Our approach for inspecting Probation Services includes inspecting every Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) in a region, followed by an overarching regional inspection. This involves four aspects:
Regional organisational arrangements and delivery (domain one)
In this domain, we focus on leadership and staffing. Before we inspect the region, we look at any submitted evidence, and evidence about staffing from all the PDU inspections. We identify any gaps or areas that need clarification. When we conduct the fieldwork, we hold meetings and focus groups where further evidence can be gathered, allowing us to triangulate evidence and information.
Regional service delivery (domain two)
Regional domain two standards cover desistance, public protection, resettlement, unpaid work, court work and victim work. Evidence for the standards for desistance, public protection, resettlement and court work comes from aggregated PDU data. Case inspection during the regional fieldwork looks at the quality of practice in unpaid work and statutory victim contact cases, in cases identified before the fieldwork. Meetings and focus groups during the fieldwork explore the reasons for the ratings derived from aggregate PDU data.
PDU organisational arrangements and delivery (domain one)
In this domain we focus on leadership, staffing and services. Before we inspect the PDU, we look at any submitted evidence, identifying gaps or areas that need clarification. When we conduct the fieldwork, we hold meetings and focus groups where further evidence can be gathered, allowing us to triangulate evidence and information.
PDU service delivery (domain two)
Before we conduct the fieldwork, we identify a cohort of cases using specific criteria. When on site we look at those selected cases and assess the quality of practice. In relevant cases, we also look at the quality of the pre-sentence report and pre-release work done by the community offender manager; data from those elements of service delivery contributes to the regional rating.