'Significant shortfalls' in public protection found in West Midlands probation service
The HM Inspectorate of Probation has made recommendations
Public protection measures have been reviewed across the West Midlands region of the Probation Service, by the HM Inspectorate of Probation.
84 cases were inspected where assessment, planning, implementation, delivery and reviewing were examined.
'Not yet meeting the required standard'
Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “Despite strong leadership commitment and clear strategic priorities to improve public protection, the delivery of work to keep people safe was not yet meeting the required standard.
"Staff understood its importance however, worryingly, this was not reflected consistently in the quality of assessment, planning, and delivery.”
The findings...
- Regional leaders had placed public protection at the centre of delivery plans and staff survey responses confirmed strong awareness of public protection as a priority. However, findings revealed significant shortfalls in practice, with effective work to keep people safe being evident in less than half of the assignments inspected (49 per cent).
- Staffing challenges were less acute than in other areas of the country, although resourcing remained a challenge for the region with rural areas such as Herefordshire having acute recruitment difficulties which resulted in high workloads.
- Managers were not consistently identifying practice deficits and opportunities to protect the public were missed. In 49 out of 80 cases where management oversight should have been present due to the level of risk within the case or staff inexperience, oversight was ineffective or absent.
- Staff operated in a complex safeguarding landscape, with underdeveloped access to, and analysis of, information to safeguard children. Information to support effective child protection was available in less than two-thirds of relevant cases, and, where present, was sufficiently analysed in only 31 out of 62 assessments.
- At the time of inspection, national measures to manage capacity in the custodial estate were causing significant operational pressures for probation service delivery and across partner agencies. These pressures were compounded by extensive organisational changes and complex national directives intended to create capacity, but which leaders and staff described as burdensome and difficult to implement.
'Significant challenges'
Mr Jones added: “Systemic barriers, including resourcing, organisational complexity and insufficient multi-agency communication remained significant challenges for the West Midlands region to overcome.
"Strengthening the skills and improving the confidence of practitioners will be essential in ensuring the region can consistently meet its public protection responsibilities.”
Recommendations...
The report has made 7 recommendation in total. Four of them refer to the West Midlands specifically. They include: developing practitioners’ confidence and skills in the use of professional curiosity.
As well as using challenging conversations to identify, analyse, assess, plan, and respond to indicators of risk effectively.
The other three recommendations are for the HM Prison and Probation Service. They include: developing a national strategic approach to information sharing with police and children services.