Key findings

The inspectorate is careful to set its (rather damning) findings in the context of the “difficult and damaging journey” that probation and its staff have been through over the last decade with an enforced privatisation which was then reversed with probation becoming a national organisation located within the Civil Service. The whole period has been characterised by change, disruption and chronic under-staffing.

Nevertheless, the headline finding makes for depressing reading:

“The implementation and delivery of services was deemed to be effectively supporting the safety of other people in just over one in three (35 per cent) of the cases examined.”

Areas for improvement

In their case commentaries, inspectors identified a number of areas where individual practice could be improved including:

• ensuring that essential enquiries with the police and other agencies about domestic abuse and child safeguarding are undertaken when necessary
• using professional curiosity and critical evaluation when reviewing information
• ensuring sufficient activity across the period of supervision
• utilising the interventions framework, making relevant and timely referrals to programmes and services
• bringing in multi-agency resources where relevant, including outside formal mechanisms
• ensuring that contingency planning is undertaken, including preparing for the end of supervision
• ensuring that cases benefit from management oversight and reflective practice supervision.

Recommendations

Building upon these findings, as well as the points highlighted in the wider literature, the following considerations are set out to help improve the quality of public protection work:

• increasing the analysis of critical information, with practitioners displaying professional curiosity and an analytical mindset
• adopting a ‘learning organisation’ approach, with leaders paying attention to equitable treatment and psychological safety, and practitioners benefitting from reflective practice supervision, team exercises, peer consultation, and professional mentors/trainers
• focusing on protective integration, balancing practice to manage risk with practice to enhance desistance, thus supporting longer-term change for people on probation
• strengthening the interventions’ evidence base, with a focus on continuous improvement and the embedding of best practice
• focusing on effective cooperative and collaborative multi-agency and partnership working, maximising the sharing of information and access to services
• supporting public health approaches to violence reduction, including the scaling up of effective approaches and interventions
• building a proficient, experienced and valued workforce, with a focus on induction and ongoing training and support, and in ensuring that policies and procedures are fully aligned (and streamlined where possible).

Conclusion

The inspectorate acknowledges that there is a need to be realistic about risk management, recognising that it is impossible to predict future human behaviour in every circumstance or to eliminate all risk. Nevertheless, it says that the public can reasonably expect probation professionals to be analytical and thorough, and to take all reasonable action to prevent offending and serious harm.

The inspectorate advocates that the:

“future bedrock of an effective Probation Service will be a fully staffed, well-resourced and well-led cohort of practitioners, all of whom are given the time and space to build secure and trusting relationships with those they are supervising, with their colleagues, and with professionals across agencies and sectors within their local areas.”

You can watch a video summary of the report below.