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Parole Board welcomes findings in NAO report

PAROLE BOARD FOR ENGLAND AND WALES News Release (PR/03/2008) issued by The Government News Network on 5 March 2008

The Parole Board has welcomed the findings of the National Audit Office report "Protecting the public: the work of the Parole Board", published today (5 March 2008), looking at the work of the Board and its partners in the criminal justice system.

Christine Glenn, Chief Executive of the Parole Board said:

"I welcome the findings of the NAO report and am very pleased that it acknowledges the efforts we have made during the past year to improve our performance in handling our workload. I accept that there is still more to do in terms of reducing delays within the system and we are working with our partner agencies to raise standards across the board.

"I am pleased that the report highlights the quality of our new member training and mentoring programmes, as well as the written guidance we provide for members. The report also acknowledges the important work of our Review Committee in providing rigorous feedback for members in cases of serious further offending and identifying wider learning points.

"At the heart of our role is public safety and we retain our objective of making risk assessments which are rigorous, fair and timely, with the primary aim of protecting the public."

Quality and timeliness of information
The Board has also been concerned for some time about the timeliness and quality of the information on which it has to base its decisions and also about the rate of deferrals in some cases. The Board is dependent upon its partner agencies to provide timely and accurate information, but it must also make sure that it manages cases effectively itself and keeps its partners fully informed about the information that it requires.

That is why the Board introduced its intensive case management process in September 2007, to make sure that panel members had the right information available to them at the right time to progress cases in a timely and robust manner. All oral hearings cases are now being sifted under the ICM process and instructions issued well in advance to make sure that the right information and witnesses will be available on the scheduled date of the hearing.

The Board has raised the issue of timeliness and quality of dossiers at senior levels within NOMS on a number of occasions. We are also undertaking a programme of meetings with and visits to key partners to build on their support for our efforts and to work on any obstacles that remain. We welcome the recommendation by the NAO that the Ministry of Justice should introduce a target which covers the entire process of providing information and holding hearings for indeterminate prisoners.

Falling release rate
There is no single identifiable change in policy or practice that can readily explain the falling release rate for all types of offenders seen in 2006/07. However, the following factors are likely to have contributed to the trend:

* Increased rigour applied to the review of cases of serious further offending through the work of the Board's Review Committee.

* An increased determination to obtain all crucial information in a case before making a decision and deferring the panel if necessary to achieve this.

* Comments made by the then Home Secretary, John Reid, at the Board's Annual Lecture in the February to May 2006 period.

* The acceleration of a trend seen in recent years of a more cautious approach by panels to recommending release.

* The change in the nature of the cases referred to the Board, resulting in an increased proportion of more serious cases in the caseload.

Workload and budget
The Board was left with a significant budget shortfall in 2006/07 as a result of our original budget bid being scaled down by the Home Office and our workload increasing by 31% over the year. This resulted in the Board having to put a temporary halt to some casework as an emergency measure before our original budget was restored.

Our budget for the current financial year was increased to cover this additional workload and we have not so far found ourselves in a similar position of shortfall. However, we are concerned that accurate workload forecasts are produced for next year to ensure that our budget bid for 2008/09 is adequate.

Notes to Editors

A full copy of the National Audit Office report "Protecting the public: the work of the Parole Board" (HC 239 Session 2007-2008) is available on the NAO website at http://www.nao.org.uk

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.

ENDS