July 20, 2004: Probation's new Annual Report 2003/04

The National Probation Service (NPS) for England and Wales has just published its Annual Report for 2003/04. Key points include:  

A total of 13,136 offenders completed accredited programmes in 2003/04 (double the number in 2002/03).

 The number of Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) increased from 6,000 to 9,000.

More than 50% fewer of those given a new order or licence dropped out of programmes in 2003/04 than in 2001/02. Reasons for dropout in 2003/04 were familiar; the most commonly stated reason was breach of order or licence revoked.

The national standard for victim contact work is that probation should offer face-to-face contact between the victim and a member of the probation service (or their agent) within 8 weeks of the offender being sentenced. The NPS target is to make initial contact within that timescale in 85% of eligible cases. This was exceeded in 2003/04 when 91% was achieved.

The year has seen greater use of electronic monitoring for both adult and juvenile offenders. The use of the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) to allow early release from custody has increased, with the maximum period on HDC extended from three months to four and a half months.

The electronic monitoring of a curfew is now part of the Intensive Control and Change Programme (ICCP), for 18 to 20 year olds which was introduced in April 2003 and which will be expanded to more areas of England and Wales.

Alongside ICCP, provision was made for a combination of community punishment and electronically monitored curfews for those with lower criminogenic needs than those in receipt of ICCP.

The year 2003/04 has seen major advances in the use of Offender Assessment System (OASys), the risk and needs assessment system for adult offenders developed jointly by probation and prisons. A year ago, most probation areas were using a paper version of OASys. All areas are now live on e-OASys. Electronic OASys allows information to be shared across an area. With the electronic system has come a greatly enhanced ability to evaluate data from all 42 probation areas. The electronic input of OASys information has permitted a much more sophisticated and timely analysis of probation work.