Significant challenges remain for newly unified Probation Service
HM Inspectorate of Probation has today (02 March) published its annual report: inspections of probation services 2021.
The report includes a survey of 1,534 (one in ten) Probation Service staff, who were asked about their experiences since the unification of the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) in June 2021[1].
Whilst our thematic inspection of preparations for unification show that this programme was managed well, our survey findings show practical and cultural challenges for the newly-unified service, with some former CRC staff stating they felt like ‘second-class citizens’ to their NPS colleagues following the transition:
- Over half (55 per cent) of probation staff were dissatisfied with the guidance received about how to manage work at the point of unification.
- About half (51 per cent) found their workload ‘not so manageable’ and only just over half said that they had sufficient access to services for the cases they supervised.
Just over half (52 per cent) had not made a final judgement on whether unification had made probation services better or worse. Only 12 per cent of the probation staff who completed our survey were yet prepared to say that unification had improved delivery.
Responses to open questions in the survey revealed a continuing cultural divide between former CRC and NPS staff who are now part of the unified Probation Service; some former CRC staff felt that they were perceived by former NPS staff as less skilled, as ‘second class’.
Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell: “I welcomed the reunification of probation services in June 2021 but doing this through a global pandemic was always going to be a challenge and our survey shows it remains a work in progress. Unification was the catalyst for change, not the end product. True transformation will take time.”
“Additional investment in probation – a real terms increase in funding of 23 per cent – is also welcome. But our early inspections of the unified service show this has not yet resulted in improved quality of supervision, with the assessment and management of risk of harm still a significant weakness.
“Long-term, sustained improvement cannot be achieved without well trained, experienced and dedicated staff and strong leadership. No one should be made to feel like the ‘poor relative’. Our survey serves as an early reminder to the Probation Service that, culturally, there are challenges to be met too. Probation practitioners must be made to feel valued and respected, regardless of whether they were from CRCs or an NPS division.”
The impact of Covid-19
For all but three months of 2021, the Probation Service operated under ‘exceptional delivery models’ (EDMs), to ensure that it was functioning in a Covid-19-secure way. All EDMs involved significant modifications to ‘business as usual’ practice, to reduce the amount of face-to-face contact between the service and the people it supervised.
Mr Russell said: “The impact of the pandemic on some core probation functions has been profound. At the start of 2021, almost three-quarters of all contacts with people on probation were by telephone and only 19 per cent were face to face. All outdoor unpaid work had to stop and all group-based face-to-face interventions to tackle offending behaviour ceased.”
Nationally, at the end of November 2021, over a quarter of unpaid work orders (equivalent to over 13,000 cases) had reached the 12-month point without being completed. Delivery of accredited programmes was improving but had still only reached 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Mr Russell continued: “Although the Probation Service was able to make some return to ‘normal’ working over the course of 2021, large numbers of court orders remain uncompleted and progress in tackling these backlogs has been disappointingly slow.
“As the pandemic eases and the Probation Service returns to its preferred operating model, and national standards and performance arrangements are reinstated, I hope that performance will improve this year. I do not, however, expect that to happen overnight and Covid-19-related backlogs are likely to continue well into 2022/2023, if not beyond.”
Management of risk of serious harm remains an issue – lessons not being learned
Following unification of the Probation Service in June, the inspectorate restarted its core local probation inspection programme at the end of October 2021, focusing on two Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) in South Wales – Swansea Neath Port Talbot, and Gwent.
Mr Russell said: “The results were disappointing. Although Wales had unified some of its functions a year ahead of England, in December 2019, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic three months later and other local factors, had clearly impacted on the quality of service delivery. Swansea Neath Port Talbot PDU was given an overall rating of ‘Inadequate’, and national issues around backlogs were also evident.”
The inspectorate continues to find that public protection remains the weakest area of performance. Less than half of the cases inspected in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire and Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, in our last CRC inspections in the Spring of 2021, were satisfactory in relation to the assessment and management of risks of serious harm. And the data for the unified services we inspected in south Wales in the autumn of 2021 was no better – with a particularly poor picture for ‘medium’ risk of harm cases.
The report also includes the first published results of the Inspectorate’s new programme of work to quality assure the Serious Further Offence (SFO) reviews undertaken by the probation service after every murder, rape or other serious violent or sexual offence committed by a person on probation. Of the 36 reviews we inspected by the end of October, 39 per cent were found to ‘Requires improvement’ or to be ‘Inadequate’, meaning that important learning is being missed from these tragic events.
ENDS
Notes to editor
- The report is available at https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/inspections/ on 02 March 2022 00.01.
- The accompanying probation staff survey will be available via the above link to the report on 02 March 2022.
- HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth offending and probation services across England and Wales.
- The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’. The Inspectorate rates specific aspects of each service and also gives an overall rating.
- For media enquiries, please contact Corporate Communications Manager Diane Bramall media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)
