MINISTRY OF JUSTICE
News Release (112/07) issued by The Government News Network on 19
September 2007
A joint inspection
assessing the arrangements for starting Community Orders
A mixed picture of how community penalties are started emerges
from a joint HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of
Court Administration report, published today.
The two Inspectorates undertook a short focused inspection
earlier this year to check that systems for recording and
transmitting court results speedily and accurately to the
Probation Service were working effectively. They did this by
tracking a sample of 212 cases from a number of courts and
probation areas.
Andrew Bridges, Chief Inspector of Probation, who led the
inspection alongside Eddie Bloomfield, Chief Inspector of Court
Administration, said:
"It is easy to assume that the apparently simple task of the
Court passing a sentence and communicating the necessary
information to the Probation Service to action that sentence must
unfailingly happen without difficulty on every occasion. But, as
we learned with the fiasco over foreign prisoners in 2005, it is
not always safe to make such assumptions with apparently simple
processes: many offenders commit offences, and are subsequently
convicted, in areas away from their own locality, or they change
address during the course of the Court process, and such
complications can present potential pitfalls to an
'apparently simple process'.
The inspection found that generally the system worked well, with
Courts and Probation taking their respective responsibilities for
ensuring that results were transmitted accurately. Community
Orders started on time even in some of the tricky cases, although
there were local variations in how this was achieved. It was
evident that front-line operational staff often rightly took the
initiative in developing solutions in response to identified
problems. However, despite this, in a small minority of cases the
Order was either not started at all, or not started with the
completely correct requirements. Although the percentages involved
were small, this is not acceptable in terms of public confidence.
Accordingly we have made recommendations for the fine tuning of
current arrangements."
The report also found:
* The accuracy of orders proved to be an issue in some courts.
The implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 appeared to
have caused some confusion amongst court staff particularly when a
supervision requirement had been imposed. In some orders
supervision appeared to have been assumed rather than stipulated.
Both agencies reported that this had already been identified as a
problem and that improvements had been made following our
inspection visit.
* Good back-up systems had been put in place
in some areas with the help of courts through the provision of
extra information. In some areas the lack of suitable
accommodation for probation within the court building made the job
of probation staff significantly more difficult.
* The
inspection found that systems for the prompt provision of court
results and initial management of the community sentence were in
place in both courts and probation areas and that most of the time
the systems worked satisfactorily. However in four out of 212
cases the order was not started.
The recommendations from the report are as follows:
Recommendations
That Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS) should ensure that
* the software that produces results can generate suspended
sentence orders
* orders are always clear and accurate
* clear systems are established for the dispatch of orders to the
relevant outside probation areas
* staff are aware of the courts' responsibility to make
certain that probation receive notification of results on the day
that sentence is passed
That the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) should
ensure that
* probation records are always cross checked with court orders so
that sentences are accurately implemented
* examples of good practice in court work are disseminated to
probation areas
That HMCS and NOMS should ensure that
* key staff from both agencies at an area level undertake joint
initiatives to establish better communication and improved
information sharing
Notes to Editors
1. HMCS was created in April 2005, by amalgamating the 42
magistrates' courts' committees of England & Wales
and the Court Service. At the time of the inspection the
magistrates' and Crown Courts did not have a single system
for the transfer of information to probation areas. They were also
currently utilising several different computer systems. The
systems used by the magistrates' courts included MCS, Equis
(legacy systems) and Libra. Libra, the new HMCS computer system,
was gradually being rolled out across England and Wales. All of
the Crown Courts were using the new Xhibit computer system, an
external facing information provision tool, in addition to the
existing Crown Court Crest system which tracked case progress.
2. The report "Getting Orders Started" A joint
inspection assessing the arrangements for starting Community
Orders is available on the HMI Probation website http://www.inspectorates.justice.gov.uk/hmiprobation.
Media copies only are available from the Ministry of Justice press
office. The report is also available on HM Inspectorate of Court
Administration website http://www.hmica.gov.uk.
Independent inspection of probation and youth offending work