February was a busy month for all our teams. It’s been particularly good to be able to restart our core local probation inspections – albeit by video link – with a focus on the South West, where both Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire (BGSW) CRC and the NPS South West region have been receiving virtual […]
Published: 01 March 2021
The publication of a joint report by the four criminal justice inspectorates on the impact of Covid-19 on the criminal justice system certainly created a splash, with extensive coverage of our shared concern about the rapid increase in court backlogs since the first lockdown last year. Listening to the personal stories of rape and domestic […]
Published: 01 February 2021
Inspectorates – and HM Inspectorate of Probation is no exception – are often better known for the criticisms they make than for the positive things they say. Our negative reports inevitably gain more news coverage than the services we judge ‘Outstanding’ and I’ve yet to be invited on to the Today programme to talk about […]
Published: 05 January 2021
It was good to see that our call (and that of many others) for extra resources for the probation service (PDF, 146 kB), was at least partially answered in the Spending Review announcement at the end of November. Although the settlement was only for next financial year, the additional investment in probation running costs this […]
Published: 01 December 2020
Last week we published our latest HM Inspectorate of Probation Corporate Plan (PDF, 1 MB) setting out our key objectives for the next three years. The COVID-19 pandemic has radically affected the way we undertake inspections and the balance between local inspection activity and national thematic work, but our underlying priorities remain the same: Clear […]
Published: 02 November 2020
With government departments submitting their Spending Review bids for the next three to four years to the Treasury, it seemed a good time for the Inspectorate to be offering its own take on probation funding and its impact. Here’s our representation to the Spending Review. We point to the impact of years of underfunding and […]
Published: 01 October 2020
One of my first priorities as Chief Inspector has been to increase the role and voice of people under probation and YOT supervision in our inspections. September marks the first anniversary of the publication of our Service User Engagement Strategy, published shortly after I joined the Inspectorate, which sets out our commitment to involve service […]
Published: 01 September 2020
Although we are still not able to do onsite visits to probation or youth offending services, July has nevertheless been a busy month for inspections – all being done remotely through various video conferencing platforms. Fieldwork has just finished on our thematic inspection of the impact of COVID-19 on the probation service in England and […]
Published: 03 August 2020
COVID-19 has changed all our working and family lives in profound ways over the last three months. For HM Inspectorate of Probation, it has meant the suspension of our normal inspection activity since 23 March and a radical shift in the focus of our inspections for the remainder of this year. Given the huge impact […]
Published: 01 July 2020
