Essex Community Rehabilitation Company – which supervises more than 4,000 low and medium-risk offenders – has received a mixed write-up from independent inspectors.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation has given Essex CRC a ‘requires improvement’ rating, but acknowledged some aspects of its service are delivered well.

Chief Inspector of Probation Dame Glenys Stacey said: “This organisation can rightly aspire to a better rating in the future, if it is able to deal with the shortcomings that we found in our inspection.”

Inspectors identified public protection work as a key area for improvement.

Dame Glenys said: “We found a lack of focus on the understanding, identification and management of risk of harm to the public, and this must be remedied as a priority. In a third of the cases we looked at, there were concerns about domestic abuse and the same proportion of cases had child safeguarding concerns.”

She recommended managers take steps “as a matter of urgency” to ensure that people on probation do not cause serious harm to others.

Essex CRC’s method of supervising people on probation by telephone also came in for criticism.

Dame Glenys said: “Dispiritingly, many individuals under supervision are quickly relegated to telephone rather than face-to-face contact with their probation worker, despite pressing needs in the more complex cases. This approach provides nowhere near the level of supervision we expect.”

Staff at the CRC cited heavy workloads – more than two-thirds (69 per cent) of those that interviewed by inspectors said their workload was unmanageable.

On a more positive note, inspectors found the organisation was well led by “committed, able and forward-looking” senior managers and had “an outstanding approach to local partnership working”.

Inspectors noted Essex CRC has an “impressive” range of specialist services to help people on probation to move away from further offending and antisocial behaviour. This included specific provision for women offenders and people who misuse substances.

The CRC’s unpaid work scheme – known locally as community payback – was singled out for praise. The scheme supervises people who have been sentenced by the court to complete between 40 and 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Dame Glenys said: “Unpaid work is delivered to a good standard, with elements of delivery showing signs of an outstanding scheme. This is unusual and a joy to see.”

Last year “highly motivated” staff supervised people to complete more than 215,000 hours of unpaid work, providing opportunities for reparation and rehabilitation.

The inspection focussed on three areas: the organisation’s leadership and delivery of its services; the quality of supervision of low and medium-risk offenders; the CRC’s delivery of unpaid work and services to people leaving prison, known as Through the Gate.

The Inspectorate has made six recommendations to help Essex CRC improve its performance.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation at 00.01 on Wednesday 10 October 2018.

2. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services in England and Wales.

3. There are 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies across England and Wales, and they are responsible for supervising low and medium-risk offenders.

4. Fieldwork took place in June and July 2018.

5. When fieldwork took place, Essex Community Rehabilitation Company was responsible for supervising 4,171 people.

6. Essex CRC supervised people under probation supervision to complete 215,421 unpaid work hours between April 2017 and March 2018.

7. For media enquiries please contact John Steele, Chief Communications Officer, on 020 3334 0357 or 07880 78745 or steele@justice.gov.uk (E-mail address)