Service Review - Terms of Reference

Transcription

1 Service Review - Terms of Reference Approved Premises Commissioning and Partnerships Directorate Performance and Improvement Directorate

2 Summary The review of Approved Premises services will be conducted by a Specialists Group, reporting to the Commissioned Services Task Force. The membership of the group is given in Annex A. The review will be completed by October 2007 and will produce the following outputs:- Date Output Recipient 30 June 2007 Report identifying the key components that need to be covered in the service specification for Approved Premises and the scope of evidence to be collated and reviewed 31 August 2007 Report summarising and interrogating evidence on need, capacity, costs and financing, staffing, regime and performance management 30 September 2007 Options and recommendations paper, setting out draft service specification and preferred commissioning model 31 October 2007 Final proposals for implementation Joint Chairs to agree the outline specification and evidence gathering stage Joint Chairs to endorse the analysis Commissioned Services Task Force to consult NOMS CEO, executives and other key stakeholders Commissioned Services Task Force to present to NOMS Board for approval 2 P a g e

3 Introduction The legislative basis for, and purpose of, Approved Premises Under the provisions of Section 9 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, Approved Premises (known prior to the Act as Probation and Bail Hostels) are primarily intended for: o Defendants on bail in criminal proceedings o Offenders serving community sentences with a condition of residence o Offenders on post-custodial licence with a condition of residence The Approved Premises and High Risk Offender Accommodation Strategy was published, with Ministerial endorsement, in September The Strategy stipulated that the Approved Premises Estate should be utilised primarily as a public protection resource, providing accommodation and enhanced supervision for offenders assessed as posing a significant risk of harm to the public. The Strategy endorsed an existing, long-term trend toward the use of the estate for high risk offenders, notably those released on licence from custodial sentences. The rationale for using the Approved Premises Estate in this manner is: o That Approved Premises provide a range of controls and offender management measures not available in other community facilities; these include curfew, 24/7 staffing, CCTV, monitoring of residents movements and behaviour, room searches, drug testing, strong links to MAPPA and robust enforcement arrangements including immediate recall to prison o That the enhanced levels of supervision and oversight provided by Approved Premises are most appropriately targeted at offenders who pose a significant risk of harm to the public o That dispersing high risk offenders in other types of housing (for example, rented accommodation or bed and breakfast establishments) would be less effective, more costly and potentially more dangerous for the public The Service Review is predicated on continuing Ministerial support for this strategic purpose. The Approved Premises Strategy has been endorsed by subsequent Home Secretaries and by the current lead NOMS Minister in the MoJ. The Service Review is tasked to review how best to deliver the Approved Premises Strategy and the Estate s public protection remit. It will also examine the full potential role of Approved Premises beyond the current strategic priorities, should additional capacity/resource become available. The review will consider what services are to be commissioned and how. 3 P a g e

4 The Approved Premises Estate There are 104 Approved Premises in England and Wales, spread across 37 of the 42 Probation Areas. Of the 104, 100 comprise what might be termed the mainstream estate, 3 (the Prospects Premises) are designed specifically for drug-misusing offenders and 1 (the Westgate Premises in Wakefield) is used exclusively for year olds released from youth custody. The Service Review is primarily concerned with the 100 premises in the mainstream estate, but will take into account lessons learned from both Prospects and the Wakefield premises. The Prospects Premises are funded and managed separately as a pilot operating as a rolling 3 year project. The Wakefield premises, whilst funded through core grant, is also constituted as a pilot with a ringfenced budget for 4 years. Thus, the main focus of the review needs to be on the bulk of the estate where, it is assumed, new commissioning arrangements will come into force in April Within the mainstream estate there are 7 female-only premises; the vast majority of the rest are male-only; a few mixed sex premises remain, though these are in the process of being converted to single sex usage in line with the national strategy, agreed with Ministers. Of the 100 Approved Premises that make up the mainstream estate, 88 are managed by local Probation Boards and 12 by a range of voluntary sector providers. There are approximately 2,200 bed spaces in the mainstream estate. There is significant under-capacity in the Estate, especially for high risk of harm male offenders. On the other hand, there are too many beds in female only Approved Premises for the number of high risk of harm female offenders who are suitable to be placed in Approved Premises. Attempts over recent years to develop new sites have fallen foul of local opposition at the planning stage. If the under-capacity is to be rectified it will require strong Ministerial leadership and collaborative endeavour across relevant Government departments, as well as a significant injection of funding. Currently, the grant funding for Approved Premises is determined using a complex formula that has been in existence since the 1990s. The formula applies to both the board- and voluntary-managed premises. In the time since the formula was introduced, the profile of the resident group has changed considerably, with a much higher proportion being offenders posing a significant risk of harm to the public, who were previously housed elsewhere in the community, often close to vulnerable families. In order to meet the challenges posed by that offender group, there have been changes to the staff establishment in Approved Premises, notably the introduction of double waking night cover and a greater emphasis on staff trained in work with high risk offenders. It is recognised that the funding formula may not have kept pace with these changes. For the purposes of this review, we need to determine more accurately the actual cost of running Approved Premises dedicated to the management of high risk offenders. 4 P a g e

5 The Service Review Process Conducting the review The Approved Premises Service Review will be undertaken in accordance with the standard NOMS approach to all the reviews of major services being commissioned. It will be conducted by a Specialists Group (see Annex A for proposed membership). The Specialists Group (SG) will:- o agree the plan and schedule with the Task Force o undertake the Service Review o utilise available sources for evidence and identify issues for investigation o access and receive relevant research and evidence o examine trends and projections in performance, needs and demands o evaluate options and produce recommendations The review will test the services against six criteria:- Need 1. The service brief and specifications meet priority needs 2. There is strong demand for the service Effectiveness 3. The service specifications work well 4. The service outcomes are highly successful Efficiency 5. The service meets need and demand efficiently 6. The specifications support innovation and value for money For the purposes of the Service Review, the key stakeholders/customers for Approved Premises services will be defined as: o The Parole Board o Sentencers o Offender Managers o Offenders o Providers (including Probation Boards and VCS) o Commissioners The Service Review Plan and Schedule The Service Review will be conducted in three stages: Stage One Scoping the territory (June 2007) An initial workshop will be held at which the Specialists Group will work collaboratively to define what the key components of the Approved Premises service specification should be. 5 P a g e

6 Stage Two Gathering evidence and evaluating current arrangements (Jul-Aug 2007) Evidence will be adduced to demonstrate the flexibility of the current arrangements facilitated through national management of Approved Premises, whereby offenders may be placed in Approved Premises out of area, the significance of that flexibility for public protection, and how that flexibility is delivered under current arrangements. Evidence will be collated to provide a national summary, using available data, of existing attempts at regional collaboration and engagement, and an in depth scrutiny of a sample of individual Approved Premises on: o The existing and projected need for Approved Premises provision o The shortfall, if any, between need and capacity, current and projected o The profile of the current resident group and expected trends o The range of regimes and interventions currently in operation and their relationship to offender needs and risks o The range of staffing arrangements presently in place o The costs of running Approved Premises as presently configured o The relationship between grant funding and costs o The fitness for purpose or otherwise of the existing performance framework Stage Three Defining options and making recommendations (Sept-Oct 2007) The Specialists Group will set out the options for commissioning and will make recommendations for the preferred service specifications and commissioning model. The final paper to the Task Force will need to include recommendations dealing, inter alia, with: o How and by whom Approved Premises should be commissioned o How and by whom national policy will be formulated and implemented o How the preferred commissioning arrangements will safeguard the flexibility needed to place offenders, where appropriate, out of Area and out of Region o How and by whom premises will be regulated and inspected for approval, quality assurance and closure o How and by whom decisions will be made about capacity building o How and by whom the performance framework will be determined o The preferred options and costs of different staffing arrangements o The preferred options and costs of different regime designs o How VfM and efficiency savings should be secured o How public protection considerations are fully addressed o What issues affect the existing arrangements with providers, including voluntary-managed premises and female premises, and how they should be resolved o Whether there would be merit in sponsoring a regional Approved Premises demonstration project of the kind already mooted in the East of England 6 P a g e

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8 Annex A Approved Premises Specialists Group Membership Gordon Davison (Joint Chair) NOMS Public Protection Unit Nicola Lowit (Joint Chair) Trevor Williams Liz Hill Alex Anderson Helen Dawson Kay Wood Elaine O Connor Elizabeth Hayes Joe Woods Mike Short Denise White Peter Rogers Iain McIntosh Danny Clark Randel Barrows Mike Tennant NOMS Commissioning and Contestability Programme Regional Offender Manager, East of Eng Regional Offender Manager, NW Eng NOMS Commissioners Support Bureau NOMS Commercial and Competitions Unit NOMS Finance Unit NOMS Estates Planning and Development Unit NOMS Interventions and Substance Abuse Unit NOMS Offender Assessment and Management Unit National Association of Probation and Bail Hostels National Probation Service, Derbyshire National Probation Service, Sussex Probation Area Coordination Unit NOMS Interventions and Substance Abuse Unit NOMS Commissioning and Contestability Programme Unit NOMS Public Protection Unit With technical support from:- Bill Mather NOMS Commissioning and Contestability Programme 8 P a g e