Probation staff from both the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies were working well together in Durham, but needed to improve the quality of some of their work, said Dame Glenys Stacy, Chief Inspector of Probation, publishing the report of a recent inspection of probation work in Durham.

 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. Durham is the first 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 Durham.

There had been major hurdles for the Durham Tees Valley CRC to overcome and the management structure and working model had been transformed. Overall, despite some promising work on Through the Gate and social action projects, the quality of some core probation work carried out by the CRC had deteriorated and so reducing reoffending and protecting the public outcomes were less likely to be achieved.

Although some aspects of court work needed to improve, overall work carried out by the NPS was good quality, helped by an experienced workforce and able management. Relationships between the CRC and NPS were productive and staff morale within both organisations was remarkably positive.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

• a recent initiative by the police and NPS, Checkpoint, was diverting low-level first-time offenders from the criminal justice system, which was a commendable attempt to reduce high reoffending rates prevalent in the area. However, it had contributed to the lower than anticipated caseload in the CRC;
• CRC managers had done an excellent job in developing and introducing the technology required to support officers working remotely from community justice hubs, which had many promising features; and
• in contrast to most other areas, morale of staff within the CRC and NPS in Durham was generally good and arrangements between them worked well.

However, inspectors were concerned to find that:

• the standard of ‘on the day’ pre-sentence reports (PSRs) prepared by NPS staff was not good enough, and led in many instances to poorly focused proposals and sentences that were not always appropriate for the needs of the case; and
• senior managers in the CRC had focused on developing how they were organised and structured in response to a reduced workload and income, but had paid insufficient attention to quality assurance. Consequently, much of the work undertaken with people who had offended was insufficiently focused on reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

Inspectors made recommendations which included the NPS making sure that PSR writers were fully trained so that the quality of on-the-day reports could be improved, and CRCs improving the quality of management oversight and supervision of responsible officers as well as the quality of assessment, planning and the delivery of interventions.

Dame Glenys Stacey said:

“This is the first of our new Quality & Impact inspections. We found in Durham that the National Probation Service was working well, but needed to produce better court reports to help sentencers. The Community Rehabilitation Company for Durham Tees Valley had introduced a number of promising initiatives, but was having to deal with a reduced caseload. It needed to refocus on core probation work – reducing reoffending and protecting the public – and on quality assurance. It was good to see that staff from both organisations were working well together and morale remained high.”
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Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation from 4 August 2016.
2. The former Durham Tees Valley (DTV) Probation Trust was last inspected in February and March 2014. 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. DTV CRC was the legal entity contracted by the Ministry of Justice to provide probation services in the DTV Contract Package Area. The CRC was wholly ‘owned’ by another organisation, ARCC (Achieving Real Change in Communities), a not-for-profit consortium comprising nine partners from different sectors, including local authorities, charities and social enterprises. It was the only one of the 21 CRCs where a ‘staff mutual’ from the old Probation Trust formed one of the partners.
3. For further information please contact Jane Parsons at HMI Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452.