North Yorkshire Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) has received an overall rating of ‘Requires improvement’ following an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation. This is the first inspection of North Yorkshire PDU since it was established under the unification of probation services in 2021.

Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “Thanks to the dedicated approach by the Head of the North Yorkshire PDU, the workplace culture is kind, caring, and fundamentally healthy. Staff felt valued and were motivated to do their best. Unfortunately, whilst the strong culture provided a platform for success, this had not yet fed through into the quality of work to protect the public from harm, which was judged to be insufficient across all stages of sentence management.”

Inspectors found management oversight by senior probation officers (SPOs) to be largely ineffective, with SPOs too involved in administrative work. The report also highlights practitioners’ lack of access to police intelligence about domestic abuse, hindering their ability to make informed assessments. Gaps were observed in accessing information about safeguarding children – with senior leaders not doing enough to ensure that information sharing arrangements were sufficient in keeping people safe from potential harm. This was a crucial gap which, if closed, would enable the PDU to thrive.

The report praises the engagement work carried out with people on probation at North Yorkshire PDU, noting that practitioners took an interest in the reasons people had offended, listened to their experiences, and collaborated with them in planning sentence delivery.

Mr Jones continued: “North Yorkshire PDU has the capability to resolve the issues we saw during this inspection, and with a renewed focus on the work to protect the public I have no doubt they can return to an acceptable level of service delivery.”

The report makes four recommendations, including a review of SPO tasks and responsibilities to ensure they have capacity to focus on the quality of work delivered by practitioners, and to work with North Yorkshire Police to improve access to intelligence about domestic abuse.

ENDS

Notes to editor

1. This was the first inspection of North Yorkshire PDU since it was created in June 2021.
2. Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) replaced Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and the National Probation Service (NPS), which merged into a unified Probation Service in June 2021.
3. North Yorkshire PDU is one of 11 PDUs in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of the Probation Service.
4. The report is available at gov.uk/hmiprobation on 12 December.
5. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales.
6. 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.
7. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in September 2024.
8. For media enquiries, please contact Louise Cordell, Head of Communications 07523 805224 / media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)