I agree with the emerging consensus that there is a need to act on the ongoing, troubling legacy of the IPP (imprisonment for public protection) sentence and welcome the proposed amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill which seek to remedy some of the concerns about its impact. Our 2023 thematic inspection on the recall of IPP […]
Published: 03 May 2024
After five months as interim Chief Inspector of Probation, tomorrow I will step down and hand over the reins to the new Chief, Martin Jones. On this, my last working day, it is inevitable that I have a period of reflection and look back at what we have done during my tenure. The five months […]
Published: 29 February 2024
I took over as interim Chief Inspector on 01 October 2023 so am coming to the end of my third month in the role. I wanted to share some of the things I have done since I started and set out a brief summary of what we have achieved in the last quarter of 2023. […]
Published: 20 December 2023
At the end of September, I will be stepping down as Chief Inspector of Probation after more than four years in the role. It’s been a huge privilege to hold this post and to work with such a great and committed team of inspectors and headquarters staff – but also to get to know so […]
Published: 21 September 2023
When I became Chief Inspector four years ago, I said that one of my early priorities was to establish if there was a link between effective probation supervision and real-life outcomes for people on probation. Our underlying assumption had always been that there is a golden thread that links great leadership and good services in […]
Published: 30 August 2023
After a January dominated by our reports on what has been going wrong with probation practice, February provided a welcome opportunity to focus on what has been going right with local youth offending services. In a presentation to Westminster Legal Policy Forum event, I was able to celebrate the ratings we have given to these […]
Published: 17 March 2023
Our independent serious further offence (SFO) reviews of Jordan McSweeney and the review of Damien Bendall, in the past couple of weeks, were deeply concerning. In the run up to publication, I had the chance to meet with the relatives of both Terri Harris and Zara Aleena and brief them on our findings, which was […]
Published: 02 February 2023
It was good to finish 2022 with some more positive news from our local probation inspections. Our inspection of two Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) in the Probation Service – North East region found “green shoots of hope”, with stable workforces, reasonable workloads, a positive and engaged staff culture and strong, visible and accessible leadership of […]
Published: 11 January 2023
It was good to be able to offer some reflections on the relationship between probation and the voluntary sector in a speech to the Clinks 2022 Annual Conference (PDF, 115 kB) this month. Given that the origins of the service, over a century ago, lie in the charitable sector and the early efforts of ‘court […]
Published: 25 November 2022
Our first inspection results for London Probation Service continued the worrying trend of the past year, with each of the three PDU reports we published on 18 October rated as ‘Inadequate’ and inadequate ratings for all of our case quality standards. We were particularly concerned about Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham PDU, where we […]
Published: 28 October 2022
