APPENDIX 35
Further supplementary notes by the Home
Office
POLICE POWERS TO DEAL WITH TRUANTS
In May 1998 the Social Exclusion Unit published
its report on Truancy and Social Exclusion. The report set out
a package of measures to tackle these problems with the aim of
achieving a one third reduction in the level of truancy and the
number of exclusions by the year 2002. One of these measures was
a new power for the police to pick up truants. This is being taken
forward as a new clause in the Crime and Disorder Bill. It will
empower a police officer to take a child or young person whom
he/she has reasonable cause to believe is of compulsory school
age and absent from school without lawful authority, back to school
or other place designated by the local education authority.
In many areas the police already co-operate
with schools and local authorities to tackle truancy, but they
lack explicit powers to do anything when they find a child out
of school. The new power is not one of arrest nor does it make
truancy a criminal offence. It will be used in support of local
multi-agency efforts to tackle truancy in which the police, schools
and local education authorities identify and discuss local problems.
It will not apply to children who are lawfully educated at home.
ACCESS BY PROBATION OFFICERS TO OFFENDERS'
CRIMINAL RECORDS
With regard to the current arrangements in place
for individual probation officers to access offenders' criminal
records, a working group consisting of the Home Office Probation
Unit, Association of Chief Officers of Probation and the Police
National Computer (PNC) Print Sub Group considered how to assist
pre-sentence report writers to obtain more timely and accurate
information about an offender's antecedents from the police. A
system whereby pre-sentence report writers and supervising officers
could request a PNC computer printout containing relevant information
(chiefly previous convictions) direct from the police and within
three working days was agreed. In February, a circular was issued
telling services how to obtain the PNC printouts and asking chief
probation officers to contact their local Chief Constable in order
to take immediate advantage of this facility.
HOW
TO
ACCESS
THE
PNC PRINTOUT
FACILITY
The Association of Chief Police Officers' Crime
Committee has issued guidance to the police about applications
from the probation service for PNC printouts. To access the facility
in their area, Chief Probation Officers should in the first instance
write to their local Chief Officer of Police to agree a commencement
date. Ideally, Chief Probation Officers should meet their police
counterparts to discuss the details of arrangements (eg to whom
requests should be made) and any local issues which may impinge
before implementation.
Applications for printouts must only be made
by nominated senior probation officers. Chief Probation Officers
should therefore provide their police contact with a list of nominees,
updating it as necessary. Chief Probation Officers should consider
the most appropriate administrative arrangements to support these
procedures.
HOW
TO
MAKE
AN
APPLICATION
FOR
A
PNC PRINTOUT
Applications can only be made by a nominated
senior probation officer using the Probation Service Police National
Computer Printout Request proforma. The nominated officer should
sign the request proforma and fax it (or e-mail it if available)
to the relevant police contact. Printouts should be provided within
three working days of the receipt of an application.
The Phoenix Pre-Sentence Report Printout provides
most of the information that probation officers need from Phoenix
to prepare pre-sentence reports viz:
— a summary of
convictions and cautions;
— a list of convictions
including dates, sentences, the sentencing court and whether the
offence was committed on bail;
— a list of cautions
including dates and the police force concerned;
— remand/bail details,
including whether police or court bail was granted, when and under
what conditions;
— details of the
last period in custody;
— impending prosecutions/prosecuting
agency and bail status.
The Phoenix Pre-Sentence Report printout is
mainly intended for pre-sentence report writers, but it may also
be used to update information held on offenders subject to statutory
supervision (eg for risk assessment purposes). It may not be used
for any other purpose (eg breach prosecutions) and must not be
disclosed to third parties such as defence solicitors.
PROVISION
OF
INFORMATION
The Probation Unit are not aware of any centrally
collated figures however, they understand from experience in the
West Midlands that the typical turnaround time from the West Midlands
Police is 1-2 weeks but performance varies considerably depending
on Police workload. Some Probation Services are also experiencing
problems in getting local Forces to meet the times agreed in the
recent circular. We have no information on the speed at which
the information is typically provided in the first instance by
the Crown Prosecution Service, though again experience from the
West Midlands indicates that in approximately 50 per cent of cases
the information arrives late or not at all, thus prompting a direct
request to the Police.
WEST
MIDLANDS
PILOT
The West Midlands pilot provided the Wolverhampton
office of the West Midlands Probation Service with one directly
connected Phoenix terminal. The purpose of the pilot was to evaluate
the benefits of providing probation officers with faster access
to previous convictions information. This would help them prepare
pre-sentence reports (PSR) more quickly and to a better standard.
The pilot did not involve probation officers accessing Phoenix
during the monitoring of a community sentence. Use was linked
to the pre-sentence process and was thus driven by the defendant's
conviction at court following which the court would request a
PSR. There was no technical reason why the terminal could not
have been used for tracing an offender's criminal history during
a community sentence. However Phoenix is not a pro-active system;
a user must conduct a specific search of the database to ascertain
whether there have been any further convictions, the system will
not prompt users automatically when a conviction has been recorded
by the Police.
Selected staff at the West Midlands Probation
Service were trained in the operation of the terminal and security
and audit policies were agreed with the Police Information Technology
Organistation (PITO) which manages Phoenix on behalf of the Police
Service. Internal procedures were agreed within the Wolverhampton
office to allow probation officers to request PSRs. Administrative
staff then made the enquiries on their behalf and produced the
Phoenix print out. Live operation of the terminal commenced in
August 1997 and will end this month. An evaluation report will
then be produced. The emerging findings of the pilot project are
encouraging in that probation officers are getting the information
they require faster, typically within 1-2 days rather than the
1-2 weeks normally taken when requests are made via the Police.
Requests are only made via the terminal if the previous convictions
information does not arrive promptly along with the case papers
from the CPS.
FUTURE
PLANS
The West Midlands Probation Service has decided
not to continue using the terminal when the pilot ends. While
the business benefits are acknowledged, the Service has stated
that the costs of operating the terminal do not justify the benefits
they gain which are qualitative rather than financial. This backs
up the view of the Probation Unit IT Group that the strategic
solution for the service is to develop a link between the Probation
Service's strategic case management system CRAMS and Phoenix.
Such a link would avoid some of the costs of installing and operating
directly connected Phoenix terminals but may have other costs
(such as the need for development work to be undertaken on the
Phoenix system itself for which funds have not been allocated
in the short term). This issue is being considered along with
other requests for widening access to Phoenix by other CJS organisations
by the Phoenix Co-ordination Committee (PCC). The PCC is chaired
by the PITO Chief Executive and includes representatives of the
Association of Chief Police Officers, the Lord Chancellor's Department,
the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office (Co-ordination
of Computerisation in the Criminal Justice System Unit & Police
Science Technology Unit). The PCC will develop prioritised plans
for access to Phoenix based on agreed business criteria and the
development timescales of the various strategic case management
systems in the CJS including CRAMS.
9 July 1998
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