It's All Going Jolly Well!

Thanks 'Getafix for reminding us to look at the latest update from HMPPS HQ and contrary to popular belief, it's all bloody wonderful:- 

Probation Service Change Bulletin 21

1. Foreword

Welcome to the bi-monthly Probation Service Change Bulletin – keeping you updated on what is happening across the Probation Service. I am Amy Rees, Director General CEO HMPPS.

As we approach the end of 2023, I am delighted to see a real boost in recruitment into probation. There is a lot of great work going on in this area and to see numbers of senior probation officers increase by 13 per cent and also the recruitment of 1,514 trainee probation officers in the 2022/2023 financial year is a really positive way to end the year. We want to keep building on this positive trend and continue to recruit staff and, of course, retain them and their invaluable experience. We are also launching a Probation Alumni Network and you can read more about it below.

It is an exciting time for us as we recently launched our new recruitment campaign, which runs again in the New Year. The campaign’s strapline is ‘An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you.’ You may have heard the ads on radio or perhaps seen them at sports events, on television or online. The Probation TV advert and the Prison TV advert were created with valuable insight from people working for HMPPS, ensuring they reflect the reality of our work. We hope they will encourage people to join the service, helping to make an impact on reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

You can watch both adverts on the HMPPS Youtube channel.

The Probation Exhibition continues its tour across England and Wales and is currently in Wrexham before moving to Cardiff in the New Year. Please do go along to one of the venues if you can and let us know what you think.

We are also reaching the end of our 50th anniversary celebrations for Community Payback and I am delighted to see prisons and probation working so well together to improve the environment at Medway Secure School in Kent. I have enjoyed hearing about the great work being done and thank our staff for their tremendous efforts which make a difference to communities and lives across England and Wales every day.

I’m pleased we have all our Area Executive Directors (AEDs) now in place and you can read on for more information about One HMPPS, Courts and Electronic Monitoring.

Finally, I wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2024!

2. One HMPPS update

Work continues to progress well with the HQ redesign and the area model has now been live since early October. HQ restructuring will commence in early 2024 following consultation with our recognised Trade Unions.

David Hood commenced his new role as Area Executive Director (AED) for the Southeast and East Area in November. He joins the 6 AEDs who formally started their posts in early October, who are:

Helen Judge, Northeast
Sarah Chand, Midlands
Sarah Coccia, London
Alan Scott, Northwest
Chris Jennings, Southwest and South Central
Ian Barrow, Wales
David Hood, Southeast and East

David joins us from the Ardagh group, having previously held commercially focussed roles within the MOJ and recently holding the role as Vice President and Managing director of MTC, which was the parent organisation for the Community Rehabilitation Companies for both London and Thames Valley.

David’s arrival cements another significant step in the development of our area model, which sees Regional Probation Directors (RPDs) and Prison Group Directors (PGDs) (outside long-term high security) come together under the line management of the new Area Executive Directors for England and Wales.

We have launched the OneHMPPS to make sure our Probation and Prison frontline staff have the right support to be able to deliver the very best services.

The new Area Model will bring the probation regions and prison groups together under 6 new geographical areas in England, and Wales. This will provide increased ‘join up’ between prisons and probation by bringing responsibility for both together at the area level, with more devolved authority to the areas to facilitate innovation and faster decision-making, closer to the point of operational delivery. It will also deliver a strengthened operational voice in both central decision-making and national services, and smarter organisation of area and regional resources to strengthen and better support the frontline.

3. New learning and development for Probation Court staff

We are really pleased to have launched a new learning and development package designed specifically for court staff in the South Central region on November 6. The learning and development modules focus on court skills and pre-sentence report practice and have been developed as part of the ‘Pathfinder to Improved Pre-Sentence Advice’ pilot that is being tested in the South Central region.

The Pathfinder pilot, being delivered by the Probation Court Strategy and Change Team, is testing a new delivery model for pre-sentence advice in 16 courts in the South Central region. The focus is on improving the quality and timeliness of pre-sentence advice, both in informing sentencing and providing the right start to the defendant for their journey through the criminal justice system.

This comprehensive learning and development package has been developed as part of this project to ensure probation court staff have the right court craft skills to deliver the high-quality pre-sentence advice required by the judiciary. The learning and development package will be reviewed based on feedback from South Central probation staff to help inform the final design and content prior to wider national rollout.Probation exhibition touring England and Wales

‘Root and Branch – How five shillings, faith and belief inspired the beginning of the Probation Service’ continues its tour of venues across England and Wales.

Following its opening in Cheshire in August the exhibition moved onto Keighley in Yorkshire and Nottingham.

Throughout December you can visit us at our first venue in Wales – Wrexham Catholic Cathedral. We then move to St John the Baptist in Cardiff from January 3 to 14.

The journey of the Service is told through a timeline and includes the initial donation, the links with Primitive Methodism, the hostels set up to help residents and teach them skills such as farming and gardening.

The work of the modern Probation Service, including Approved Premises and the work of Community Payback, currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, also feature.

The exhibition is run in partnership with Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, in Cheshire.

We’ll share more details and information around forthcoming venues and dates in the exhibition blog.

4. Electronic Monitoring update

The contracts to deliver the Electronic Monitoring service from May 2024 have now been awarded. Serco Ltd has been awarded the Field and Monitoring Service (FMS) contract, and G4S Monitoring Technologies Ltd has been awarded the Monitoring Devices and Systems Service (MDSS) contract.

Through delivery of the MDSS contract, G4S will be responsible for providing, configuring and repairing the equipment, as well as the systems used to interpret data from them.

Through delivery of the FMS contract, Serco will be responsible for installing and removing tags from those required to wear them, as well as monitoring the data generated by them.

The new contracts will last for six years and will allow us to continue delivering our innovative tagging scheme to better protect the public and help divert offenders away from a life of crime, whilst ensuring best value for the taxpayer.

The Ministry of Justice will be working with Serco and G4S over the next year to implement the new contracts, which will be fully operational by the end of 2024.

5. Recruitment Rise and launch of Probation Alumni Network

We’re pleased to report the focus on recruitment and retention is delivering positive results and an upturn in numbers across the Probation Service.

The recent HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: September 2023 report demonstrates that the approach is working with the workforce growing by over 4,856 across HMPPS since September 2022.

In the past year, 2,138 probation services officers were appointed, some of whom will be training to become qualified probation officers. As of September 2023, we saw an increase of:

174 Senior Probation Officer (13.0%)
304 Probation Officers (6.9%)
267 Probation Services Officers (4.2%)

The Probation Service will also launch a new Alumni Network by January 2024. This initiative follows the successful launch of a similar program in prisons in 2023, which resulted in a significant increase in the number of staff returning to the service.

The Probation Service Alumni Network will foster a community of former employees by keeping them informed of what is happening in the service.

It will also facilitate the building of business and personal connections and provide a vehicle for promoting career opportunities to alumni staff who may be interested in re-joining the service, as well as acting as advocates and promoting available roles to their own networks.

6. Community Payback celebrations

Community Payback teams have been helping to maintain a zoo in Hampshire and planting trees at a secure school in Kent as part of this year’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Throughout 2023 we’ve toured the regions - beginning in London in January and reaching South Central in November and Kent, Surrey and Sussex this month -looking at our projects and people.

We’ve focused on a variety of work from beach and river cleans to maintaining a tourist railway and historic ship and cooking lunches and looked at how our projects benefit communities and allow people on probation to pay back their communities while learning new skills.

A thousand trees have been planted by people on probation to improve the wellbeing and outlook at a secure school in Kent.

Community Payback teams have planted a variety of species, including large cherry trees, at Medway Secure School near Rochester.

The project was part of the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative (to plant trees as part of Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee) and also celebrated this year’s 50th anniversary of Community Payback.

Throughout the project – which started in March this year - Probation worked in partnership with the Prison Service.

Teams have been carrying out maintenance work, such as strimming, mowing, mulching, replacing unsuccessful trees and replanting any that required attention.

Teams in Hampshire are working at Marwell Zoo, a not-for-profit organisation set in parkland near Winchester with tigers, rhinos and giraffes among other animals.

Community Payback teams help to maintain the 140-acre site, clearing animal enclosures, repairing fencing and constructing drainage ditches.

The teams work in the meerkat and giraffe enclosures, as well as completing maintenance work on the site where there are tigers, sloths, hippos, white rhinos, snow leopards and lemurs among others.

7. Would you like to nominate a community project?

Would your local community benefit from help with a project such as clearing wasteland, planting trees or removing graffiti?

If so, we’d like to hear from you.

Our Community Payback teams are seeking nominations for projects in your local area. The newly revamped Unpaid Work Nominations Website is now live and we want you to have a say in the work we carry out.

Unpaid Work is carried out under supervision as part of the punishment of offenders, but also enables people on probation to give something back to their community while learning new skills and enhancing their employment opportunities.

We want to increase the number of nominations to give our communities a greater opportunity to improve their local area through Unpaid Work activity.

The work we carry out must benefit the local community, not take paid work away from others, and not make a profit for anyone.

We take on multiple tasks and projects, which include removing graffiti, clearing wasteland, improving and decorating public places and buildings (such as a community centre), repainting communal areas, pathways made accessible, alley clearing, grounds maintenance and gardening, tree-planting, and litter picking.

Projects are assessed following nomination and we will then contact you to let you know if and when we can commence work.

Visit the website to make a nomination or to read more.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You:

Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

Those with long memories will recall the electronic tagging scandals of the past when the dead and a false leg were tagged as part of a massive and systematic fraud committed over many years by both G4S and Serco. Well, the hapless HMPPS have decided both companies are now rehabilitated and each has been rewarded with brand new contracts, as reported here on the Civil Service World website:- 

HMPPS says ‘lessons have been learned’ as Serco and G4S bag electronic monitoring contracts

Deals worth up to £450m come almost a decade after firms admitted overcharging government to the tune of £170m. The boss of HM Prison and Probation Service has told MPs that lessons from past experience with electronic tagging contracts have been learned as Serco and G4S have been awarded new deals worth up to £450m.

The firms wrongly billed the Ministry of Justice for tens of millions of pounds under electronic-monitoring contracts first awarded in 2005. Sometimes multiple charges were made in relation to the same offender, in other cases charges were made for offenders who were dead.

G4S repaid the department more than £100m after details of the overcharging scandal emerged in 2013; Serco repaid £70.5m. Both firms removed themselves from the procurement process for the “next generation” of electronic monitoring devices. G4S subsequently returned to supplying electronic tags to government.

Investigations by the Serious Fraud Office resulted in Serco being fined £19.2m plus £3.7m costs and G4S being fined £38.5m plus £5.9m costs over the scandal.

Earlier this month Serco landed a £200m MoJ contract to deliver electronic-monitoring services in England and Wales for six years to May 2030. The deal will be worth an additional £75m if two one-year extension options are exercised. G4S was granted a £175m contract to deliver monitoring technology, which includes devices for location monitoring and alcohol monitoring.

In a letter to members of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, HMPPS chief executive Amy Rees said the service’s approach to the new contract arrangements had “been informed by previous experience and lessons learned, as well as government best practice”. She said specific supplier “accountabilities, roles and responsibilities” had been set out in the respective contracts agreed with Serco and G4S.

“During implementation of the new service, both suppliers will be required to report on progress and risks through an implementation board,” she said. “This board will oversee delivery of the integrated implementation plan and ensure risks are appropriately managed through the various phases of transition. The implementation board will report into a service delivery board, chaired by the head of EM operations, where ultimate responsibility for holding suppliers to account and dealing with any issues will take place. This will ensure there is senior-level oversight of progress and risks.”

Rees’ letter was prompted by a recommendation in PAC’s Transforming electronic monitoring services report last year, which called for HMPPS to set out how it would handle risks in the programme once suppliers had been appointed. The letter was dated 27 October but was only published yesterday. The Serco and G4S contracts were announced on 8 November.

Rees said that as field and monitoring services supplier, Serco would act as service integrator and be responsible for the running and management of the end-to-end service. She said that in addition to their individual contractual obligations, Serco and G4S had also signed a separate collaboration agreement setting out clear expectations on behaviours and ways of working.

“Both suppliers will appoint a suitably senior lead officer who will be specifically accountable for ensuring their respective teams adhere to the requirements set out in the collaboration agreement,” she said. “These leads will attend the service delivery board.”

Published in October last year, PAC’s Transforming electronic monitoring services report detailed a litany of concerns about HMPPS and MoJ’s handling of tagging.

Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier said the current system was “outdated” and at “constant risk of failure”, while the report flagged £98.2m wasted on the scrapped Gemini case-management system, which MPs described as “high-risk and over-ambitious”. MPs also criticised the MoJ and HMPPS for failing to rigorously evaluate whether tagging reduces reoffending before pushing ahead with a £1.2bn programme to expand it to another 10,000 people. As of March last year around 15,300 offenders were tagged, according to the report.

--oo00oo--

Of course tagging is seen by politicians as a 'silver bullet' and cheaper way of punishment for much criminal behaviour, alongside community service as part of so-called 'tough' community sentences as alternatives to imprisonment. However, it does nothing to address rehabilitation, but that's just indicative of politicians never understanding what's involved in that. 

Anyway, there's a chronic shortage of prison capacity and I notice the Sentencing Council have launched a consultation on the whole subject and this must surely be the opportunity for some serious submissions on the central role a reformed probation service could play from PSR through to proper, meaningful supervision. Reported here on the BBC news website:-

Courts to issue fewer short jail terms under plans

Courts could soon be handing out more rehabilitative community sentences, rather than sending people to jail for short terms, under radical new plans. The Sentencing Council for England and Wales says judges and magistrates should think more about sentences that are proven to reform offenders. The plans tell courts to think twice about jailing women because of the impact on children. The plans, years in development, come amid a prison overcrowding crisis.

The council is the official body that advises all criminal judges and magistrates on how they should sentence criminals fairly and consistently, following rules set out by Parliament. The new consultation covers the principle of choosing community sentences, such as unpaid work or drug treatment programmes, or prison.

For almost 30 years the trend in sentencing has meant that more criminals have been sent to jail and for longer periods. However, academic studies show that community sentences do more good in rehabilitating low-level offenders than prison. In the major consultation, the council argues that if judges and magistrates conclude that an offender potentially deserves to be jailed, they must first pause and consider if a community order would actually be more effective at achieving rehabilitation, one of the key purposes of sentencing.

"Increasing academic research has covered the importance of rehabilitation in reducing reoffending," says the council. The Council believes it is important to reflect the findings."

The document suggests that judges needs to take extra care in assessing the lives of offenders from specific backgrounds including young adults, women, people with dependants, people who are transgender, ethnic minorities or people with addictions, learning disabilities or mental disorders. Crucially, before judges jail a woman, the council says they must consider the harm that could be caused to a pregnant woman's unborn child.

"A custodial sentence may become disproportionate to achieving the purposes of sentencing where there would be an impact on dependants, including on unborn children where the offender is pregnant," says the council. "Courts should avoid the possibility of an offender giving birth in prison unless the imposition of a custodial sentence is unavoidable."

That highly significant guidance comes after the death in 2019 of a baby whose mother went into labour unaided in a cell. The proposals also tell judges for the first time to consider whether older women who commit crimes may be experiencing changes in their mental health caused by the menopause.

Sentencing Council chairman, Lord Justice Davis, said the existing guidelines were among the most important in use. "The revised guideline updates and extends the current guidance," he said. "It reflects new information and research in relation to young adult and female offenders and findings from research on the effectiveness of sentencing."

Tom Franklin, head of the Magistrates Association, said it welcomed the "robust emphasis on alternatives to custody. Magistrates want effective community sentences and more information about their impact on the people who are given them," he said. The consultation runs until 21 February next year on the Sentencing Council's website.

MoJ Top Table Changes

Senior changes from 1 February

From today (1 February) Phil Copple, as Director General of Operations for HMPPS, takes on responsibility for the Probation Service.

Phil was appointed as Director General last August, but he takes over line management of the Chief Probation Officer today, bringing the Probation Service under his own remit. This coincides with Kim Thornden-Edwards taking over as Chief Probation Officer, replacing Sonia Flynn. Sonia now takes on a key role driving professional standards in probation.

Speaking of the changes, Phil said: 

“I am delighted to be taking on this responsibility and working with Kim and all of you to deliver this crucial service across England and Wales. I want to recognise Sonia’s extraordinary work during her six years as Chief Probation Officer. Sonia guided the Probation Service through both the pandemic and the service’s unification, remaining focused on driving professional standards across the organisation throughout. 

We all owe Sonia a huge debt of gratitude and I am delighted we are retaining her experience as she assumes her new role leading on learning and development and setting up a professional register for probation. I’ve spent more than 32 years in public protection roles spanning all areas of HMPPS. 

I see clearly the benefits of bringing the various strands of the Ministry of Justice together so that we can work to change people’s lives, reduce reoffending and protect the public.​​​​​​Probation is a critical part of this picture and I am excited about the roles Kim, as Chief Probation Officer, and I will be carrying out.”

Chief Probation Officer

Speaking of her appointment, Kim said: 

“I would like to echo Phil’s heartfelt words about Sonia and her remarkable leadership as she guided probation through the pandemic and early stages of unification. I started my career as a probation services officer in Kent in 1992 and went on to qualify as a probation officer in 1996. I have experienced many different roles in the service, spanning both public sector and Community Rehabilitation Company delivery. During that time, I have developed a deep understanding of the work we do and the vital public protection role we play.

“Combining my experience with your feedback and the ambition set out by our Chief Executive Officer Amy Rees – that everything we do concentrates on the frontline and our overarching aim of reducing reoffending – I have developed three strategic priorities.

“Firstly, delivering excellent practice, with a particular emphasis on risk management and public protection. This is my number one priority. The need for this focus has been underlined by the two recent Serious Further Offences involving Damian Bendall and Jordan McSweeney, which many of you will have seen covered in the national media. These terrible and tragic events really bring home the critical importance of us all delivering the best possible risk management practices.

“Secondly, continuing our relentless focus on recruitment and retention in collaboration with the Probation Workforce Programme so we can deliver our Target Operating Model.

“Thirdly, strengthening ways to support our senior probation officers, in recognition of the tough demands and swift pace of change faced by this crucial staff group.”

My commitment to you

“Late last year we heard from Teresa, who spoke to the BBC about how Probation Officer Catherine Bateman helped her turn her life around. Teresa had finished a short prison sentence after committing an assault and agreed to wear an alcohol tag to help her continue the positive changes she’d begun in prison. She believes probation’s unstinting support has helped her embrace a new life. I know each and every one of you is working towards supporting people like Teresa and I am committed to championing the incredible work that you deliver day in and day out across England and Wales.

“Finally, I want to hear what you have to say so we can ensure our service continues to improve. I know some of the best ideas come from the frontline and that’s why I’ll be meeting as many of you as possible over the next 12 months. Myself and my senior leadership team are dedicated to supporting you to deliver on our collective promise to change lives, manage risk and protect the public by reducing reoffending.”

--oo00oo--

The BBC article referred to:-

Sobriety tag changed my life, says alcohol offender

"I was using it as a mechanism when I was feeling down and sad, but then I'd drink too much at one time and end up binge drinking." 

Teresa - not her real name - was sentenced to 28 weeks in custody for an alcohol-fuelled assault. On her release, for 60 days she had to wear a "sobriety tag", which were introduced in Wales exactly a year ago. Now the 33-year-old says it has allowed her "self-recognition" and is rebuilding her life. The tag monitored her sweat every 30 minutes and alerted probation staff if she drank alcohol.

"Initially it felt like an additional sentence or punishment but over time, without drinking, there seemed to be no issues, no dramas, my life was better," she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast with Oliver Hides. Those who are found to be in breach of their drinking bans can face fines or be sentenced in court. Nearly 1,000 prison leavers have been tagged in the first year of the scheme designed to crackdown on booze-fuelled crime. According to UK government figures, alcohol plays a part in 39% of all violent crime in the UK.

"It was a harrowing experience going to prison," said Teresa. "Because I didn't drink every single day, I didn't crave it, or have any shakes or anything like that."  Some 20% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service are classed as having an alcohol problem. "The only time I'd done some sort of offence was under the influence of alcohol," she said. "It helped me recognise that without the alcohol there was no offending behaviour," she said.

Probation officer Catherine Bateman suggested that as Teresa's offences were triggered by drink, as a licence condition, a 60-day tag would give her time to reflect on her life. She also said it would enable her to work with her to address the underlying causes for the offending.

"People who've been in prison have had a period of very restricted time where they can't actually access any alcohol and then they're released into the community where it's readily available," she said. "That is a very big challenge for those people who often struggle. The alcohol monitoring allows them that transition back into the community."

Teresa thinks wearing the tag has changed her life around. "I probably would have come out and just gone back to drinking," she said. "It gave me time to do some self-recognition and it's been brilliant. "I've started an access to university course, I'm out running with my dog, I've joined a netball team and I've got new friends. "I do look back on it, just so I can take some accountability, and think what was I doing?"

Report Highlights Structural Failings

Press release issued today:-

Independent serious further offence review of Damien Bendall

Background

Damien Bendall murdered Terri Harris (aged 35), John Paul Bennett (aged 13), Lacey Bennett (aged 11) and Connie Gent (aged 11). He also raped Lacey. These crimes took place in September 2021 in Killamarsh, Derbyshire. He pleaded guilty in December 2022 and was later sentenced to a whole-life prison term.

Bendall was on probation when he committed these offences. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice the Rt Hon Dominic Raab asked HM Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell to conduct an independent review into this case. This review was completed in January 2022 and can now be published following the completion of the criminal proceedings.

Statement

HM Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell has made this statement:

“This was a deeply concerning case. The Probation Service’s assessment and management of Bendall at every stage, from initial court report to his supervision in the community, was of an unacceptable standard and fell far below what was required.

“Bendall had previously committed violent offences. His records show a former partner had made allegations of domestic abuse against him and a police child sexual exploitation unit had made enquiries about him with the Probation Service. Probation practitioners should take account of this sort of intelligence when assessing potential risks of serious harm. But this does not appear to have happened in this case.

“Bendall committed arson in May 2020. A member of the probation service’s court team interviewed him in June 2021 in order to prepare a report with sentencing options for the judge. The report author noted Bendall was suitable for a curfew requirement at the home of Terri Harris. They came to this wholly inappropriate conclusion without speaking to Ms Harris, visiting the property, conducting domestic abuse enquiries, or taking into account past domestic abuse claims.

“The court report author assessed Bendall as posing a medium risk of serious harm to the public and posing a low risk of serious harm to partners and children. We do not agree with this risk assessment; they under-estimated the risks Bendall posed and this had serious consequences.

“Probation managers and practitioners took the risk assessment from the court report as a given, and missed several opportunities to scrutinise and change it. If Bendall had been assessed as presenting a higher risk of serious harm – which would have been appropriate – it is unlikely a curfew order would have been deemed suitable and he would have been assigned to more experienced and confident probation officers.

“Instead, Bendall’s case was transferred to the East Midlands in the summer of 2021, and he was supervised by insufficiently qualified and experienced probation practitioners. The safety of Ms Harris and her children was not given due consideration. This was especially troubling as Bendall had started drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis again, which is likely to have increased the risk of serious harm.

“Probation services must strike the right balance between protecting the public and supporting individuals to move towards crime-free lives. Sadly, in this case, the balance was out of kilter.

“In January 2022, we published a separate thematic report on electronically monitored curfews which questioned why domestic abuse and child safeguarding enquiries are not mandatory before court ordered curfews. The Bendall case demonstrates clearly why these checks are so important.

“This review also highlights common issues that we have found in previous and recent inspections of probation services: the lack of qualified probation officers and managers with too many responsibilities to provide effective oversight for less experienced staff.

“The Probation Service must tackle these workforce issues. Probation practitioners must have the right knowledge, skills and experience to manage their assigned cases – and appropriate support and oversight from managers.

“We want to see probation practitioners and managers scrutinising case files and past criminal behaviour properly and developing a deeper understanding of the people they manage. We did not see enough ‘professional curiosity’ in this case – Bendall’s words and assertions were often taken at face value. Probation practitioners should be interrogating and verifying claims to build up a complete picture of the individual.

“As a result of this review, I made 17 recommendations for improvement to the Ministry of Justice, HM Prison and Probation Service and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. They have accepted all these recommendations and responded with an action plan for implementing them. While this is welcome, over the past year in our local and national probation inspections we have continued to raise deep concerns about the quality of probation practice we find more generally in relation to the assessment and management of risk of harm. This is a subject I have raised repeated concerns about since becoming Chief Inspector. It is vital that this time lessons are learnt from this awful case.

--oo00oo--

Extracts from the full report:-

1. Foreword 

In September 2021, Damien Bendall was charged with the murders of Connie Gent (aged 11), Lacey Bennett (aged 11), John Paul Bennett (aged 13) and Terri Harris (aged 35), who was pregnant, and with raping Lacey. These shocking crimes have devastated families, friends, and the local community in Killamarsh, Derbyshire and beyond. In December 2022, the courts imposed a whole life sentence. 

Damien Bendall was on probation when he committed these crimes. The Probation Service typically conducts a Serious Further Offence (SFO) review when an individual on probation commits a serious violent or sexual offence. However, in this case, the Secretary of State for Justice asked me, as Chief Inspector of Probation, to conduct an independent SFO review into the Probation Service’s management of Damien Bendall. 

This report sets out the findings of that independent review. My inspectors found that the Probation Service’s assessment and management of Mr Bendall at each stage of the process from initial court report to his supervision in the community were of an unacceptable standard and fell far below what was required. 

Vital information about the serious risks posed by Mr Bendall to those he lived with, and the public, was not included in the Probation Service’s report and recommendations to the judge when he was sentenced for an arson offence in June 2021. As a result, he was sentenced to an entirely inappropriate curfew condition to reside with Ms Harris and her children. This was then compounded by a failure to allocate his case to an appropriately experienced and trained probation officer who could have managed him at the higher risk of serious harm level his past history certainly warranted. Several opportunities to correct these mistakes and amend his risk of harm classification and reallocate Mr Bendall’s supervision to an appropriate practitioner were missed in the period from June to September 2021. 

Inspectors found successive probation practitioners missed opportunities to ensure vital information known about Damien Bendall was included in assessments and plans to manage and address the risk of serious harm he posed to both women and children. Practitioners did not carry out safeguarding enquiries when he was sentenced for his most recent offence of arson. The impact of unmanageable workloads at both the probation practitioner and senior probation officer levels resulted in reduced oversight of new or struggling staff, frequent role changes and sickness absence. This made consistency and continuity of practice challenging. In this case, there was an increasing reliance on unqualified and trainee staff to manage workloads; this contributed to emerging factors linked to risk of harm not being recognised and escalated appropriately. 

This is a deeply concerning case that raises serious issues around the Probation Service’s assessment and management of risks of harm. This is a subject that has been of repeated concern to us in our local inspections and on which I have commented in my annual reports and in relation to other SFOs, 1 including that of Joseph McCann, 2 on which we reported in 2020. 

As a result of our findings, we make 17 recommendations for improvements to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the Ministry of Justice regarding safeguarding and risk assessment practice and procedures, which I expect the service to respond to as a matter of urgency. It is vital that key lessons are learned from this awful case. 

Justin Russell

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

5. Executive summary 

Inspectors found that, at every stage of probation involvement, from the pre-sentence report provided to the court on 08 June 2021 to the commission of the SFOs in September 2021, the Probation Service’s assessment and supervision of DB fell well below the necessary standard. A failure to assign the correct risk of harm level to DB (which should have been ‘high’ risk of serious harm given his past history) meant that the court was missing vital information when reaching its sentencing decision. It is possible that, had a holistic assessment been provided to court (including his pattern of offending against Asian men, use of callous and organised violence against prison staff, an analysis of previous noncompliance and the most recent high risk of serious harm assessments), an immediate, rather than suspended, prison sentence might have been imposed. 

As it was, the court imposed a suspended prison sentence, which included an entirely inappropriate curfew condition to reside with Ms Harris and her children. The case was then allocated for community supervision to an inexperienced and inappropriate practitioner. 

There were then subsequent failures by supervising managers and new practitioners to adequately read the case and amend the initial, incorrect ‘medium risk of serious harm’ to ‘high risk of serious harm’. 

Had DB’s risk of serious harm to the public and children been correctly assessed as high, and had his risk of serious harm to partners been correctly assessed as medium, the court may not have curfewed him to an address with Ms Harris and her children. He would have been allocated to an experienced probation practitioner. This would have led to enforced weekly face-to-face appointments and improved communication with partner agencies, and assertions lacking evidence would not have been relied upon and repeated in future assessments. 

In sections 7 to 11 of this report, we analyse the management of DB during his two most recent sentences, the first a prison sentence with probation licence supervision imposed on 29 January 2017 and the second a suspended sentence order managed in the community imposed on 09 June 2021. In this summary we focus on our key lines of enquiry and summarise why, in our view, the following deficiencies occurred. 

Process for recommending curfew requirements 

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires that, ‘before making a relevant order imposing a curfew requirement, the court must obtain and consider information about the place proposed to be specified in the order (including information as to the attitude of persons likely to be affected by the enforced presence there of the offender)’. The current court process requires that court officers undertake domestic safeguarding enquiries ‘in order to assess risk of harm and suitability for sentencing options in all offences involving domestic abuse’,  which DB’s index offence did not. 

HM Inspectorate of Probation recently published a thematic inspection on electronic monitoring, including its use for curfews. In this report, we recommended that HMPPS: 

• mandate the requirement to make domestic abuse and safeguarding checks before recommending a sentence or release on electronically monitored curfew 

• work with the police and children’s social care at a national level to ensure that probation practitioners in every region are provided with domestic abuse and safeguarding checks in a timely manner.  

Before DB’s sentencing for arson, the court officer did not carry out domestic abuse enquiries on the address, find out whether Ms Harris’s children were known to children’s services or speak directly to Ms Harris to ensure she consented to her home being used as a curfew address by DB. The Sentencing Act 2020 requires courts to have sight of this information before imposing a curfew order. However, it appears that courts do not have a mechanism to ensure this information is seen in every case. In this instance, important checks were not carried out and the court proceeded to issue a curfew order without them. 

Child safeguarding 

Inspectors found that probation practitioners in this case based their risk of harm assessments on whether DB had convictions against children or for domestic abuse, or if children’s services were involved with the family. These are highly relevant factors, but probation practitioners should delve deeper to explore the broader attitudes and behaviours of the person under supervision, including their impact on the children in their lives. DB did not have a history of offending against children. However, we found that insufficient consideration was given to whether his racist, manipulative and controlling attitudes and his violent and unpredictable behaviour would have a negative impact on the wellbeing and safety of children. 

We did not find evidence of sufficient professional curiosity about the nature and level of the role he played in the lives of the children of his partners. 

Intelligence was available to the Probation Service from Wiltshire police’s child sexual exploitation team regarding DB’s risk of serious sexual harm to girls. However, this information was not explored or recorded sufficiently to inform the risk of serious harm assessment and plans to keep children safe. 

The probation practitioner who prepared the court report following DB’s arson conviction took his account and version of events in relation to his offending and circumstances at face value. This included DB’s assertion that he played an important part in taking care of Lacey and John Paul Bennett. This information was not checked with their mother. There were no checks to find out if children’s services were currently working with the family or had previously done so. Most egregiously, the report stated that DB was ‘suitable’ for a curfew at Terri Harris’s address. When considering a curfew in the home of children, the attitudes of the people in that home8 and the best interests of the child should be given weight. 

At the start of the most recent order, in June 2021, there was again a failure to be professionally curious about the children living with DB. To probation practitioners, DB presented himself as a father figure to the children of Terri Harris and this was accepted without challenge. No contact was made with the children’s parents. When DB admitted to using drugs and alcohol this was not escalated to a manager and a children’s safeguarding referral was not completed. We found that the risk of serious harm to children was inaccurately assessed and seriously underestimated. 

It is our view that there should be a section of the offender assessment system (OASys) that solely considers the wellbeing and safety of the children – actual and potential – in the life of the person on probation. This would separate children from assessments of broader familial and intimate relationships, and specific prompts should be used to facilitate a more rigorous and defensible assessment of the impact on a child’s ability to thrive. 

Domestic abuse 

During previous orders, DB’s relationships with his mother and grandmother were not explored appropriately. Probation practitioners did not demonstrate sufficient professional curiosity, did not conduct safeguarding enquires, and took information from DB, again, at face value. 

Inspectors found that key information on risk from prison and from DB’s ex-partner and her current partner was not given due consideration and was not recorded appropriately. The impact of this failure was significant, as successive probation practitioners did not recognise that DB posed a risk of serious harm within relationships. 

Probation at court appeared to take DB’s word without verification. The author of the court report noted that a curfew would be ‘suitable’; they did this without undertaking safeguarding enquiries on the address or communicating with the owner/lead tenant of the property. This loophole in the mandated checks required before a curfew recommendation needs addressing urgently. 

Probation practitioners should have explored DB’s relationship with Ms Harris in greater depth, including whether he was coercively controlling her. DB was open about the fact that he had very limited income and that Ms Harris was paying for his accommodation, bills and food. Inspectors conclude that contact with Ms Harris by the Probation Service before sentencing, and at key assessment stages and when there was evidence of increasing risk, would have been appropriate.

Inspectors found that the risk of serious harm to known adults, including partners, was underestimated. There was no focus on safeguarding in this case and, as a result, DB was sentenced to an inappropriate curfew requirement that may have exacerbated the risk of harm to Ms Harris and her children. 

Fast delivery report 

The use of a short format report in this case, rather than a standard delivery report, was incorrect. Mr Bendall’s criminal history was complex and as such met the threshold for a suitable adjournment period to allow for a thorough read of his case to inform the completion of a more detailed report. This case met HMPPS’s own criteria for a standard delivery report as ‘additional assessment, professional discussion and multiple enquiries [were] required to aid risk assessment’ and ‘liaison where medical report [was] unavailable on the day’.

Senior probation officer workload 

Inspectors found that high workloads and staff shortages in the Swindon office impacted on the ability of probation practitioners to undertake high-quality work. Inspectors heard that this was a long-standing issue that they had experienced since the changes introduced with Transforming Rehabilitation. 

HM Inspectorate of Probation has often found that the span of line management control for senior probation officers (SPOs) is concerning. SPOs increasingly deal with complex staffing and human resources issues, for which some feel unequipped. This also reduces the time they have available to provide effective professional oversight of the work of the practitioners they line manage with individual cases. HM Inspectorate of Probation has previously found that SPOs do not have enough time to supervise all members of their teams to the standard they would wish, and when they do hold supervision sessions, there is often a focus on managing volumes of work rather than improving quality. This case highlighted this issue on two specific occasions. 

Firstly, there was insufficient oversight of a member of the probation court team, which led to a poor-quality fast delivery report being presented to the court. This was due to SPO sickness and a lack of resources to cover the absence. 

Secondly, SPO3, who managed the probation practitioner responsible for DB after sentencing from June 2021, was unable to engage with the case fully. SPO3 managed a large number of staff. She directly managed 16, but when covering for colleagues she had oversight of up to 30 PQiPs. This is far in excess of the line management span recommended by HMPPS, of 10 full-time equivalent posts for SPOs. This prevented her reading DB’s case at the allocation stage and from providing the necessary oversight. 

Inspectors found that the SPOs were also not given meaningful, regular and effective supervision and support. 

Professional qualification in probation and probation services officer training and oversight

The probation practitioners who managed DB from June to September 2021 were inexperienced, unqualified and had insufficient support to understand and recognise the risks and needs in the case. We conclude that they should not have been exposed to cases such as DB at this stage in their careers. Following the unification of probation services, new guidance on allocations has been published, and this is welcomed. This guidance sets out clearly that ‘some case allocation decisions will rely on the judgement of the operational manager to decide whether a case is suitable to be managed by a probation officer or a probation services officer (PSO). This decision will be based on individual circumstances of the case, and the skills, ability and experience of the individual officers.’ 

Inspectors heard concerns about the efficacy of online training, especially for key learning on domestic abuse and child safeguarding, from all grades of staff, not just professional qualification in probation (PQiP) and PSO staff. There had been an understandable reliance on this method during the period of Covid-19 restrictions; however, some staff noted that prior to the pandemic there had been a trend towards self-reliant e-learning and development. Practitioners said that such self-selective training and development suffered when staff spent their hours ‘firefighting’ with excessive caseloads. DB’s case was one of 10 being managed by a staff member who had yet to complete basic safeguarding training.

6. Recommendations 

We have directed the recommendations to HMMPS and the Ministry of Justice to ensure national learning. HMPPS should: 

Court work and curfew requirements 

1. ensure that domestic abuse enquiries are carried out on everyone sentenced so that accurate risk assessments can be made and safe proposals are made in court reports 

2. ensure that child safeguarding enquiries are made in all cases where the person being sentenced lives with, is responsible for, has access to, or is likely to have a negative impact on the wellbeing or safety of a child 

3. develop a mechanism and reliable processes with relevant agencies to allow sufficient safeguarding enquiries to be completed, to verify information and therefore reduce reliance on self-disclosure 

4. ensure that sufficient safeguarding enquiries with relevant agencies are always carried out before finding a curfew requirement suitable, and that policy/practice guidance clarifies that assessment of suitability post-sentence should be ongoing. 

5. quality-assure risk assessments and proposals to the courts for accuracy and suitability 

6. introduce a process to contact relevant adult residents of the proposed curfew address and obtain their prior consent to a curfew condition at their address to assess whether the address is suitable for an electronically monitored curfew 

7. ensure that court reports provide a sufficient analysis of the person’s circumstances, including analysis of risk of harm, to provide safe sentencing options. 

Child safeguarding 

8. include a specific section in OASys that is dedicated to assessing and planning for the safety of children, and ensure that the nature of contact and impact the person on probation has in the life of the child have been considered on both current and future children in the person’s life 

9. ensure that the impact on children’s safety and wellbeing is sufficiently considered in every case. 

Risk management plans 

10. ensure that probation practitioners contact partners, family or other key adults in the lives of the person under supervision to determine and discuss their inclusion in risk management plans. 

Training and support 

11. consider the suitability and efficacy of online training, particularly on domestic abuse, child safeguarding and other key training required to correctly assess and robustly manage risk of serious harm 

12. ensure that each PQiP has access to a mentor who has at least two years’ experience as a qualified probation practitioner. 

13. dedicate time for probation practitioners to engage in reflective discussions with colleagues and the line manager regarding cases. 

Allocation practice 

14. ensure that NDelius entries for ‘management oversight – allocation’ include evidence that the manager has considered the complexity of the case and the capabilities and capacity of the probation practitioner receiving the case. 

Oversight of SPOs 

15. review and monitor SPO workloads to ensure that sufficient line management and management oversight of case work can be provided effectively 

16. review the line management responsibilities and supervision of SPOs responsible for PQiPs to ensure the standard of PQiP management and oversight is appropriately robust, including the suitability of the cases allocated to them. 

Ministry of Justice should: 

17. amend legislation to be more prescriptive of the information that should be obtained and considered by the court, to assure themselves of the safety of other household members at a proposed curfew address before they impose an electronically monitored curfew. 

Until this can be actioned HMCTS should issue guidance to court staff requiring them to satisfy themselves that relevant checks have been undertaken by the probation courts team.

Raab Update

This from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies eBulletin yesterday:- 

Is the Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, prepared to take decisive action to address the multiple injustices of the imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence?

Speaking to the House of Commons Justice Committee earlier this week, he acknowledged the many problems with this dreadful sentence. He also told the Committee that, had he been an MP at the time the sentence was introduced in 2003, he would not have voted for it.

Perhaps.

Despite the “foul stench” of injustice the IPP sentence continues to represent, Raab showed little appetite for the decisive action required. He appeared to reject the Justice Committee’s central recommendation of a resentencing exercise for all those currently subject to an IPP.

Given the government is yet to give its formal response to the Justice Committee report, we must hope that his remarks do not represent a settled position.

Raab also appeared daunted by weight of history. “I am stuck with the legacy of something I didn't vote for,” he said at one point, “but that is the way our system works.”

“So we are stuck with an injustice because it was done in the past?”, the Committee Chair, Sir Bob Neill, replied, leaving Raab thrown and flailing for an answer.

The eleven-minute section of the Committee hearing dealing with IPP (you can watch it on the Centre’s Youtube channel), concluded with a revealing comment by Raab. “I will be responsible, and held responsible, for mistakes that are made in relation to public protection and risk”, he said.

If the government were to accept all the Committee’s recommendations, including on resentencing, Raab will gain plaudits from some quarters as a bold reformer. He also faces political risks, including from unforeseen and unpredictable developments over which he has little or no control.

Put bluntly, when it comes to IPP reform, what’s in it for Raab?

Politics, of course, is a risky business. Politicians have to be prepared to make the big calls, accepting the risks that come with them. If not, they are merely enjoying the trappings of office, without accepting the responsibilities that come with it.

If Raab is not prepared to take the big decisions to address a major injustice, then he should make way for someone who is. Given the current difficulties he is facing from other quarters, the decision may, in any case, be taken out of his hands.

Richard Garside
Director

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Oh and there's this:-

A whiff of scandal

Last month, we called for the use of electronic monitoring (so-called ‘tagging’) as part of a criminal justice sanction to be based on proper evidence and guided by clear principles. Our call came in response to a report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, which painted an alarming picture of government failure and waste.

According to the Committee, nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted, with the Ministry of Justice still unable to determine if tagging works. Yet the government still plans to press ahead with a £1.2 billion programme, expanding tagging to an additional 10,000 people over the next three years.

Our submission to the Committee was the only written evidence that it published.

Our Research Director, Roger Grimshaw, said, “The whiff of scandal over EM should be a wake-up call for a much more informed and wide-ranging discussion, developing a platform for reform which delimits a place for EM in a modest, humane and purposeful system”.

Read more about it here.

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Finally, I saw this in the Telegraph:-

Prisoners treated as 'residents' despite demands for no more 'woke' terminology

Prison Service admits the term should not have been used and has since been removed from HMP Moorland in South Yorkshire

Prisoners have been treated as “residents” in jail despite demands by Dominic Raab for staff to stop using “woke” terminology.

HMP Moorland in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, put up a sign directing “residents” or prisoners in the jail to facilities despite an instruction from the Justice Secretary that inmates must no longer be called by such “politically correct” terms.

The language which has also seen offenders called “clients” or “service users” has been part of efforts by prison officials to avoid “labelling” people as offenders in order to help them move on from their lives of crime.

Other prisons have renamed cells as “rooms,” prison blocks as “communities,” holding cells as “waiting rooms” on the basis that deprivation of liberty is sufficient penalty and to help rehabilitate offenders.

Woke terms 'undermine public confidence'

However, guidance issued in April by Mr Raab to prison governors and their staff made clear they should stop using woke terms for offenders because it undermined public confidence that they were being punished for their crimes.

Instead, the Justice Secretary told them that inmates should be called “prisoners” or “offenders” rather than “residents”, “clients” or “service users”. In addition, cells should not be labelled “rooms”, as they are known in two of the newest and largest jails in England and Wales.

On Wednesday the Prison Service admitted the term should not have been used and had been removed.

"We are very clear that this term should not be used and have directed that all communications should follow strict rules. The sign was painted without the knowledge of the prison’s leaders and has been removed,” said a spokesman.

What else is being missed?'

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and ex-adviser to Government on extremism in jails, said: “HMP Moorland holds high risk high harm sex offenders judged by a recent inspection to be failing to manage them safely.

"I'm told this sign was up for six weeks. If prison 'leaders' which I take to mean senior managers and the governor haven't been visible enough to notice this sign after a month and a half in one of the prison's House Blocks what else is being missed?"

HMP Moorland has also raised eyebrows by putting up a 12-foot high map of the prison on a main walkway, including a “you are here” sign.

“It is a bit contentious when you're locking up people in secure conditions who you're trying to stop escape,” said one insider. “The obvious risks include being able to coordinate drugs being thrown into prison/delivered by drone.”

There was this comment from a reader:-

"Dominic Raab needs to stop using "the public" to justify his every argument when it is clear he is wholly out of touch with what the public actually want. Apart from the ignorant "throw away the key" mob, most people do not want prisoners "punished" as the loss of liberty is quite sufficient.

We want the focus to be on rehabilitation so that the prisoner can be part of society again and benefit from prison time, rather than prison time mean that that person is forever shunned and scorned.

As for Dominic Raab's reaction to the scandal of IPP where prisoners have done years above their tariff often for very minor crimes originally, his response that "he hadn't voted for it" as if that meant there was nothing he could do now, was lame to say the least. He is the justice minister!

Justice is in total decay. It is time MPs woke up to it, because it would appear they are taking no responsibility for it at all and any issues arising are seen as simply too much of a "hot potato" to confront. Sad times, and terrible for so many innocents implicated in something which never happened, because the system in so many ways has gone wrong and there appears to be no accountability whatever."

MoJ Tagging Scandal 2

By most accounts the new prime minister made a good start, but sadly Rishi Sunak's honeymoon period proved short-lived with some very unwise appointments. As Russell Webster put it on Twitter:-

"In a move calculated to bring joy to all barristers, prison & probation staff, Dominic Raab is returning to his previous post as Justice Secretary"

But at least we've been spared Cruella Braverman who's back at the Home Office. Not for long though as her unique combination of arrogance, inability and sheer nastiness will surely see that appointment unravel again very quickly. Talking of arrogance, what a relief to see Rees-Mogg the Member of Parliament for the 19th century returning to the back benches and hopefully well-earned obscurity. With the grass-roots of the nasty party well and truly pissed-off, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for some serious internal plotting to emerge. 

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Back to tagging, I see that Civil Service World has picked up on the scandal:-

‘Over-ambitious’ HMPPS electronic tagging plan ‘threw away’ £100m

MPs “unconvinced” of MoJ's ability to oversee overhaul of electronic tagging after “long history of poor performance"

HM Prison and Probation Service has been slammed for wasting £100m in a “high risk and over-ambitious” attempt to deliver a new case management system for electronic tagging.

The Ministry of Justice agency spent £98.2m on the Gemini system, only to scrap it before it was finished after years of delays saw it outpaced by advancements in technology. The Ministry of Justice said at the time that none of the expenditure would result in any future benefit.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said they were “deeply concerned about the scale of these losses”. They are “unconvinced” that the MoJ can overhaul the situation, given the “long history of poor performance in this area”, the committee's report analysing HMPPS’s attempts to transform electronic monitoring added.

PAC Meg Hillier warned that the current “outdated” system is “at constant risk of failure” which could put the public at risk. She called for a “serious explanation and a serious plan” from the MoJ for how they are going to “stop haemorrhaging” money.

The report also criticised the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS for failing to rigorously evaluate whether tagging reduces reoffending. It said the government was pushing ahead with a £1.2bn programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years despite this knowledge gap. HMPPS has now strengthened its analytical capacity, and has committed to evaluating its expansion programme, PAC added.

Gemini was part of HMPPS’s Electronic Monitoring Programme, which sought to overhaul the electronic tagging system used to monitor curfews and conditions of court or prison orders. The new system would have enabled police and probation officers to access real-time data. Currently, they have to submit manual requests for location data, limiting the value of using GPS tracking.

The software was meant to be ready in 2015 but was massively delayed because of its complexity and the need to integrate different suppliers’ work. While the committee said the decision to scrap the system in 2021 was the right decision at the time, saving £30m, it criticised the failures that led to this being the best option.

HMPPS’s “pursuit of a bespoke technical solution introduced complexity and inflexibility, and limited innovation”, while the agency also did not intervene early enough to resolve integration issues, PAC said. The committee also slammed the MoJ’s “weak governance” and “light-touch approach to scrutiny” despite the repeated delays.

HMPPS and the MoJ have now reformed their approaches to overseeing major projects and programmes, including introducing new thresholds for when risks and issues should be escalated for review, PAC said.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Innovative GPS and sobriety tags are helping us to crack down on crime, from alcohol-fuelled violence to burglary. Our decision to stop work on certain tagging systems saved taxpayers over £30m and we are now investing in doubling the number of offenders tagged by 2025 to better protect the public.”

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I notice that the Work With Offenders website provides some facts and useful analysis:- 

The rise and rise of tagging

The number of individuals being actively monitored with a location monitoring device (GPS) has more than doubled

We know that this government is keen on imprisonment, it is after all investing £4 billion to create 20,000 new prison places and the prison population is expected to increase by almost a quarter over the next three years.

The governments tough stance on crime is not restricted to incarceration though. It is also keen on making an increasing number of offenders subject to electronic tagging as today’s Electronic Monitoring Statistics make clear.

Here are the headlines:

The number of individuals being actively monitored increased by 12%

At 30 September 2022, the total number of individuals actively monitored was 14,996, an increase from 13,371 on the same date last year.

Electronic monitoring device court bail orders remains the largest cohort of individuals actively monitored by an electronic monitoring device

The number of individuals actively monitored under a court bail order was 5,979 as at 30 September 2022 or 40% of all individuals actively monitored. This is a 9% increase from 5,471 last year.

The number of individuals being actively monitored with a location monitoring device (GPS) has more than doubled

Between 30 September 2021 and 30 September 2022 the number of individuals actively monitored with a location monitoring device (GPS) increased very substantially by 143% (from 2,161 to 5,243). This increase is the result of the continued roll-out of electronic monitoring to new offender cohorts, particularly immigration bail.

The number of individuals being actively monitored with an alcohol monitoring device has more than doubled

As at 30 September 2022, 1,503 individuals were actively monitored with an alcohol monitoring device, a 153% increase from 593 last year. This reflects both the continued national roll-out of alcohol monitoring from March 2021 and the introduction of alcohol monitoring for prison leavers.

Analysis

As we have seen, this increase in the use of tagging was driven by extensions to the use of location (GPS) monitoring tags for new offender cohorts, particularly for immigration bail, as well as the continued roll-out of alcohol monitoring tags. However, the increases somewhat masks the fact that over the same period the number of individuals actively monitored as a condition of a community sentence has basically halved (down by 48%). This decrease began from April this year and is likely to be associated with mandating domestic abuse and safeguarding checks in all cases where electronic monitoring is proposed. It may well be that the chronically under-staffed probation service (an inspection report of five Probation Delivery Units in London published this week revealed that hundreds of offenders were not even allocated a probation officer) has just not had the time to do these checks, meaning that GPS tags cannot legally be imposed.

The increase in the numbers of people on tags as a court bail condition is attributable to two main factors. Firstly, the use of electronic monitoring for those on court bail increased sharply in early 2020 in response to the covid pandemic’s impact on the courts. Secondly, tags are now used for people on bail for immigration matters. The Immigration Act 2016 introduced a duty on the Home Office Secretary of State to impose an electronic monitoring condition on Foreign National Offenders and other non-UK citizens subject to deportation proceedings. Following this, in August 2021, HMPPS began using GPS monitoring for these individuals who have been released from Prisons or Immigration Detention under ‘Immigration Bail’ on behalf of the Home Office. From 31 August 2022 this was extended to Scotland and is planned to extend to Northern Ireland later this year which is likely to see numbers increase further.

Another part of the increase is due to the introduction of alcohol monitoring tags. Alcohol monitoring was introduced in October 2020 and went live throughout England and Wales on 31 March 2021 to support the new community sentencing option, the Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR). An AAMR may only be used when sentencing for alcohol-related criminal behaviour and it imposes a total ban on drinking alcohol for up to 120 days. Compliance with the ban is monitored electronically using an alcohol tag which continuously monitors for the presence of alcohol in offenders’ sweat. Although there are now 1,503 people subject to alcohol tags, it appears that take-up is reasonably slow, given the fact that low-level alcohol-related crimes are so common.

One inevitable consequence of the increase in the use of electronic tagging is that a proportion of people who are tagged will fail to comply with their tagging requirements and end up in custody, swelling our prison numbers even further.

MoJ Tagging Scandal

The suspicion has long been held that the MoJ basically feels that tagging everyone would be a really easy and cheap way of reducing crime and 'supervising' offenders. The trouble is it's not cheap; the technology isn't that good and nobody knows if it's actually effective. Of course the MoJ has quite a track record on poor contract writing and wasting public money through IT failures, but are very effective in lining the pockets of huge private sector corporations. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies are on the tagging case though:-

Whiff of scandal over electronic monitoring

The Centre for Crime and Justice today called for the use of electronic monitoring (so-called “tagging”) as part of a criminal justice sanction to be based on proper evidence and guided by clear principles.

The call came in response to today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee, which paints an alarming picture of government failure and waste.

According to the Public Accounts Committee, nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted on the failure to deliver a new case management system. Remedial work on the current creaking system will incur extra costs. The Ministry of Justice, the Committee notes, still does not know what works, or whether tagging reduces reoffending. Yet it plans to press ahead with a £1.2 billion programme, expanding tagging to an additional 10,000 people over the next three years.

Dr Roger Grimshaw, Research Director at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said:

"Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring.

At a time when there is so much for them to grapple with, it would be tempting for criminal justice practitioners and observers to assume that the failings exist in some faraway management bubble, with few implications for people under supervision, or their families.

In reality, the expansion of EM being planned is due to create a new world of electronic supervision, supplementary to the prison system, unguided by firm evidence about any positive role in rehabilitation.

The whiff of scandal over EM should be a wake-up call for a much more informed and wide-ranging discussion, developing a platform for reform which delimits a place for EM in a modest, humane and purposeful system.”

'Transforming electronic monitoring services': for what purpose?

Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring (EM) services in criminal justice.

Its detailed analysis and criticisms are extensive: nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted on the failure to deliver a new case management system. Remedial work on the current creaking system will incur extra costs. The implications of ‘real-time’ monitoring data access for police remain to be explored.

A striking finding is the weakness of the evidence base for the planned expansion of EM.

"The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending… Despite the lack of evaluation, government is pressing ahead with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years."

As the Committee notes, these concerns are not new: the New Generation electronic monitoring programme was beset by a similar level of ineptitude. In our evidence to the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, the only written evidence the Committee published, we highlighted the systemic failings in the EM programme. We also called for the appointment of a regulator with an ethical and practical mission of ensuring that only appropriate services are provided, in the public interest.

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From the Public Accounts Committee website:-

“Avoidable” mistakes in tagging programme “wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money”

In a report the Public Accounts Committee says a “high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice” all contributed to the failure of a new case management system for electronic monitoring of offenders which has “cost taxpayers dear”.

The Committee says “avoidable mistakes” wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service “reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million”.

Even after this, the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS still “do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending”. Despite the lack of knowledge and evaluation, government is pressing ahead with a £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years.

Given the “long history of poor performance in this area” the Committee is “unconvinced” that the MoJ is equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor the “serious risks” that remain for the expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024.

Chair's comments

Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:

“The prison and probation service is reliant on outdated technology that is swallowing taxpayers’ money just to stand still. The existing system is at constant risk of failure – and let us be clear that in the case of tagging, “failure” can mean direct and preventable risk to the public – and attempts to transform it have failed.

The incredible scale of waste and loss in the Government’s Covid response should in no way inure us to this: that’s another hundred million pounds of taxpayers’ money for essential public services just thrown away, wasted, lost. We expect a serious explanation, and a serious plan, from the MoJ and Government more widely how they are going to stop this haemorrhaging of taxpayers’ money that they are presiding over. We need assurances up front over the further £1.2 billion they have already committed to the tagging programme – what will be achieved, by when, and, crucially, what will be recovered for the public if goals aren’t met.”

Summary

HM Prison & Probation Service’s (HMPPS) transformation programme for electronic monitoring (‘tagging’) has failed to transform the service as intended. HMPPS launched the programme to improve efficiency and increase the usefulness of tagging for police and probation services, but after significant setbacks and delays the failure has cost taxpayers dear. Its high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice all contributed to its failure to introduce a new case management system, which underpinned the intended benefits and transformation. These avoidable mistakes wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million.

It is unacceptable that, despite our previous recommendations, the Ministry and HMPPS still do not have sufficient data to understand the outcomes of tagging and that police forces and the Probation Service continue to lack timely access to the high-quality data they need to monitor offenders and keep the public safe. The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending. HMPPS has committed to improving access to data and evaluating its new tagging expansion projects, but appears unambitious about the level of insight that it expects to achieve.

Despite the lack of evaluation, government is pressing ahead with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years. It has harnessed innovative technology to deliver new projects—such as in its alcohol monitoring scheme and acquisitive crime pilot—where early progress has yielded some encouraging results. However, although HMPPS has identified lessons from the failure of its transformation programme, there remain serious risks associated with its expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024. Given the long history of poor performance in this area, we remain unconvinced that it is sufficiently well-equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor developments for the foreseeable future.