What to do about probation?

We have heard a lot about prison overcrowding over recent weeks, not least because of the Howard League’s own efforts, but there is overcrowding in probation too. And that matters, because the probation service is going to be asked to do more in the future.

Shabana Mahmood has made a welcome commitment to recruit 1,000 more trainee probation officers but as she acknowledged in Parliament, this is not new investment but a redeployment of resources. Probation will need that new investment and one place where the money could be found is in the budget currently earmarked to build new prisons. We shall see if the Ministry of Justice is able to follow the logic of its own announcements in the coming months.

In the meantime, what does probation reform look like? The Howard League is clear that the probation service should be delivered within a localised structure and with independence from the prison service. See, for example, the evidence we gave to the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee inquiry into community sentencing.

Such a restructuring will take time, however. What could ministers do right now to address concerns around probation caseloads and ensure, as we have said, that probation is equipped to be the ‘ultimate guarantor of public safety’? Here is one idea.

The probation service currently seconds a significant number of qualified and experienced probation officers to prisons. At the time of the last joint inspection in 2022, it amounted to 135 senior probation officers and 626 probation officers (although the targets for recruitment amounted to 206 senior probation officers and 797 probation officers).

Readers might be questioning why there are hundreds of probation officers working in prisons. They would not be wrong. The joint inspection into the reasons why, the Offender Management in Custody’ (OMiC) model, found that it was “simply not working”. Inspectors found shortfalls in public protection work, information sharing, and relationship building between prison staff, probation workers and prisoners. They went on to remark:

Despite transfer of almost 800 probation officers to POM [‘prison offender manager’] roles in prisons, we found very little added value from these posts. They had little direct contact with prisoners and were not clear about their roles and responsibilities under the OMiC model. Handovers to COMs [‘community offender managers’] were often of poor quality and little work was completed to prepare prisoners to work with COMs for their resettlement. We found little contact by POMs with prisoners, to work with and complete sentence planning with them.

When something is simply not working, it is time to try something else. The government should redeploy those probation officers working in prisons within the community. Work to prepare people for release from prison can be done just as effectively, if not more so, beyond the prison gates.

There may be resistance from within HMPPS and from those probation officers seconded to working in prisons. It is, as one former chief probation officer has remarked, a simple case of “the pressures in the prison probation officer role not matching those of the community probation officers. There is absolutely no chance of a ‘prison offender manager’ being caught up as the responsible supervising officer in a Serious Further Offence review.”

That shouldn’t stop the Ministry of Justice grasping the nettle, to reiterate our current mantra, and making the change. To deploy so many probation officers in prison when community workloads are so high is just irresponsible.

Andrew Neilson

Comments

• Edd Flynn says:

  23 Jul 2024 at 10:32 am

  This is an interesting take. As an OMiC Senior Probation Officer, I can hardly be distinguished as being impartial to the above, however, I can certainly provide a ‘front-of-house’ view. The concerns I have with this proposal:

  1. Many COM’s are overstretched to such an extent that they are unable to prioritise their custodial cases. Therefore, many POM’s go above and beyond the OMiC model to make up for the shortfalls from community teams. If OMiC is dissolved, there will be tens of thousands of prisoners who may feel neglected.

  2. OMiC staff retention is generally healthy – transfer POM’s into the community against their will, then they will simply leave the service. Alas, we will have staffing issues in both the community and custody.

  3. Due to community staffing levels, OMiC has never had the opportunity to launch as intended. The sensible thing to do would be to wait for the conclusion of the acute recruitment drive and then assess the shortfalls of OMiC.

  In contrast, my view is that OMiC has the capacity to work effectively with the following proposals:

  1. POM/COM handover date is pushed from 8.5 months prior to release, to 3 months before release. This will allow the COM more breathing space to prioritise community cases, and will put the onus on OMiC/resettlement teams to complete Approved Premises referrals/ generic accommodation referrals.

  2. Parole reports, in my view, are the wrong way round. As drawn on above, POM’s generally spend more time with cases as they are more accessible – so they know them best. Parole reports should be led by the POM, with the COM providing an RMP to effectively manage said prisoner should they be released.

  Reply
• Jonathon Howard says:

  23 Jul 2024 at 9:56 am

  Andrew. I agree and would suggest a further clarification of the role of OMU, POM and COM as experience suggests that there is much confusion over who does what and particularly when it comes to the continuum of sentence planning – preparation for release – post-release supervision. OMU and POM can be the same person but have limited planning/discussion/hand-off with COM. COM personnel changes are frequent. So yes, leave the OMU to focus on sentence planning and pull the POM and COM roles together outside the prison to prep the individual for what comes next and then support them through it. That’s a much simpler system. And the continuity of an individual POM/COM probation officer building a relationship through planning for release whilst an individual is inside and supporting that same individual post-release could provide enormous benefits to all. Even if there is a handoff to a specialist community PO a month after release, having the continuity from the POM/COM ensures a simpler and, logic would suggest, more effective transition.

  Reply