The National Probation Service (NPS) in Derbyshire, responsible for supervising higher-risk offenders, was working well to protect the public, and to rehabilitate people who had committed crimes. However, medium- and low-risk offenders were being managed less well by the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and public safety was not being given enough attention, said Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation. Today she published the report of a recent inspection of probation work in Derbyshire.

The inspection looked at the quality of probation work carried out by the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and National Probation Service (NPS) and assessed the effectiveness of work undertaken locally with people who have offended.

The quality of the work carried out by the NPS was generally good, building on a strong legacy of high performance and a focus on public protection. It was generally effective in managing the risks offenders posed to the public and in helping people to turn their lives around.

Despite some ambitious and innovative plans for how services would operate, the quality across the spectrum of the CRC’s work was mixed, significantly lower than that formerly seen in the probation trust, and in some respects poor. It had been hampered by staff preoccupied with managing change, rather than supervising offenders. Purposeful rehabilitation work was seen in too few cases and inspectors did not find evidence that public protection work was being prioritised.

CRC practitioners with very high caseloads were working without the anticipated software, administrative arrangements, management oversight and quality assurance likely to improve the quality of the work.

Inspectors made recommendations which included the CRC giving staff the facilities, resources and workloads needed to deliver services using their new operating model, and the National Offender Management Service making sure that they didn’t unnecessarily hold up the CRC’s new systems.

Dame Glenys Stacey said:

“The CRC has ambitious plans for an effective and modern probation service, to make a difference to people’s life chances and reduce re-offending. I welcome that, of course, but implementation of the planned changes has been troublesome and slow, and meanwhile standards have slipped. Leaders do need to focus on delivering good quality services today as well as improving tomorrow. The public can be reassured however that the National Probation Service in Derbyshire is managing high-risk offenders well.”

– ENDS –

Notes to editors:

1. The report is available at www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation from 21 September 2016.
2. Since the introduction of Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) in June 2014, HM Inspectorate of Probation has reported on its implementation and produced the last of five Transforming Rehabilitation reports in May 2016. In April 2016, a new programme of regular inspection of adult probation services, known as Quality & Impact inspection, began. Derbyshire is the third area to be inspected in that programme.
3. The former Derbyshire Probation Trust was last inspected in June 2010 when services were generally being delivered well and the trust compared exceptionally well with others HMI Probation had inspected. Since then, probation services had undergone significant changes as a result of the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme. In June 2014, Probation Trusts were abolished and probation work was divided between two separate organisations. The NPS primarily took over the management of offenders posing a high risk of serious harm to others and those subject to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA). The NPS also had responsibility for staffing the courts, including writing pre-sentence reports and for victim contact work. The rest of the probation work was allocated to 21 newly created CRCs. In February 2015, the CRCs were sold to private companies.
4. The report looks at probation services delivered in Derby city and the county of Derbyshire by the NPS Midlands division and the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Rutland CRC (DNLR CRC). The CRC is wholly owned by the Reducing Reoffending Partnership (RRP), itself made up of three organisations: Ingeus (a private company) and two charities, St Giles’ Trust and Change, Grow, Live (CGL). RRP also owns the Staffordshire and West Midlands CRC.
5. For further information please contact Jane Parsons at HMI Probation press office on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452.