Probation services rated 'inadequate' by inspectors

Probation services in Nottinghamshire have been rated "inadequate" following visits by inspectors.

The Nottingham City Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) and the Nottinghamshire PDU were separately inspected by HM Inspectorate of Probation in March.

Both services were found to be understaffed with "urgent improvements needed", and a number of recommendations for change were put forward.

Martin Jones, chief inspector of probation, said both PDUs would be "undoubtedly disappointed", but he was confident improvements could be made.

The inspections were the first to take place of each service since PDUs were established under the unification of probation services in 2021.

In Nottingham, inspectors had "serious concerns" about the quality of work to keep people safe with "insufficient focus on public protection".

Mechanisms in place for sharing information with the police and children's services were too often ineffective, Mr Jones said.

The report said there were failures to identify all potential children at risk and that practitioners did not seek out information from necessary local authorities.

On one occasion, a practitioner made safeguarding inquiries in relation to a 31-year-old father who had received a suspended sentence for drug-related offences - but a response was not received for three months during which time the man's contact with his child was "not clearly assessed".

Despite a range of available services and efforts made to meet "diverse needs" of people on probation, the inspection found there were "worryingly low rates of referrals across almost all the services on offer".

The report made six recommendations to Nottingham PDU, including to improve the quality of work to assess, plan for, manage, and review risk of harm, and to ensure domestic abuse and safeguarding information was complete and sufficiently analysed in all cases.

Inspectors found the Nottinghamshire PDU was understaffed despite there being positive team morale and a "healthy culture".

Workloads were also sometimes unmanageable with staff covering for sickness or vacant posts, inspectors said.

"Staff were also struggling with the impact of large-scale, time-pressured changes to process which meant they were often fatigued or overwhelmed," the report said.

Similarly to the city's unit, the quality of work to keep people safe was found to be "insufficient".

Work to reduce reoffending was low in most cases that were looked at during the inspection and flagged in the report as a weakness for the unit.

The report added that less than half of the people that needed it received sufficient help with alcohol and drug misuse.

Nottinghamshire PDU, which has contact centres in Nottingham, Worksop, Mansfield and Newark, received five recommendations for improvements.

This included requests to ensure facilities to interview people on probation were safe and private, and to devise and implement arrangements for monitoring and improving the quality of sentence management work delivered by practitioners.

A statement from Mr Jones said: "Given the improving resourcing picture at Nottingham City and the strong staff culture at Nottinghamshire, there are some potential building blocks for success in each PDU.

"With an increased focus on the quality of service delivery and work to protect the public, I am confident improvements can be made."

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