Catholic Cathedral. We then move to St John the Baptist in Cardiff from January 3 to 14.

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.

5. Electronic Monitoring update

The contracts to deliver the Electronic Monitoring service from May 2024 have now been awarded. Serco Ltd has been awarded the Field and Monitoring Service (FMS) contract, and G4S Monitoring Technologies Ltd has been awarded the Monitoring Devices and Systems Service (MDSS) contract.

Through delivery of the MDSS contract, G4S will be responsible for providing, configuring and repairing the equipment, as well as the systems used to interpret data from them.

Through delivery of the FMS contract, Serco will be responsible for installing and removing tags from those required to wear them, as well as monitoring the data generated by them.

The new contracts will last for six years and will allow us to continue delivering our innovative tagging scheme to better protect the public and help divert offenders away from a life of crime, whilst ensuring best value for the taxpayer.

The Ministry of Justice will be working with Serco and G4S over the next year to implement the new contracts, which will be fully operational by the end of 2024.

6. Recruitment Rise and launch of Probation Alumni Network

We’re pleased to report the focus on recruitment and retention is delivering positive results and an upturn in numbers across the Probation Service.

The recent HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: September 2023 report demonstrates that the approach is working with the workforce growing by over 4,856 across HMPPS since September 2022. 

In the past year, 2,138 probation services officers were appointed, some of whom will be training to become qualified probation officers.  As of September 2023, we saw an increase of:

• 174 Senior Probation Officer (13.0%)
• 304 Probation Officers (6.9%)
• 267 Probation Services Officers (4.2%)

The Probation Service will also launch a new Alumni Network by January 2024. This initiative follows the successful launch of a similar program in prisons in 2023, which resulted in a significant increase in the number of staff returning to the service. 

The Probation Service Alumni Network will foster a community of former employees by keeping them informed of what is happening in the service. 

It will also facilitate the building of business and personal connections and provide a vehicle for promoting career opportunities to alumni staff who may be interested in re-joining the service, as well as acting as advocates and promoting available roles to their own networks.

7. Community Payback celebrations

Community Payback teams have been helping to maintain a zoo in Hampshire and planting trees at a secure school in Kent as part of this year’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Throughout 2023 we’ve toured the regions - beginning in London in January and reaching South Central in November and Kent, Surrey and Sussex this month -looking at our projects and people.

We’ve focused on a variety of work from beach and river cleans to maintaining a tourist railway and historic ship and cooking lunches and looked at how our projects benefit communities and allow people on probation to pay back their communities while learning new skills.

A thousand trees have been planted by people on probation to improve the wellbeing and outlook at a secure school in Kent.

Community Payback teams have planted a variety of species, including large cherry trees, at Medway Secure School near Rochester.

The project was part of the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative (to plant trees as part of Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee) and also celebrated this year’s 50th anniversary of Community Payback.

Throughout the project – which started in March this year - Probation worked in partnership with the Prison Service.

Teams have been carrying out maintenance work, such as strimming, mowing, mulching, replacing unsuccessful trees and replanting any that required attention.

Teams in Hampshire are working at Marwell Zoo, a not-for-profit organisation set in parkland near Winchester with tigers, rhinos and giraffes among other animals.

Community Payback teams help to maintain the 140-acre site, clearing animal enclosures, repairing fencing and constructing drainage ditches.

The teams work in the meerkat and giraffe enclosures, as well as completing maintenance work on the site where there are tigers, sloths, hippos, white rhinos, snow leopards and lemurs among others.

8. Would you like to nominate a community project?

Would your local community benefit from help with a project such as clearing wasteland, planting trees or removing graffiti?

If so, we’d like to hear from you.

Our Community Payback teams are seeking nominations for projects in your local area. The newly revamped Unpaid Work Nominations Website is now live and we want you to have a say in the work we carry out.

Unpaid Work is carried out under supervision as part of the punishment of offenders, but also enables people on probation to give something back to their community while learning new skills and enhancing their employment opportunities.

We want to increase the number of nominations to give our communities a greater opportunity to improve their local area through Unpaid Work activity.

The work we carry out must benefit the local community, not take paid work away from others, and not make a profit for anyone.

We take on multiple tasks and projects, which include removing graffiti, clearing wasteland, improving and decorating public places and buildings (such as a community centre), repainting communal areas, pathways made accessible, alley clearing, grounds maintenance and gardening, tree-planting, and litter picking.

Projects are assessed following nomination and we will then contact you to let you know if and when we can commence work.

Visit the website to make a nomination or to read more.