This is a guest post by the Chief Executive of the Parole Board, Cecilia French.
Developments
It has nearly been 6 months since I joined the Parole Board as the new Chief Executive last October. It has been a busy period as different parts of the Victims & Prisoners Act were implemented, the wider criminal justice system grappled with a rising prison population and at the Parole Board we worked with our key partners to continue improving the parole system by making fair, transparent and timely decisions on whether prisoners can be safely released into the community. I wanted to take the opportunity to set out some of the recent developments since our last update in September.
Victims & Prisoners Act
The Victims and Prisoners Act came into force late last year and brought about some changes to the way that we do our work:
One of the measures is that the Act codified the ‘public protection test’ to be applied when Parole Board panels are considering whether to direct a prisoner’s release. This came into effect from February 3rd 2025. The wording of this test now includes an explicit statement that there must be no more than a minimal risk of the prisoner committing a further offence which would cause serious harm. The Act also set out the factors that panels must take into account when making a decision.
This codified in law what was already the practice of Parole Board members. The core part of the test is still what it has always been, which is whether it is necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner remains in prison. There is no presumption in favour of release for any case and public protection is the overriding consideration. Our release rate has remained consistent with around 1 in 4 of our decisions being a direction for release.
IPPs
I am determined that the Parole Board will play our part in resolving the ongoing issues arising from those sentenced to an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence (IPP) as we recognise that many IPP prisoners feel a loss of hope with their situation. We welcome the changes contained in the Victim & Prisoners Act for those serving the IPP sentence who are eligible to have their licence terminated.
The first of these was initiated on 1 November 2024, when 1,742 IPPs had their licences automatically terminated, without the requirement for a Parole Board assessment. This applied to those who were first released from custody at least five years ago.
The second phase began on 1st February, with eligible IPP prisoners now being automatically referred to the Parole Board for a review to decide whether it would be safe to terminate their licence after three years of their initial release into the community; this period having reduced from ten years. There is also now a statutory presumption that the licence will be terminated, although the Parole Board will direct that the licence stays in force if it believes that continued supervision is required for the protection of the public.
These measures will retain the centrality of public protection in our decisions and streamline the system for those on IPP sentences eligible to have their licence terminated. Since the beginning of February 2025, we have made nearly 300 decisions on IPP licence terminations, with almost 150 terminations agreed and the average timescale for making these decisions is just over two weeks.
Looking ahead
Looking ahead to next month, we will be rolling out the arrangements to enable victims to observe parole hearings anywhere in England and Wales. I will set out further details about that and how we will ensure that victims have better access to the parole system as well as appropriate information about parole proceedings, in another blog.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
