In this month's edition...
The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) convened a meeting of its Special Interest Group on Covid-19 in August. This was attended by officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to discuss regime reform, the Stage 1 Framework and structured on wing activity. The notes from this meeting will be published on the Clinks website in due course.
The RR3 also convened its quarterly meeting on 7th September. This was attended by officials from the MoJ and HMPPS, who discussed the upcoming prisons white paper and Richard Oldfield’s independent review of the Dynamic Framework. The group also discussed future priorities, including future meetings focussing on commissioning and race. The notes from this meeting will be published on the Clinks website in due course.
Clinks has launched the Stronger voice training programme, bringing together a range of expert training providers across policy, campaigns and communications to support organisations of all sizes to influence decision makers. This programme is being delivered as part of Clinks’ three-year Stronger voice project, funded by the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, aimed at helping the voluntary sector working in criminal justice to develop a unified and influential voice, at both a national and regional level. Read more here.
We’d like to welcome Spencer Bundschuh, who has joined as the Health and Justice Policy and Development Officer and has started this week. He will join our policy team to support Clinks’ influencing work to represent and advocate for the voluntary sector in criminal justice.
Regional reducing reoffending plans Following the unification of the Probation Service in June, each of the 12 Regional Probation Directors (RPDs) has published a Regional Reducing Reoffending Plan, which sets out how they will work with partner organisations to cut crime and make communities safer by reducing reoffending. RPDs bring together direct delivery of sentence management, unpaid work and interventions with significant regional commissioning budgets for rehabilitative services. The plans, which will be renewed annually, allow RPDs to highlight specific priorities and ambitions for their individual regions. They also reflect and align with the broader HMPPS approach to reducing reoffending - strengthening supervision, engaging people in rehabilitative activity and improving the support they receive to resettle in the community.
Discharge Grant The rules and guidance for prison staff on what to do when a prisoner is discharged from prison has been updated. This instruction has been updated to introduce changes to the name and amount of Discharge Grant eligible prisoners receive on release from custody. The Discharge Grant will be renamed the Subsistence Payment and the amount will change to £76 to reflect increases in the UK’s Consumer Prices Index (CPI). The Subsistence Payment will increase year on year until 2024/25 in line with the CPI and the PSI will be revised each year to show the new amount.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) call for evidence The EHRC has launched a call for evidence on its strategic plan for 2022-2025. The EHRC wants to hear from stakeholders, relevant organisations and people interested in its work in England, Scotland and Wales. A draft strategic plan in both English and Welsh, alongside an easy read version and British Sign Language summary, can be found on the EHRC website. Consultation priorities include: upholding rights and equality in health and social care; fairness for children and young people (includes specific reference to youth justice settings); and upholding an effective framework for protecting equality and human rights. The closing date is 30th September.
Guidance for Parole Board Members on Young Adult Prisoners The Parole Board has published guidance for its members on factors to take into consideration when reviewing cases of young adults aged between 18 and 21. The guidance provides practical advice to parole board members to help ensure procedural fairness for this cohort, who are seen by the MoJ as still in the process of maturing and who are often vulnerable, and therefore deserve particular attention during the parole process. The guidance has benefitted from submissions by the Howard League for Penal Reform; the Youth Justice Board; and advice from the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A), an initiative of the Barrow Cadbury Trust which supports research into young adults and of which Clinks is a member.
Clinks Publications
A growing catalogue of evidence We are delighted to announce four new additions to our online evidence library. The online evidence library, curated by Russell Webster on behalf of Clinks, is designed to support voluntary organisations working in the criminal justice system with access to the most up-to-date evidence about a range of different activities and interventions. We have published four new reviews on the topics of peer mentoring in the criminal justice system, the needs of people serving long life sentences from a young age, engaging people with convictions, and working with Class A drug users in contact with the criminal justice system. These reviews are written by leading academics with a specialism in the area they are reviewing, are concise, and purposefully written in non-academic language.
Families
Get it off your Chest This report from POPS has provided a platform for families with a loved one in custody to express the difficulties and challenges they have faced during the Covid-19 regime restrictions. The report focusses on the impact on visits, the challenges and benefits of secure video visits, communication, concerns for physical and mental health, the impact on those in prison with children, the financial effects, and the impact on release. POPS hopes that family members reading this will feel their voices have been heard and amplified, and that those professionally employed across the criminal justice system and beyond will take note of the impact this crisis has had on prisoners and their families and act accordingly to address the concerns raised in this report.
Youth Justice
Supporting children’s meaningful participation in the youth justice system Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) has released its latest academic insights paper, focussing on children’s participation in decision-making in the youth justice system. The paper provides an overview of the benefits and challenges of developing and enabling participatory approaches in youth justice systems, and concludes with a ‘How to Guide’ for co-creating children’s meaningful participation in the development of youth justice service provision and practice. This includes various difficulties in engaging justice involved children, such as their previous traumatic life experiences, and provides useful advice in how to alleviate them, such as participative ownership.
Health
Traumatic Brain Injury Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) has released an academic insights paper focussing on traumatic brain injuries. This finds that there is substantial evidence that people with traumatic brain injuries are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, and the risk of poor outcomes can be compounded by factors including low socio-economic status, other neurodevelopment problems, and substance misuse. The authors argue earlier intervention and diversion must be the goal for the future management of traumatic brain injuries, including public health approaches to the ‘causes of the causes’ of crime, and a focus on school exclusions.
A joint thematic inspection of community-based drug treatment and recovery work with people on probation Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) partnered with the Care Quality Commission to examine how probation services are supporting those who misuse substances. Inspectors found that too few people on probation receive help to tackle drugs misuse, and when referrals are made, the quality of services is often not good enough. The report also found funding for treatment has dramatically reduced, key information was missing, not captured properly or used to inform the commissioning of services. Overall, six out of 10 magistrates surveyed said they were not confident probation was delivering the necessary treatment. HMIP has made 14 recommendations in its report to improve the quality of supervision including more drug rehabilitation court orders, greater use of testing, and increased funding for treatment.
Government consultations
Government consultations and Human Rights Initial research by the British Institute of Human Rights into UK government consultations suggests that there are several problems with how they are conducted, meaning they do not meet human rights standards for policy-making (including accountability, empowerment and non-discrimination). The BIHR's Government Consultations project plans to produce a report on the current situation and a framework for improvement, as well as a human rights matrix that will be a tool for campaigners to check whether government consultations are compliant with human rights. You can inform this report by sharing your experiences of participating in government consultations through one of their September workshops or their easy read online survey.
The voluntary sector
Respond, recover, reset: the voluntary sector and COVID-19. NCVO has published the latest in a series of reports exploring the impact of Covid-19 on the voluntary sector. The report examines the experience of voluntary organisations in July 2021, with data drawn from almost 350 survey respondents. It highlights how charities are using technology in new ways to change how they work and deliver services in the context of the Covid-19. It also suggests a mixed financial picture for charities, as 27% of respondents saw their finances deteriorate but 26% saw their finances improve. The further lifting of Covid-19 restrictions was evident too, with 57% of respondents reporting that they had an increase in demand for services. The research was conducted alongside Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University.
Charity Commission concludes compliance case involving The Runnymede Trust. The Charity Commission opened a case in April 2021 after receiving complaints about the activity of the Runneymede Trust, including its response to the report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities and whether it was engaging in lawful political activity. The Commission says that it was within the charity’s purposes to engage with and take a position on the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities and has found no breach of its guidance.
An independent review of the probation Dynamic Framework. Richard Oldfield was commissioned in January 2021 by then Minister for Prisons and Probation, Lucy Frazer QC MP to undertake an independent review of the Dynamic Framework. In this blog, he discusses his review and its recommendations: that there should be a large-scale adoption of grants as the funding mechanism for some of the services; simplification of contracts; and a system which obliges large entities to include more specialised smaller organisations in their bids. We welcome this review, which echoes many of the issues we’ve consistently raised and recommendations we’ve made. We are pleased to see in Director General of Probation Amy Rees’ response that HM Prison and Probation Service is looking at how it can make grants the presumptive choice of funding mechanism where commissioning intentions meet specific criteria.
Grant funding to improve prison leavers’ outcomes In this blog, London Development Officer Tiegan Mercer outlines details of the Local Leadership and Integration Fund (LLIF) – a Ministry of Justice grant funding scheme to support the development of locally-led pilots to improve outcomes for prison leavers – worth £7.1 million. The competition for the second round of funding is due to open in early September. Tiegan gives details on the aims of the programme, application criteria and what the timelines are. The LLIF recognises the problems facing prison leavers are often location specific and allows local organisations to design interventions that are relevant to their local community and improve the join up and integration of services.
Neurodiversity in the criminal justice system. This blog by Policy Officer Noorjehan Piperdy explores the review of neurodiversity in the criminal justice system, published by the Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorates, alongside two service user reports published by KeyRing and User Voice. The blog highlights the key issues from the reports, including lack of data and screening, and explores how the findings can lead to better outcomes for people with neurodivergent conditions in contact with the criminal justice system. Clinks welcomes this review and the proactive steps the inspectorates have made to engage with voluntary organisations and the people they work with who have neurodivergent conditions. We are engaging with the Ministry of Justice to ensure voluntary organisations can act as strategic partners as they respond to the report’s recommendations.
Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (CSTR) As a member of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance, Clinks undertook focus groups and interviews with service users and voluntary sector practitioners to understand their views on CSTR. Third in a series of blogs on the CSTR, this blog by Clinks and Nacro focuses on the Northamptonshire site. The blog series looks at how they became a CSTR site, what the teams have learnt, and how service users benefit from this change. Previous blogs have looked at Plymouth and Essex which can be found on the Clinks website.
Inside Track NCVO has published its latest Inside Track blog that provides up update on activity in Westminster that might impact charities. This includes the Charities Bill, which has now had its second reading in the House of Lords; the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (which Clinks had signed an open letter opposing various elements); and the Elections Bill.
Leadership matters in prisons The Chief Inspector for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) has published a blog outlining the role of leadership in prisons. He references new self-assessment reports which were developed as part of HMIPs consultation and will be expected to see completed during prison inspections. He hopes that by focusing more on the quality of leadership and creating a body of evidence of good practice, they will help the prison service, governors and their teams improve prisons even further.
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Written monthly by...
Clinks' Policy Officers Franklin Barrington and Noorjehan Piperdy
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