1 Increasing the effectiveness of
community orders
1. Sentences served in the community offer the courts
a credible alternative to custody, taking account of the offence
committed, the risk posed by the offender and their needs. Since
their introduction under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, community
orders have offered courts the ability to impose a range of 12
possible 'requirements', including accredited programmes (for
example, anger management courses or alcohol and drug rehabilitation),
unpaid work in the community and supervision by the National Probation
Service.
2. The Ministry of Justice (the Ministry) is responsible
for the National Offender Management Service which encompasses
HM Prison Service, the National Probation Service and the individual
42 Probation Areas to deliver end to end offender management.
The National Probation Service uses the Offender Assessment System
diagnostic tool to identify and assess the underlying factors
which lead individuals to offend, and which, if not addressed,
are likely to lead to reoffending. Whilst the National Probation
Service makes proposals to the courts on sentencing options, it
is for the courts to decide what sentence to pass. Community orders
worked best with offenders who acknowledged their criminality
and were motivated to change their behaviour. Where an offender
was in denial, the National Probation Service worked with them
and has been quite successful, for example, at persuading sex
offenders and those with problematic drinking to accept that they
had a problem.[2]
3. The Ministry has endorsed the findings and conclusions
from the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report and announced
plans for the phased implementation of initiatives outlined in
the associated Action Plan, produced in April 2008. The Plan was
designed to inform policy, improve data quality and inform future
performance target setting, and included some scoping exercises
for longer term projects (Figure 1). For example, a project
to understand what interventions work for certain types of offenders
will generate annual reports from 2012. The Ministry also plans
to introduce indicators to assess the extent to which the sentence
given by the court had been delivered.[3]
Figure 1: Key Ministry of Justice Action Plan commitments
| NAO RECOMMENDATION
| PLANNED COMPLETION DATE
|
| Require Probation Areas to report the percentage of community orders which end before sentence requirements have been completed and the reasons for non-completion
|
| Implementation of new data collection system
| Sept 20081
|
| Increase the provision of alcohol and mental health treatment
|
| Assess the effectiveness of the National Probation Service's work with
alcohol misusing offenders
| June 2008
|
| Make the Lower Intensity Alcohol Programme available across the National Probation Service
| Dec 2008
|
| Consider the barriers to the provision of mental health treatment across Probation Areas as part of Bradley Review,2 and follow up via the Offender Health and Social Care Strategy
| Oct 2008
|
| As far as possible, rebalance the range of Probation performance targets to show how well offenders are being managed and the extent to which outcomes of community orders are achieved
|
| Introduce more quality of delivery measures for 2009--10
| From April 2009
|
| Introduce indicators that assess the extent to which the sentence of the court has been delivered
| From April 2009
|
| Scoping project 'to understand what happens to offenders who fail to complete community sentences'3
| Scoping to be completed by April 2008
|
| As far as possible, identify the degree to which the 12 community order requirements reduce reconvictions and achieve other sentencing outcomes for different types of offender to enable sentence planning to be better targeted, for instance through a longitudinal study
|
| Offender Management Community Cohort Study4
| Annual progress reports from Summer 2012, final report due Summer 2015
|
| Unit Costs Study to provide evidence about the cost benefits and cost effectiveness of different interventions for offenders on community orders
| Draft final report Summer 2010
|
Notes:
1. The planned completion
date is an estimate, pending decisions about changes to the data
collection systems
2. 'The diversion
of Individuals with Mental Health Problems from the Criminal Justice
System and Prison', currently being undertaken by Lord Bradley
and due to report to the Ministry of Justice and the Department
of Health in summer 2008.
3. Commitment initially
is for this scoping piece, as the data requirements, systems and
business processes are complex.
4. A longitudinal
cohort study of adult offenders on community orders with the final
report due for publication in summer 2015. The research will
identify characteristics and needs of offenders, interventions
and offender management received and associated outcomes. It
will link with the Unit Costs Study to allow the National Offender
Management Service to evaluate value for money of interventions
delivered to offenders on community orders.
Source: Ev 13
4. Reconviction rates were the best available measure
of reoffending, however, there were shortcomings in the data.
The most reliable data currently available on reconviction rates
came from the Ministry's cohort studies reported each year. The
studies took the first quarter's discharges from custodial or
community sentences of each year and then followed them up over
a two year period to identify whether offenders had been reconvicted
for any further offences. Actual reconviction rates were compared
with predicted rates to assess the effectiveness of interventions.
Assessing reconviction rates for only two years did not, however,
give a clear indication of whether an offender had stopped offending.
An individual may have been charged for an offence but not yet
have appeared in court, be awaiting sentencing, or have committed
an offence for which they have not yet been caught. Acknowledging
that there was no other measure of offending, the National Offender
Management Service confirmed that offenders were not recorded
as re-offending if they were caught, charged or convicted after
the two year period.[4]
5. The extent to which an offender can gain and retain
employment was a good measure of their progress towards rehabilitation.
Data collected by the National Probation Service showed that,
in 2006-07, 14,428 offenders (12% of those on community orders)
obtained work and remained in employment for over four weeks.
The National Probation Service could offer no explanation as to
why it collected data over such a short period, which was meaningless
as an indicator of sustained employment.[5]
6. The Ministry confirmed that the funding formula
used to allocate resources to local Probation Areas was based
on the historical demand for a different type of community sentence,
population size and local staff costs, rather than on the courts'
demand for probation services. The average number and type of
community order requirements varied by Area, as did the cost of
delivering selected order requirements (Figure 2). The
Ministry acknowledged that the current funding regime was inadequate
and was slow to respond to changes in demand. The Ministry agreed
that a more flexible system of allocating funding was needed,
which would allow resources to be moved between Areas. However,
the Ministry considered that a funding formula based entirely
on workload would create a perverse incentive for Probation Areas
to increase their caseload.[6]
Figure 2: The cost of delivering selected order requirements varied between regions
Notes: Costs based
on a cost per requirement derived through discussion with local
Area middle management divided by the number of offenders commencing
associated order requirement. They reflect the average cost in
each of the Areas visited. It was not possible to generate costs
for the lesser used community order requirements. Curfew estimated
costs do not include the contracted cost of tagging an offender
which is centrally funded.
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 23
2 Qq 19-23 Back
3
Q 1; Ev 13 Back
4
Qq 61-65 Back
5
Qq 72-76 Back
6
Qq 87-88 Back
|
