National Probation Service staff and those from the Community Rehabilitation Company should be commended for working well together and providing a high quality service over a period of change, said Dame Glenys Stacey, Chief Inspector of Probation. Today she published the report of a recent inspection of probation work in York and North Yorkshire.

Since the introduction of Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) in June 2014, HM Inspectorate of Probation has reported on its implementation and produced the last of five Transforming Rehabilitation reports in May 2016. In April 2016, a new programme of regular inspection of adult probation services, known as Quality & Impact inspection, began. York and North Yorkshire is the second area to be inspected in that programme. The inspection looks at the quality of probation work carried out by the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and National Probation Service (NPS) and looks at what is helping and what is getting in the way of positive outcomes being achieved by people subject to probation in York and North Yorkshire.

Inspectors found much to commend. Both the local CRC and NPS region had gone through significant change as a consequence of Transforming Rehabilitation, and staff had maintained a pragmatic approach to the day-to-day work, focusing on responding to risks of harm posed and supporting individuals to change their lives for the better. There was a real sense of innovation across both organisations. They were working well together in the face of the long-standing challenge of delivering services across a large geographical area.
Inspectors were also pleased to find that staff showed initiative and persistence, with the CRC introducing new innovations to aid their working practice and extend available services for offenders. Working arrangements between both organisations were generally effective, supported by co-operative relationships between staff at all levels of both organisations, and the quality of much of the work was good.

The NPS was managing risk of harm with rigour, but inspectors were concerned to find that the CRC’s work to manage risk of harm was not sufficiently focused, in part due to the lack of routine management oversight of practitioners’ work.

Inspectors found that information didn’t always flow well. The NPS’s work preparing reports for judges and magistrates was hampered by local IT not functioning well and a lack of timely information from children’s social care services. What is more, the large army barracks at Catterick created an unusual offender group of serving and former military personnel and although probation staff were experienced in managing such cases, poor information provision by the army led to confusion and ongoing risk.

Inspectors made recommendations which included the CRC and NPS developing information-sharing protocols with the armed forces to manage the likelihood of reoffending and risk of harm posed by offenders from the military, based in Catterick, and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) ensuring that court staff have access to effective IT and office equipment.

Dame Glenys Stacey said:

“This is the second of our new Quality & Impact inspections. I’m pleased to say we found some really good work going on in York and North Yorkshire. Despite the significant changes involved in Transforming Rehabilitation, it was “business as usual” for the CRC and NPS, with less of the discord that we’ve seen elsewhere. There was a real sense of innovation across both organisations and both took their responsibility to protect the public seriously. Positive relationships between the NPS and CRC meant staff could focus on providing the best service they could for offenders and the community.”

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Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation from 25 August 2016.
2. The former York & North Yorkshire Probation Trust was last inspected in late 2013 when it was judged to be good. Since then, probation services had undergone significant changes as a result of the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme. In June 2014, Probation Trusts were abolished and probation work was divided between two separate organisations. The NPS primarily took over the management of offenders posing a high risk of serious harm to others and those subject to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA). The NPS also had responsibility for staffing the courts, including writing pre-sentence reports and for victim contact work. The rest of the probation work was allocated to 21 newly created CRCs. In February 2015, the CRCs were sold to private companies.
3. Purple Futures was the legal entity contracted by the Ministry of Justice to provide probation services in the Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire Contract Package Area. Purple Futures was an Interserve-led partnership comprising Interserve Justice (a subdivision of Interserve, a global support service and construction company), 3SC (a company managing public service contracts on behalf of third sector organisations) P3 (People Potential Possibilities, a charity and social enterprise organisation) and Shelter (a charity focusing on homelessness and accommodation issues). Purple Futures held contracts across five Contract Package Areas, holding the largest share of the overall CRC market.
4. For further information please contact Jane Parsons at HMI Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452.