Supplementary written evidence from the
West Yorkshire Probation Trust (PB 65)
What follows is a brief submission on behalf of the
West Yorkshire Probation Trust in response to the Select Committee's
request for supplementary evidence.
INTRODUCTION
The submissions relate to the freedoms from bureaucratic
control that would assist Probation Trusts to manage offenders
and reduce reoffending more effectively, and with greater economies
at a time of reducing public sector budgets.
PTRS—PROBATION
TRUSTS RATING
SYSTEM
PTRS, like the IPPF which preceded it, is made up
of a number of targets divided across four domains: public protection,
offender management, interventions, and organisational capability.
The majority of the targets relate to timeliness, volumes or other
tick boxes. Very few bear a relationship to reducing reoffending,
which in any event is measured separately. Even the domain heading
public protection is a misnomer, as the targets within that domain
only have a loose connection with protecting the public from serious
offenders.
This therefore is an example which the collection
of data has become and end in itself, which is only tenuously
connected with what the public or government might reasonably
expect from the probation service.
The answer must be to have fewer targets and this
needs to be outcome focussed.
NATIONAL STANDARDS
The probation service is still currently working
to the 2007 national standards. These impose a raft of mainly
timeliness targets which vary according to the tiering (risk)
the offender is deemed to pose. For example, a tier 2 offender
(relatively low risk) must be seen by their offender manager within
five working days of sentence. They must be seen weekly for the
first four weeks, then fortnightly for the next 12 weeks etc.
They must have an OASys assessment at commencement, then every
four months, again if there is a significant change to risk factors
(this is sensible), and finally at termination.
If this rigidity were replaced with the use of professional
discretion and judgement there would be a substantial saving in
resources and the public would be better served as there would
be more face to face work with the offenders.
THE CONTRACT
All Trusts were obliged to sign a standard contract
with almost no meaningful opportunity for negotiation. This makes
all national standard requirements, all PTRS targets and quite
a few extras into mandatory contract requirements. In West Yorkshire
we have recently requested that we should be permitted to do OASys
assessments on low tier (ie low risk) cases every six months,
instead of every four. Our regional Director of Offender Management
agrees that this is an entirely sensible resource saving. We have,
however, so far (three months after the request) not yet been
given permission by NOMS to make the change.
AUDIT
Probation Trusts are relatively small organisations.
Even the larger ones generally have budgets of less then £40
million. Yet the audit requirements placed upon them are out of
all proportion to the size of the value that could be gleaned
from this form of assurance activity.
SONNEX RETURNS
This arose from a horrific murder case in 1 Trust
area. Nevertheless, ever since every Trust has had to provide
a monthly return on how many cases in each tier are supervised
by POs and how many by PSOs. Also, how many high risk of harm
cases are supervised by POs or by PSOs. This has now been continuing
for almost two years and so far there has never been any feedback
from those collecting the statistics. It appears to be a meaningless
exercise.
DELEGATED POWERS
These are a misnomer. Very little is delegated and
comparatively small payments require approval from NOMS or sometimes
even the Treasury. For example, in order to settle an Employment
Tribunal claim, the Trust Chief Executive is given a delegation
of only £3K (almost useless), the Regional Director of Offender
Management was given a delegation of only £30K (a bit more
useful). Everything else needs approval from central NOMS. This
involves not only the submission of legal advice (the assumption
seems to be that Trusts would not know to take legal advice without
the system) but also the preparation of business cases in the
correct format, and while approval is nearly always forthcoming,
the time and bureaucracy creates an industry in itself.
It should also be noted that curiously the delegations
are not given to Trusts. They are given to the Trust Chief Executive.
This is presumably because those charged with writing the delegated
powers document have not appreciated that Trusts are corporate
legal entities in their own right, and are not part of the civil
service structure for which it would be appropriate to give a
delegation to a particular individual in the departmental hierarchy.
January 2011
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