A thematic inspection looks at a specific area of work. Unlike our probation and youth justice inspections, where we may only visit one service, in a thematic we will visit several services to look at the same theme.
Some thematic work focuses just on probation work, some of it solely on youth justice work, and some on both.
Sometimes we do this with only our inspectors, but sometimes, we do this jointly with other inspectorates or criminal justice organisations. The latter comes under the remit of the Criminal Justice Joint Inspection (CJJI) programme. We have worked closely with the other Criminal Justice Inspectorates to produce Joint Inspection Programmes each year since 2007. You can view the joint business plans on the CJJI website.
These are the factors we consider when we select topics for thematic inspections:
- Potential impact of our findings
- Significant changes to policy, service delivery or caseloads
- Risks to public protection
- Findings from other inspections
- Intelligence received from any source
- Time elapsed since last inspection
- Estimated resource requirements
- Ministerial and other key stakeholder interests
Other inspection work
Prison Offender Management inspection (POMI)
These inspections are led by HM Inspectorate of Prisons. As part of their prison inspection programme we will send one of our inspectors to report on the offender management within the prison.
You can view HM Inspectorate of Prisons reports on their website.
Joint targeted area inspection (JTAI)
The JTAI programme is led by Ofsted. Inspectors assess how local authorities, the police, health, probation and youth justice services are working together in an area to identify, support and protect vulnerable children and young people.