The month of August brought with it the publication of our latest round of local probation service inspection reports, this time in the West Midlands (summarised here within our letter to the regional Probation Service – West Midlands (PDF, 334 kB)) – the fourth probation region we have inspected since unification of the probation service. The results continue to be disappointing. Of the three probation delivery units (PDUs) we inspected, we rated two as ‘Inadequate’ and one as ‘Requires improvement. This means that of the nine PDUs inspected since unification, two thirds have received the lowest possible overall rating of ‘Inadequate’ which is deeply concerning.  A more detailed analysis of over 500 individual cases we’ve inspected across these areas, shows that at least 59 per cent are being assessed as insufficient against at least one of our quality standards – with the most common area of weakness continuing to be the assessment and management of risks of harm. In my Speech to the Westminster Legal Policy Forum (PDF, 187 kB)conference on 05 July I set out some of the reasons for this, but widespread staff shortages at all key operational grades and the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on interventions and key services for people on probation are both having an enormous impact on the quality of supervision we are seeing.

Given these unprecedented challenges, a relentless focus on effective practice and strong and visible leadership of the service will be crucial to recovery in the coming years. So, it is essential that the move to a new leadership structure in HMPPS  which merges responsibilities for prisons and probation within two Chief Executive Office (CEO) and Director General Operations roles does not threaten this recovery. In the past, I have welcomed the creation of a separate DG Probation role within HMPPS as giving the service the visible and energetic leadership and higher profile it lacked under the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Whilst it is positive that Amy Rees will be bringing her four years of experience in that role to her new CEO posting, past experience with NOMS is that the day to day operational and political demands of the prison service can all too easily distract focus from the Probation Service and its particular (and very different) needs. I know that strong concerns have been raised about these changes by NAPO and the Probation Institute and it’s important that the voice and interests of the Probation Service continue to get the leadership attention they so desperately need.

With our West Midlands inspections complete, our probation inspection focused on the London probation region in August – where we are inspecting six PDUs. We expect to start publishing reports on these in October at which point the team will be moving on to the North East, for our recently announced inspection of that region.

Our youth inspection team has also been busy and continues to find a significantly more positive picture than for the Probation Service – helped by significantly smaller caseloads and greater flexibility of response to the Covid-19 pandemic at local level. Thurrock, Vale of Glamorgan and Bolton youth offending services have all received a ‘Good’ rating in recent weeks and while Cardiff Youth Justice Service was rated ‘Requires improvement’ we found very encouraging signs of progress since rating it as ‘Inadequate’ against all of our standards in 2020.

And finally, a quick plug for our excellent thematic inspection of Multi-agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), conducted jointly with HMICFRS and HMI Prisons, and published at the end of July.  Whilst arrangements for MAPPA level two nominals referred to multi-agency panels were generally working well, we had concerns about the quality of supervision of level 1 nominals – who make up the vast majority of this caseloads. You can find a recording of the launch event on our website.