Parole Board For England And Wales
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Parole Board publishes Annual Report and Accounts for 2006/07
The Parole Board today published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2006/07, 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 considerable financial pressures and increases in workload.
Statistics
The key statistics for 2006/07 are:
* 25,436
The number of cases handled during the year. This
compared with 19,402 in 2005/06, up by more than 31%. This huge
increase in overall cases is largely down to an additional 5,373
recall cases. Resource intensive oral hearings have also risen by
an extra 605 cases.
* 2,505
The number of oral hearings that took place during
the year. This compared with 1,900 in 2005/06, up by over 31%.
This continues the steep rising trend in the number of such
hearings and includes the first 50 IPP cases, a category which is
set to grow rapidly over the next few years.
* 7,857
The number of determinate sentence cases considered
by paper panels during the year. This compared with 7,528 in
2005/06, up 4%. The number of DCR cases fell and will continue to
fall in coming years as these sentences are phased out under the
2003 Criminal Justice Act. However, there were 934 EPP cases,
which accounted for the small rise in cases considered by three
member panels.
* 14,669
The number of recall cases considered during the
year. This compared with 9,296 in 2005/06, up a staggering 58%.
This may be due to a more proactive recall policy being exercised
by the probation service for reasons other than further offences,
which actually fell for parolees during the year.
* 35.8%
The percentage of DCR cases where parole was granted.
Down from 49.4% in 2005/06 and the lowest release rate since
1996/97. The falling release rate appears to continue and
accelerate the trend in the last couple of years of a more
cautious approach by panels to recommending release.
* 246
The number of determinate sentence prisoners recalled
from parole during the year following an allegation of a further
offence. This fell by an encouraging 18% from 302 such recalls in
2005/06. This is out of an average of 4,285 such prisoners on
parole during the year or 5.7%, which compares to a recall
following allegation of further offending rate of 6.4% for 2005/06.
* 15%
The percentage of life sentence cases considered by
oral hearing where life licence was granted. Down from 23% in
2005/06 and the lowest release rate since 2001/02, when the
figures included extended sentence prisoners.
* 97
The number of prisoners on life licence who were
recalled during the year following allegations of further
offences. This is out of a total of 1,622 life sentence prisoners
under active supervision in the community during the year, or 6%.
This is a small rise on the figure for 2005/06 of 87 recalls for
further offending out of 1,495 prisoners in the community, or 5.8%.
Performance
A detailed report on the Board's performance
against business plan targets for 2006/07 shows that most targets
and strategic aims were met or exceeded. These include:
*
Considering 97% of parole applications within 25 workings days of
receipt against a target of 95%.
* Notifying recall decisions
within 2 working days of the panel in 100% of cases against a
target of 90%
* Holding 96% of oral hearings to consider
recall representations within 55 working days of being referred by
the Home Office against a target of 90%.
* Replying to 96% of
post-panel correspondence, including complaints from prisoners,
within 20 days against a target of 95%.
The areas where targets have not been met include:
*
Considering recall cases within 6 working days of receipt, which
was only achieved in 22% of cases against a target of 90%.
However, this did follow a 60% increase in the recall workload for
which the matching funding was delayed, so leading to a
backlog.
* Considering of deferred cases within 25 days from
re-referral letter, which was only achieved in 68% of cases
against a target of 95%. The number of deferrals having to be
considered increased significantly.
Another area of concern, although not a Business Plan target, was the number of life sentence prisoners whose oral hearings had to be deferred. This rose from 202 cases in 2005/06, or 17% of those considered, to 384 cases in 2006/07, or 27% of those considered. A sampling exercise carried out in April/May 2007 suggests that up to 80% of deferrals on the day of a hearing are because of incomplete reports provided to the Parole Board or the non-attendance of key witnesses.
Commenting on the report, Parole Board Chairman, Sir Duncan
Nichol, said:
"One of the key challenges facing us as a
Board will be how to respond effectively to the implications of
the new IPP sentences, especially where the tariff is a very short
one. We will also need to consider the profile of the Board's
membership and the way we do our work as we move towards an
increasingly oral hearing based system.
"Maintaining high quality risk assessment must remain our top priority and we have continued to focus on this with progressive plans for member development and accreditation. At the heart of our core responsibility is public safety and public protection and we retain our objective of making risk assessments which are rigorous, fair and timely, with the primary aim of protecting the public."
Parole Board Chief Executive, Christine Glenn added:
"At
the same time as our caseload has risen we have also faced the
beginnings of a transformation of the nature of our workload as
the changes brought in by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 have begun
to take effect. The nature of the Board has moved from being
primarily an executive body making administrative decisions on the
papers to being a court, making decisions in the cases of the most
dangerous offenders at an oral hearing.
"Amidst all this change we will need to stay focused on our performance in the coming year and ensure that the improvements in quality of decision-making and case management that we have seen recently are not lost. Continuing to deliver performance to the highest standards possible is the best way to safeguard what we have already achieved."
Quality agenda
The Board has continued to make high quality
risk assessment its top priority and during the year has sought to
maintain the quality of its work by:
* Introducing new
training programmes for its members along with the assessment and
accreditation of members for specific roles.
* Developing a
system of intensive case management that can fully support members
in their deliberations and can meet face-to-face with offenders
where this would assist in a robust risk assessment.
* Opening
the doors of our Review Committee to distinguished external
members and tightening up the deliberations of the Committee.
Victim issues
One chapter in the report is devoted to the
Board's increasing victim perspective, including the new NOMS
public protection advocates, training for Board members on victim
issues and work with victim's groups. The chapter features a
thought provoking contribution from Wendy Crompton, whose son was
the victim of murder and who has been working closely with the
Board in helping members to understand the perspective of victims
and their families.
Accounts
On 9 May 2007 the Board's sponsor changed from
the Home Office to the Ministry of Justice. The Board's only
source of income is grant-in-aid, provided by the Home Office
during 2006/07, and this was £6,640,825, for the year. This was an
increase of £880,825 (14.9%) on 2005/06 and this reflects the
implementation of the CJ Act 2003 and compliance with the House of
Lords judgement in the case of Smith & West.
The estimated unit costs (excluding notional costs) to the Board for processing each category of case are as follows:
2006/07 2005/06
Paper hearing - Determinate sentence £259 per case £251 per case
case (DCR)
Oral hearings - 3 member panels for £1,460 per case £1,667 per
the hearing of lifer and extended case
sentence prisoners (ESPs)
Oral hearings - single-member panels £1,132 per case £1,212 per
for the hearing of representations case
against recall for determinate sentence prisoners.
Recalls under the Criminal Justice £68 per case £69 per case
Act 2003
The increase in cost of DCR cases is due to the relatively small increase in volume and also the increased cost incurred in post panel work as fewer prisoners are granted parole. The fall in the cost of oral hearings and single member recall panels is due to the increased volume of cases over which overheads are absorbed. The comparatively high cost of the single-member recall panels for the hearing of representations against recall for determinate sentence prisoners reflects the fact that usually only one case is heard on a sitting day.
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 & Accounts 2006/07 have been formally laid before Parliament today. Copies of the Report can be downloaded in PDF format from http://www.paroleboard.gov.uk
