Written evidence from the Revolving Doors
Agency (PB 62)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
— Many
offenders have multiple and complex support needs including poor
mental health, drug and/or alcohol problems, homelessness or unstable
housing, poverty and debt, and poor family relationships.
— Probation
services should be commissioned to identify and respond holistically
to this range of need. This should involve a wide range of partner
agencies.
— Probation
commissioners should work with agencies from other sectors to
identify shared priorities and targets and pool resources in order
to address these needs.
— Involving
service users in the design and delivery of services can be beneficial
to both service provider and service user, but is underdeveloped
in criminal justice services. This should be explored by probation
services.
— In
many areas, services to address this range of needs already exist
but offenders, especially those with multiple needs, find them
hard to access. Multi-agency partnership working is essential
in addressing this issue.
— Partnership
working with these agencies can help probation services save resources
and work more effectively with people with multiple needs.
— A move
away from short sentences will result in more offenders with multiple
needs being worked with in the community. This will require probation
services to improve their understanding of multiple needs, expertise
in responding to this group, and partnership working.
ABOUT REVOLVING
DOORS AGENCY
Revolving Doors
is a charity working across England
to change systems and improve services for people with multiple
problems including poor mental health who are in repeat contact
with the criminal justice system.
The problems they face often include poverty, mental
health difficulties, substance use and homelessness. These problems
interact so people end up living chaotic lives of crisis and crime.
The problems they then cause impact on us all. We call them the
revolving doors group.
We base our work on 16 years of research, service
development and service user involvement which has given us a
strong evidence base of the unique challenges faced by people
with multiple problems. Our three areas of work are policy and
research; service user involvement; and partnerships and development.
Our vision is that by 2,025 there is an end to the
revolving door of crisis and crime, when anyone facing multiple
problems and poor mental health is supported to reach their potential,
with fewer victims and safer communities as a result.
INTRODUCTION
Revolving Doors welcomes this inquiry into the role
of probation services by the Justice Select Committee. We particularly
welcome the examination of the probation service's capacity to
cope with the move away from short custodial sentences, and the
recognition of the need for different approaches for different
groups.
Members of our service user forum provided verbal
evidence to the Committee on 12 October.
CONSULTATION RESPONSE
Are probation services currently commissioned
in the most appropriate way?
Experiences of members of our service user forum
have shown that probation services are often unable to respond
appropriately to people with multiple needs:
"when I got out of prison I was basically homeless.
Probation didn't help me trying to find a place … I was released
with a £47 giro. I had nowhere to go. I went to probation,
said "I'm homeless" and they said, "There's nothing
we can do for you". … Every week I go to probation,
it's every two weeks now. I get seen for five minutes and none
of my problems actually get resolved."
"Well you go there and all they ask you is are
you alright? Well that's all they ask me, " Are you alright,
how you doing?" They didn't reassess any of my offending
behaviour. … I don't think they knew what to do "cos
my crime was linked to my mental health so I think they found
that hard to understand; and I didn't feel comfortable talking
to him anyway."
(Quotes from "Multiple needs": Service
users' perspectives)[1]
In order to address this, we argue that any probation
service commissioning arrangements should consider the following
three principles:
1. Focus on addressing offenders' multiple needs
Many offenders, particularly those serving repeat
sentences, have multiple and complex support needs, including
poor mental health, drug and/or alcohol problems, unstable housing
or homelessness, debt, and relationship problems. These needs
exacerbate each other and make it more difficult for the person
to access the help they need.
Addressing the full range of these needs is vital
in order to effectively tackle the root causes of offending and
consequently in efforts to reduce reoffending.
Probation, as a law enforcement agency, cannot address
these needs in isolation. If the service is to be more effective
in reducing reoffending, commissioners should recognise this wide
range of needs and work with a corresponding range of commissioners
and providers to address them. This should include health, substance
misuse, social care, education and learning, criminal justice,
and housing agencies.
Both children's and adult services should be involved
in recognition of the specific challenges faced by young people
making the transition from children's to adult services. (See
Revolving Doors' guide to commissioning services for young adults
with multiple needs[2]
for more details)
2. Facilitate multi-agency working through identifying
shared priorities and targets and sharing resources
The multiple needs of many offenders mean they are
often in contact with a range of services. In some cases, this
results in service duplication. In others, no one agency takes
overall responsibility and the offender's needs remain unaddressed.
Working towards shared targets is likely to be of
benefit to all, with improvements in one area influencing improvements
elsewhere. Shared targets are also essential in maintaining commitment
to joint working.
CASE STUDY:
DEPAUL UK OLDHAM
Depaul UK's project in Oldham, Porter Street, was
developed in recognition of a gap in provision for young people
with multiple needs. The project provides supported accommodation
in a purpose built unit for up to eight young people between the
ages of 16 and 23 years with complex needs. Responding to the
residents' needs requires a high level of support including some
double cover; thus the costs are relatively high.
A foundation of well established partnership working,
led by the local authority and including Youth Offending Teams,
Supporting People, the Primary Care Trust and substance misuse
services enabled unmet needs to be identified and a shared understanding
of possible future options developed. The project is jointly funded
by the above agencies.
The commissioning objective was to provide more specialist
support for young people, which would ultimately enable them to
maintain their own tenancies and live as independently as possible.
More specifically the service aims to support young people with
offending behaviour, mental health problems and substance misuse.
There is an explicit understanding between the agencies involved
that a multiagency approach is the only way to deliver the core
objectives for young people with multiple needs.
Through identifying patterns of service use by offenders,
commissioners can identify where duplication is taking place,
and hence where budgets could be aligned. Funds from multiple
sources can be joined together effectively to work towards shared
priorities and targets.
Evidence around cost savings to local and national
budgets can be useful here in backing up decisions to pool or
align budgets.
Through our national development work[3]
we have identified the following elements as necessary for targeting
and addressing the needs of this group:
— Local
leaders who take responsibility for multiple needs and act as
champions to find solutions.
— A local
strategic steering group bringing together relevant agencies.
— Joint
commissioning or partnership working.
— A lead
professional who can support the client to access the range of
services they need.
— Breaking
down barriers between services.
— Information
sharing.
— Evaluation
and monitoring of outcomes.
— Service
user involvement.
CASE STUDY:
MILTON KEYNES
LINK WORKER
+ SERVICE
The Milton Keynes Link Worker+ project is a partnership
between Milton Keynes Community Safety Partnership, charity P3
and Revolving Doors Agency. Probation are represented on the steering
group and refer to the service.
The scheme focuses on people who are in crisis because
of a combination of mental health needs, accommodation problems,
substance misuse, offending or anti-social behaviour. It facilitates
the engagement of clients with services which can maintain their
long term well-being. Link workers support clients who have traditionally
struggled to engage with services to access appropriate support.
The project works closely with the police, probation and other
partners in the city.
3. Involve service users
Service user involvement is under-developed in criminal
justice, not least due to the conflict between punishment and
empowerment. However, we are keen to emphasise its importance
and benefits. Involving service users in the design and delivery
of services is beneficial for both the service user and service
provider and is an essential step in ensuring services are genuinely
focused and effective.
Probation services have much to learn from other
sectors such as health and voluntary agencies where involving
service users has become more embedded.
What role should the private and voluntary sectors
play in the delivery of probation services?
As outlined above, offenders frequently have multiple
and complex needs, and hence require support from a range of services.
Our development work[4]
has demonstrated that the services that people with multiple problems
need already exist but they are unable to access them or receive
a poor service from them.
Often, what is required is a reshaping of existing
services or pathways to better engage people with multiple problems
in contact with the criminal justice system. Voluntary, private
and public sector services should all be included in this approach,
which may be cost neutral or require only small amounts of funding.
Many of our development projects have focused on
this kind of reshaping. Often they have involved an individual
or organisation taking a lead in navigating people with multiple
problems to services that can support them.
CASE STUDY:
NAVIGATOR PROJECT,
WATFORD
The Navigator Project in Watford is exploring how
the police can better respond to people with mental health problems
and other issues such as homelessness or substance use when they
are arrested using volunteer navigators from a local voluntary
organisation to offer support and guidance on services available
in the community
Multi-agency partnership working has been essential
in our development work. The success of many of our projects is
predicated on the inclusion of a steering group drawn from a range
of local heath, social care and criminal justice agencies. Local
leaders in health, social care and criminal justice contribute
to the convening of partnership groups, make resources available
and are able to make the case for the mainstreaming of services
after the pilot period. Much of the success of projects is attributable
to their leadership and willingness to innovate.
We learned that the success of the projects was to
a large degree attributable to local ownership and consensus;
in other words, to the "permission" given by several
commissioners and organisations to projects operating according
to a more flexible and responsive set of rules.
Does the probation service have the capacity to
cope with a move away from short custodial sentences?
Those who are currently sentenced to short custodial
sentences typically suffer multiple social disadvantages. This
is demonstrated by the 2009 report Health Needs Assessment
of Short Sentence Prisoners.[5]
This found that short sentenced prisoners "are likely to:
have truanted from school; half are unemployed and possess no
formal qualifications; 15% were homeless or in temporary accommodation;
nearly all used illegal drugs in the 12 months prior to a sentence
and 40% were problem drinkers".
A move away from short sentences is unlikely to be
matched by a change in this profile of need. Those who are currently
seen in prison will instead be under probation supervision. While
the probation service already has some degree of expertise in
responding to this complexity of need, the move away from short
sentences would need to be accompanied by increased understanding
and capacity for working in multi-agency partnerships.
In order to respond effectively to these offenders,
probation services will need to take a holistic multi-agency approach
to address a range of needs. They will need to improve partnership
working with other agencies that can help address a range of needs
(public, private and voluntary). As outlined above, these agencies
may already provide services that could help address offending
related needs, but those with multiple problems may have trouble
accessing them. Joint working is required to explore the reasons
behind this and break down barriers.
It is essential that criminal justice reforms recognise
that women face specific challenges. They are often more likely
to breach community sentences and the consequences of imprisonment
can have more severe effects especially on children. The importance
of gender-specific sentences is outlined in The Community order
and Suspended Sentence Order for Women.[6]
Does the probation service handle different groups
of offenders appropriately, eg women, young adults, black and
minority ethnic people, and high and medium risk offenders?
Young adults are disproportionately represented in
the criminal justice system and have needs and characteristics,
which are different from those of the general adult population.
The probation service and criminal justice system more widely
often fails to recognise the need for a distinct approach. Revolving
Doors is a member of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance and
refers the Justice Select Committee to the response to the Alliance
for further details on this.
October 2010
1 Braithwaite T and members of Revolving Doors Agency's
service user forum, "Multiple Needs": Service users'
perspectives, Revolving Doors Agency, September 2009 http://www.revolving-doors.org.uk/documents/multiple-needs-su-perspectives/ Back
2
Revolving Doors Agency, Towards a Shared Future, Revolving
Doors Agency, 2010, http://www.revolving-doors.org.uk/documents/towards-a-shared-future/ Back
3
See http://www.revolving-doors.org.uk/partnerships--development/programmes/ndp/
for more details. Back
4
See http://www.revolving-doors.org.uk/partnerships--development/programmes/ndp/
for more details. Back
5
Brooker C, Fox C, Callinan C, Health Needs Assessment of Short
Sentence Prisoners, University of Lincoln, December 2008,
http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/cjmh/HNA%20Short-Sentences%20FV.pdf Back
6
Patel, S and Stanley, S The Community order and Suspended Sentence
Order for Women, CCJS, May 2008. Back
| 
