Parole Board For England And Wales
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Parole Board publishes annual report and accounts for 2009/10

Parole Board publishes annual report and accounts for 2009/10

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 19 July 2010

The Parole Board today published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2009/10, reporting on its performance against business plan targets, statistics for determinate sentence and indeterminate sentence prisoners and accounts for the year. The report records the work carried out by the Board last year to maintain its high standards of risk assessment during a year in which it faced the twin challenges of a growing backlog of cases and uncertainty over its future.

tatistics

The key statistics for 2009/10 are:

24,204
The number of cases considered during the year. This compared with 28,596 in 2008/09, down by 15%. This fall in total cases is due to fewer determinate sentence and recall cases being referred to the Board. However, the number of resource intensive three member indeterminate sentence oral hearings rose by 20%.

2,974
The number of oral hearings that took place during the year. This compared with 2,757 in 2008/09, up by 8%. This continues the rising trend in the number of such hearings. Lifer cases dropped from 1,272 in 2008/09 to 1,170 this year, but IPP cases rose from 556 in 2008/09 to 1,022.

2,202
The number of determinate sentence cases considered by paper panels during the year. This compared with 4,012 in 2008/09, down by 45%. The number of DCRs continues to fall significantly as these sentences are phased out under the 2003 Criminal Justice Act. There was a fall in EPP and deport cases.

13,423
The number of recall cases considered during the year. This compared with 17,184 in 2008/09, down 22%. However, the number of single member oral hearings and sift cases to consider representations against recall rose by 47% during the year from 1,086 to 1,598.
18%
The percentage of DCR cases where parole was granted. This is down from the 24% release rate in 2008/09. The number of DCR cases considered by the Board has fallen by half for the second year running and only the most serious cases, on longer fixed sentences, remain in the system.

50
The number of determinate sentence prisoners recalled from parole during the year following an allegation of a further offence. This figure has fallen from 97 in 2008/09. Out of an average of 1,263 such prisoners on parole during the year this is a recall rate of 4%, which is stable compared to the recall rate for further offences for 2008/09, which was also 4%.

11%
The percentage of life sentence cases considered by oral hearing where life licence was granted. This has fallen from the lifer release rate of 15% in 2008/09. The release rate for IPP prisoners is only 5%, down from 8% in 2008/09.

90
The number of prisoners on life licence who were recalled during the year for any reason. This is out of a total of 1,797 life sentence prisoners under active supervision in the community during the year, or 5%. This is a fall on the figure for 2008/09 of 89 recalls from life licence out of 1,646 prisoners in the community, or 5.4%.

Performance

Our headline performance against business plan targets for 2009/10 is as follows:

During 2009/10 only 21% of dossiers were provided to the Board on time, making it impossible for us to meet our target of issuing 80% of ICM directions or no decisions by week 12 of the generic parole process.

Because of the backlog of oral hearing cases the Board has had to introduce a listing prioritisation framework which requires us to hear the oldest cases first. This has meant that it is also impossible for us to meet our target of setting a hearing date by week 8 of the GPP in 90% of cases where directions are complete.

Our performance in determining cases within the scheduled calendar month of the GPP was better due to our timely hearing of paper reviews. However, our performance on oral hearing reviews, where we are affected by the listing prioritisation framework and a lack of judicial members, meant that we missed the 80% target, determining only 32% of cases on time.

We performed best of all in the one target that was solely a Parole Board action, issuing 95% of determinations within 14 days of the hearing. We narrowly missed this target, achieving an 86% success rate. However, this was a very creditable performance considering that we held a record number of oral hearings this year.

Commenting on the report, Parole Board Chairman, the Rt Hon Sir David Latham, said:

“During the past year we have faced the challenge of a continuing rise in our oral hearings caseload along with a critical shortage of members, and in particular judicial members, to hear those cases.

“The coming year also promises to be a challenging one as we work to reduce the backlog of outstanding oral hearings cases and at the same time manage changes that may result from the public consultation by Ministers on our future status.

“No matter where our future landing place lies, the Board will continue to focus on maintaining the highest standards of case management and decision making as part of our core mission of working with others to protect the public.”

Parole Board Chief Executive, Linda Lennon CBE, added:

“The resources required to keep up with the workload of the Board continued to increase during the year, with the switch away from less labour intensive paper hearings towards much more resource intensive oral hearings gathering pace.

“We are continuing to see an ever increasing number of oral hearings, driven by the expanding population of indeterminate sentence prisoners. This year has seen a record number of such hearings.

“Reducing the outstanding case backlog and the delays experienced by prisoners will continue to be my top operational priority over the coming year.”

Accounts

The Board’s sponsor is the Access to Justice Group of the Ministry of Justice. The Board’s only source of income is grant-in-aid which is provided by the Ministry of Justice. This was £9.8 million for 2009/10 (of which £8.97 million was actually used) which was an increase of £1.5 million (15%) on 2008/09.

The estimated unit costs (excluding notional costs) to the Board for processing each category of case are as follows:


2008/09 2009/10
Paper hearing – DCR and EPP cases £390 per case £433 per case
Oral hearings – 3 member panels for the hearing of lifer, IPP and ESP cases £1,764 per case £1,959 per case
Intensive case management £296 per case £344 per case
Oral hearings – single member panels for the hearing of representations
against recall for determinate sentence prisoners
£705 per case £538 per case
Recalls under the CJ Act 2003 and the CJ&I Act 2008 £60 per case £49 per case


If you can not see the table please go to:

http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=414534&NewsAreaID=2&ClientID=179

The cost of three member oral hearings has increased as a greater proportion of hearings now use a clinician and fees for retired judges have increased. The cost of the DCR panels has increased as these panels now deal with 18 cases - previously 24 - due to the increased complexity of these dossiers. The decrease in the cost of single member oral hearing panels for representations against recalls was due to the increase in the number of cases that failed to show adequate grounds for appeal.

Notes to Editors

The Parole Board is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide whether they can safely be released into the community.

The Parole Board Annual Report and Accounts 2009/10 have been formally laid before Parliament today. Copies of the Report can be downloaded in PDF format from www.paroleboard.gov.uk

For further information please call Tim Morris, Head of Communications, on 020-7217 0564 during office hours, or 07725-927954 out of hours, or e-mail tim.morris5@paroleboard.gsi.gov.uk

Contacts:

News Distribution Service NDS
Phone: 020 7261 8997
Fax: 020 7928 5696
nds@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Tim Morris
Phone: 020 7217 0564
Mobile: 07725 927954
Tim.Morris5@paroleboard.gsi.gov.uk

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