Earlier this month, our senior team discussed the impact that HM Inspectorate of Probation’s reports may have on the services we inspect and on national debates about probation and youth justice policy. So, it was good to see that the Justice Select Committee’s recent report on the future of the probation service drawing on no less than nine of our recent inspection and research reports. I was particularly pleased to see the Inspectorate’s recent research on probation caseloads (PDF, 751 kB) was used to recommend, to the Ministry of Justice, that individual probation practitioner’s caseloads should not exceed 50.

We’ve also seen our joint thematic with HMICFRS on Integrated Offender Management, published in February 2020, contribute to a revived government interest in this approach to managing the most prolific neighbourhood criminals, with a new IOM strategy published in December 2020, accompanied by £5m of additional funding for Regional Probation Directors. And last year’s thematic report on accommodation for people on probation had real impact too – including helping the Ministry of Justice attract an additional £20 million to ensure prisoners leaving custody in five regions have up to three months accommodation after release in 2021/2022. Ministry of Justice action plans in response to all of our reports, including to our most recent thematic on racial equality in probation, can be found on the  Gov.UK website.

Our local probation and YOT inspections have also had a significant impact. Though a rating of ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires Improvement’ may be an initial shock to a service, we often find this can help service managers push for additional resources or force them to confront long-standing structural issues. Where we determine a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ rating, we often find other services beating a path to their door to see what they can learn. There is no doubt that we gain from this experience, too; our effective practice guides and academic research are enriched by this raw material. But it doesn’t stop there – we want to make even more of an impact – we’ve recently started tracking whether our recommendations to probation services are acted on. In our most recent tranche of 10 probation reports, ‘some’ or ‘sufficient’ progress had been made on 78% of our previous recommendations.

I recognise that not all our impact is necessarily seen as positive. The process of inspection can itself be stressful for service managers and staff.  Dr Jake Philips, from Sheffield Hallam University interviewed a number of probation staff in 2019/2020 as part of a British Academy funded research project. He found that often the build-up to the inspection was more stressful than the fieldwork interviews themselves, with probation officers saying they were having to ‘anxiety manage’ their own management team and huge amounts of (perhaps unnecessary) preparation happening. Though for practical reasons, completely unannounced inspections aren’t possible, I am keen to see what we can do to reduce the stress our work can cause.

Elsewhere in HM Inspectorate of Probation, April has been a busy month. It’s been good to be able to restart our usual local YOT inspection programme in Brighton and Hove; Wigan and North Tyneside and to launch the fieldwork for two important thematics on mental health services for people going through the criminal justice system (jointly with all the other criminal justice inspectorates) and on the quality of support offered to black and mixed heritage boys on YOT caseloads in nine different areas (with fieldwork, so far, in Manchester, Lewisham and Nottingham). We’ve also run a consultation on our future inspection and research priorities (PDF, 273 kB) – thanks to everyone who responded.