An inspection of probation services in Stockton and Hartlepool PDU

Foreword (Back to top)

Our inspection of Stockton and Hartlepool Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) highlighted several positive aspects, including good leadership and some impressive practice relating to engagement and supporting people on probation in their desistance from offending.

Despite this, the overall quality of work to keep people safe had deficits across three of four inspection quality standards, which resulted in a rating of ‘Requires improvement’.

Stockton and Hartlepool PDU had a well-respected head of service and well-established partnership arrangements with other organisations. Leaders directly influenced partners and translated the PDU’s vision into operational delivery across several organisations. A genuine and tested approach had made the PDU a pleasant place to work, supporting staff wellbeing and engagement.  

At the time of our inspection, the staff vacancy rate for the PDU was 10 per cent. However, despite the vacancies, the workloads of practitioners were largely manageable and had been stable for around 12 months. Staff we met were highly motivated and committed to delivering the best possible service. The culture was inclusive across all grades of staff and morale was positive. The capacity of managers and staff, together with a safe working culture, resulted in innovation and leadership across all grades of staff.

However, the quality of work to protect the public was a concern, as it has been in all of our recent probation inspections. Improvement was needed in the quality of work to assess, plan, manage, and review the risks posed by people on probation. It was most concerning that the assessment of risk of harm was sufficient in only 33 per cent of cases we inspected. Although probation practitioners obtained information about domestic abuse and child safeguarding risks from the police and local authority, this often lacked the detail required to analyse risk of harm sufficiently. Leaders needed to do more to make sure that assessments considered all victims and were based on sufficient information from the police and children’s services.

Stockton and Hartlepool PDU had solid foundations in place, and the prioritisation of continuous development for staff was reassuring. A focus on the development of practice to identify, analyse, and respond to risk of harm, including the identification of actual and potential victims, was now necessary for the development of the PDU. With the appropriate priority on this aspect of probation work, improvements in outcomes for people on probation and the work to keep people safe should be achievable.

Martin Jones CBE 

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

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Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started June 2025

Score 6/21

Overall rating

Requires improvement

1. Organisational arrangements and activity

P 1.1 Leadership	Good
P 1.2 Staffing	Good
P 1.3 Services	Requires improvement

2. Service delivery

P 2.1 Assessment	Inadequate
P 2.2 Planning	Requires improvement
P 2.3 Implementation and delivery	Inadequate
P 2.4 Reviewing	Inadequate

Recommendations (Back to top)

As a result of our inspection findings, we have made a number of recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will have a positive impact on the quality of probation services.

Stockton and Hartlepool PDU should:

1. work with other agencies, such as the police and children’s social care services, to manage domestic abuse and child safeguarding to ensure that actual and potential victims are sufficiently protected
2. develop practitioner confidence and skills in the use of professional curiosity and challenging conversations to identify, analyse, assess, plan, and respond effectively to indicators of risk
3. improve the quality of the work to assess and review risk of harm to all actual and potential victims, ensuring all available information is accessed and utilised
4. ensure there is effective management oversight, that is recorded in case records, to enhance and sustain the quality of the work with people on probation and to keep people safe
5. improve the use of interventions and services available for people on probation to support desistance and manage the risk of harm.

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Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Stockton and Hartlepool Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) over the period of two weeks, beginning 02 June 2025. We inspected 33 community orders and 12 releases on licence from custody where sentences and licences had commenced during two separate weeks, between 04 November and 10 November 2024 and 11 November and 17 November 2024. We also conducted 37 interviews with probation practitioners.

Stockton and Hartlepool is one of seven PDUs in the North East region. There is one main PDU office in Stockton-on-Tees, a community hub in Hartlepool and two courts – Teesside Crown Court and Teesside Magistrates’ Court. The court staff are managed as a regional court team, with links to the PDU operational team. The PDU is served by Cleveland Police and two local authorities – Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council and Hartlepool Borough Council.

The number of staff in post was 90 per cent of the target. Vacancies across practitioner grades indicated the shortages against the staffing target, with probation officers (POs) at 19 per cent below and probation services officers (PSOs) at seven per cent. At the time of our inspection, there were 42 POs, 16 PSOs, and seven senior probation officers (SPOs) split across three teams in Stockton-on-Tees and two teams covering Hartlepool. There was a dedicated PQiP (Professional Qualification in Probation) team, made up of 15 PQiP staff. Administrative staff were managed outside of the PDU under a regional administrative hub model. The annual staff sickness rate was 10 days, and attrition rate six per cent, both below the national average.

The population of Stockton-on-Tees was approximately 196,600 and Hartlepool 92,300; both areas had a White majority population (according to the 2021 Census data, 92 per cent in Stockton-on-Tees and 97 per cent in Hartlepool). The total caseload at the time of the inspection announcement was 1713, with five per cent from a minority ethnic background and 35 per cent with a recorded disability. The caseload comprised 791 community sentences and 418 people on post-release supervision. There were a further 504 cases in the custodial estate.

A range of services were delivered in the PDU. The commissioned rehabilitative services (CRS) providers included: Thirteen Housing Group (accommodation), Changing Lives (women), Ingeus (personal wellbeing), and St Giles Wise (finance, benefit, and debt).

Four of the 45 cases inspected were subject to the national Probation Reset policy, which was implemented during this inspection.[1] This meant that the individuals had their supervision suspended for the final third of their supervision period. This change was delivered at pace and implemented from 01 July 2024.

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1. Organisational arrangements and activity (Back to top)

P 1.1 Leadership	Rating
The leadership of the PDU enables delivery of a high quality, personalised, and responsive service for all people on probation.	Good

Strengths:

• The PDU leadership team had fostered a culture of safety, openness, and innovation where staff at all levels felt empowered to share ideas, engage in healthy challenge with leaders, and develop services collaboratively. The PDU had earned an Enabling Environments certificate of achievement from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This positive, psychologically safe environment was reflected in notably low staff attrition (six per cent) and sickness rates (an average of 10 working days lost per year), both below the national average.
• The leadership team had a strong grasp of where the PDU needed to improve, particularly in work on assessing and managing risk of harm and were addressing these systematically. The current business plan had areas for improvement which were reflected in our case inspection, including better recording of casework, clearer analysis in risk assessments, and timely delivery of sentence plan objectives.
• Staff and managers were clear and confident about the PDU’s priorities, which had been developed collaboratively, and which were enhancing shared understanding and commitment. In our staff survey, all respondents agreed that the PDU’s vision and strategy supported high-quality service delivery for people on probation most or all the time. Priority was given to continuous improvement and there were mechanisms to set actions, review, and assess distance travelled within improvement plans.
• The leadership, culture, approach to performance management, and commitment to learning were making a difference to engagement and desistance work, which was a strength in the inspected cases. The inclusive behaviours and expectations of the management team, including boundary setting, were influencing the approach to supervising people on probation. The commitment to co-location and managers’ understanding of the needs of people on probation in the PDU underpinned the work to help people stop offending.
• There was no tension between quality and the meeting of performance targets. Staff understood that they were expected to deliver quality work and not just meet targets. SPOs identified barriers to effective performance through individual monthly meetings with a regional performance officer. A performance strategy and action plan set out a plan to support SPOs and practitioners to better understand key performance priorities.

Areas for improvement:

• Leaders had not fully translated their plans for service delivery into quality provision for all people on probation. The standard of work to keep people safe was inadequate in three of the four stages of sentence management in the cases we inspected. Current and potential victims were not always identified, and this was a key theme throughout our inspection of case management. There were gaps in information requested from the police to support analysis of risk. Work to safeguard women from domestic abuse and children from abuse was not always well coordinated with police and children’s services.
• Practitioners did not always have the information they needed to accurately assess and manage risks posed by people on probation to other people. This was the result of poor-quality requests that were not clear enough about the time periods for which intelligence was being sought, the provision of outdated address information or specific victims who were missed. Leaders had made some efforts to improve these issues, but they had not been effective.

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P 1.2 Staffing	Rating
Staff are enabled to deliver a high-quality, personalised, and responsive service for all people on probation.	Good

Strengths:

• Despite some vacancies at PO and PSO grades, staff across all grades generally reported manageable workloads. Average workload levels were stable. On average, POs were working at capacity and PSOs had a significant amount of spare capacity. This was enabling staff at all grades to be involved in innovative practice, take on and develop lead roles, and participate in PDU staff engagement forums. Practitioners we spoke to were passionate and engaged with both their own roles and the growth of the PDU.
• The management team was experienced and supportive of staff. Spans of control were such that SPOs could dedicate attention to lead roles and develop relationships with partner agencies. This included developing learning processes within the PDU and improving information-sharing arrangements with national specialist units on organised crime.
• There were examples of staff progression and promotion across all grades, as well as opportunities to undertake specialist roles and develop areas of personal interest for managers and practitioners. Staff were enabled to contribute to the development of the PDU and described feeling heard and supported by managers. The culture in the PDU supported sharing of ideas and innovation.
• The PDU was making use of peer mentors, which complemented the work of practitioners. The Wise Group delivered a weekly group work programme supported by peer mentors, who also assisted individuals on release from prison. One person on probation had completed training and was volunteering as a peer mentor. ‘Change Grow Live’ also reported that former service users who had completed their community orders or licences were now supporting recovery work. While still at an early stage, it was encouraging to see peer support opportunities emerging for people on probation.
• The PDU promoted a culture of learning and continuous improvement. It monitored and tracked attendance at PDU development days and other regional learning events and reported an 80 per cent attendance rate. Almost all respondents to our staff survey agreed that the PDU prioritised their learning.
• Procedures were in place to identify and manage poor performance through informal and formal processes, with some staff subject to informal performance improvement plans at the time of our inspection. Our staff survey disclosed no incidents of bullying, harassment or discrimination, and all staff we spoke to described the PDU as a great place to work. There were clear indicators of a psychologically safe environment where healthy challenge and support took place.

Areas for improvement:

• While workloads were generally described as manageable, PDU staffing figures at the time of our inspection were at 90 per cent. The PDU had a 19 per cent vacancy rate at probation officer grade and a seven per cent vacancy rate at probation service officer grade.
• Although staff reported regular supervision, it was not improving the quality of probation work. In 69 per cent of inspected cases, management oversight was ineffective, lacking guidance and often focused on process. Although there was some oversight during supervision, this was not properly recorded. This needed improvement to ensure quality discussions and safety-related actions were clearly documented.
• Practitioners received regular feedback on their performance, but this was not helping to improve professional curiosity or work to keep actual and potential victims safe. The structure for reviewing and monitoring competence and performance needed to be reviewed.  

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P 1.3 Services	Rating
A comprehensive range of high-quality services is in place, supporting a tailored and responsive service for all people on probation.	Requires improvement

Strengths:

• There was a comprehensive offer of services, including commissioned rehabilitative services (CRS), as well as targeted and specialist local provision available to support the needs of people on probation. Service delivery that built upon strengths and enhanced protective factors was a strength in 68 per cent of the cases inspected.
• The Offender Personality Disorder Pathway was performing well, with positive screening and referral rates. We found examples of clinical psychology input that had improved practitioner understanding and engagement with complex, high-risk individuals on probation in the inspected cases. An occupational therapist, part of the intensive intervention and risk management (IIRMS) service, was based in the PDU; delivery of IIRMS interventions began promptly upon release in inspected cases.
• Practitioners were co-located with providers of services, which was supporting professional relationships. CRS provision was offered in 25 of 36 relevant cases inspected, and we saw some examples of three-way review meetings and home visits between providers, probation staff, and people on probation in the cases inspected.
• There were arrangements to monitor, evaluate, and review service delivery through the regional community integration team, and at a local level the interface arrangements between providers and probation were supported by effective co-location arrangements and frequent, open communication.
• The PDU was working with Cleveland Police Domestic Abuse Solutions Team (DAST) to improve the multi-agency management of serial and prolific domestic abuse perpetrators. A specialist practitioner role had been created and was co-located with the police. While this role was relatively new, police and practitioners described improvements in risk management planning and access to information.

Areas for improvement:

• The implementation and delivery of services were rated inadequate in the cases we inspected. Of particular concern was the delivery of services to keep people safe and reduce the risk of harm posed by people on probation, where less than half of the cases were sufficient. The protection of potential and actual victims and the coordination of a multi-agency approach to manage domestic abuse and child safeguarding concerns were insufficient in too many cases.
• Accommodation provision was limited and there was a lack of available and suitable housing services for people on probation. We found insufficient accommodation service delivery to support desistance (14 of 26 relevant cases) and to keep people safe (13 of 28 cases) in the cases inspected.
• Support offered by the Department for Work and Pensions to help people on probation find employment was relatively new; it needed additional support from managers to improve practitioner understanding of the provision available and to increase referral numbers. Delivery of employment, training, and education was insufficient in more than half (11 of 19 relevant cases) of the cases inspected.
• The Hartlepool community hub was not suitable for high-risk people on probation, had very limited space for practitioners to meet people on their caseloads privately, and further work was required to improve the facilities. One consequence of that was some people on probation had to travel a long distance to Stockton for their appointments.
• In five out of the 11 cases we inspected which were managed under Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), the coordination of key agencies to keep people safe was not done well enough. For MAPPA Level 1 cases, insufficient information exchange was impacting plans to keep victims safe, and at MAPPA Level 2, there was an over-reliance on MAPPA meetings as the vehicle for multi-agency working. In one case, critical MAPPA advice and actions about the enforcement action required were not completed.

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Diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

Strengths:

• The PDU had a well-attended equality, diversity, and inclusion forum which had devised an action plan with monitoring and review of objectives set.
• The regional strategy for Engaging People on Probation was well established and included a structure to survey and work with people on probation to obtain their views; it had achieved measurable outcomes.
• ‘Lads like us’ training had been commissioned to develop practitioners’ understanding of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. Staff described this training, delivered by people with lived experience, as impactful and we found evidence of trauma-informed work in the inspected cases.
• The Engaging People on Probation forum understood the protected characteristics of the majority of respondents and were taking steps to seek the views of those under-represented, such as Black and minority ethnic people and young adults.
• Work to focus on the diverse needs of people on probation was a priority and was driven by regional needs analysis data. There was an equality, diversity, and inclusion action plan, which included reviewing progress, and a mechanism for routine feedback from people on probation. The assessment of protected characteristics and potential impact on engagement was sufficient in 70 per cent of cases. While this dipped in plans to support engagement (25 of 42 relevant cases), delivery and implementation that supported individuals’ circumstances were done well in the majority of cases (82 per cent).
• The diversity of staff in Stockton and Hartlepool was broadly representative of the minority ethnic and disabled people in the caseload. Priority had been given to developing the cultural competence of staff, with workshops on sexuality, Traveller culture, neurodiversity, Islam, and dementia. Some staff had been supported to become involved in the diverse panel member scheme in operation and spoke passionately about the role.

Areas for improvement:

• Despite the strengths in the arrangements for working with women. which were supporting sufficient delivery of services to keep people safe in four out of six cases, the assessment of risk to others was a significant concern; it needed the greatest attention, with none of the inspected cases found to be of sufficient quality. Plans and reviewing activity were also insufficient in three of the six cases inspected.

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2. Service delivery (Back to top)

P 2.1 Assessment	Rating
Assessment is well-informed, analytical and personalised, involving actively the person on probation.	Inadequate

Our rating[2] for assessment is based on the percentage of cases we inspected being judged satisfactory against three key questions and is driven by the lowest score:

Key question	Percentage ‘Yes’
Does assessment focus sufficiently on engaging the person on probation?	82%
Does assessment focus sufficiently on the factors linked to offending and desistance?	82%
Does assessment focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe?	33%

• Most assessments were focused on how to engage people on probation during their sentences (82 per cent). Analysis of motivation, readiness, personal circumstances, and protected characteristics, and the impact of these on the ability of people on probation to comply and engage with the sentence, was completed in most assessments.
• Offending-related factors (89 per cent) and strengths and protective factors (80 per cent) were identified in most cases. Practitioners based their assessments on available sources of information in just under three-quarters of cases.
• Processes to ensure safeguarding and domestic abuse enquiries were in place and completed in almost all cases. Safeguarding enquiries (two out of 45 relevant cases) and domestic abuse enquiries (four out of 45) were not completed where required. Concerningly, domestic abuse and child safeguarding information was not obtained in all relevant electronic monitoring cases. In both areas, the PDU had not made enquiries before or after the sentence has been imposed.
• Critical information about domestic abuse and risks to children was often missing from assessments. That was sometimes because practitioners were not seeking enough information from children’s services about current and previous involvement with the families of people on probation. Domestic abuse intelligence sharing with the police was limited to the previous 12 months, which meant that information for some people on probation, especially those who had been in prison recently, was missed. The quality of information received was insufficient in 19 relevant cases relating to child safeguarding, and in six cases relating to domestic abuse. Issues related to a lack of follow up with children’s services to request details of previous, and occasionally, current involvement. Overall, available sources of information were used to inform risk assessments in just 51 per cent of cases.
• Practitioners were not always being professionally curious, including missing opportunities to assess risk posed to children of new partners, siblings or those who resided with family members where current and potential risk from the person on probation was relevant. This was also applicable to risks associated with domestic abuse where new partners or family members were not identified and analysed, including some over-reliance on self-reporting about relationship status where there were indicators suggesting the relationship was other than that stated.

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P 2.2 Planning	Rating
Planning is well-informed, holistic and personalised, involving actively the person on probation.	Requires improvement

Our rating[3] for planning is based on the percentage of cases we inspected being judged satisfactory against three key questions and is driven by the lowest score:

Key question	Percentage ‘Yes’
Does planning focus sufficiently on engaging the person on probation?	56%
Does planning focus sufficiently on reducing reoffending and supporting desistance?	73%
Does planning focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe?	53%

• Work by practitioners on planning to support people on probation to desist from crime was a strength. Practitioners prioritised the most important factors linked to supporting a reduction in offending (78 per cent) and plans were strengths-based in most cases (80 per cent). Most plans (71 per cent) also identified appropriate agencies to support the needs of the person on probation.
• Planning to engage people on probation in their sentences needed improvement. Practitioners often identified the protected characteristics of people on probation, but did not always record how they were planning to respond to those characteristics.
• In 40 per cent of cases we inspected, practitioners did not sufficiently plan to address risk of harm factors and prioritise those which were most critical. Just over half of the plans were linked to the work of other agencies involved with the person on probation. Effective continency planning was also an area requiring development. We found necessary and effective contingency arrangements required to manage risk of harm in just 51 per cent of cases we inspected.
• As with assessments, practitioners were not making appropriate links in risk management plans or sentence plans to the work of other agencies involved with the person on probation. Sufficient multi-agency planning was absent in almost half of the relevant cases we inspected (18 of 42).

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P 2.3 Implementation and delivery	Rating
High-quality well-focused, personalised, and coordinated services are delivered, engaging the person on probation.	Inadequate

Our rating[4] for implementation and delivery is based on the percentage of cases we inspected being judged satisfactory against three key questions and is driven by the lowest score:

Key question	Percentage ‘Yes’
Is the sentence or post-custody period implemented effectively with a focus on engaging the person on probation?	78%
Does the implementation and delivery of services effectively support desistance?	58%
Does the implementation and delivery of services effectively support the safety of other people?	44%

• Practitioners were engaging people on probation with the requirements of their sentences. Requirements started promptly in 31 of 36 relevant cases, and practitioner efforts to enable compliance in relation to personal circumstances and diversity characteristics were sufficient in the majority of cases.
• Practitioners placed sufficient focus on enforcement. Risks of non-compliance were identified and addressed to reduce the need for enforcement in 25 of 32 relevant cases, and where enforcement action was needed it was taken appropriately in 23 out of 28 relevant cases.
• Disappointingly, the involvement of other organisations in the delivery of services to reduce reoffending was coordinated well in only just over half of relevant cases, despite those agencies often working from the same office as probation practitioners and with strong relationships. Partner agencies were also not involved enough in managing and controlling risk of harm posed by people on probation to others. Only 17 of 36 relevant cases were sufficient in that respect, with limited ongoing information exchange between practitioners and key agencies, including service providers, children’s services, and the police.
• Services built upon strengths and protective factors in most cases. However, we found limited examples of meaningful work by practitioners to reduce reoffending and keep people safe in the inspected cases. Referrals to specialist agencies or CRS providers for people with drug and alcohol misuse problems were not always made, even though substance misuse was the most significant issue related to offending in the cases we inspected. In most instances this was due to a lenient approach to the person on probation’s willingness to engage with the service.
• Structured interventions and toolkits designed to address problems in the thinking and behaviour, lifestyle and associates, and relationships of people on probation were not routinely delivered, even when they had been identified in sentence plans. This meant that too often supervision was unstructured and delivered in a ‘check-in’ style. In our survey, just over half of the people on probation who responded said they had been helped to access services relevant to their needs.
• The attention given to protecting victims was insufficient in 17 of 42 cases. Multi-agency working in relation to the safeguarding of children was insufficient in 20 of 36 relevant cases, and in 19 of 37 relevant domestic abuse cases. Practitioners were not inquisitive enough about new and developing relationships, and did not make enquiries with the police when there were significant changes in circumstances. In some cases, practitioners had liaised with social workers regarding one child in the family home but had insufficiently considered risks to other children in the home. Where children were known to children’s services, there was limited sharing of information with social workers when concerns arose, including increases in drug or alcohol use, declines in mental health or self-reported contact with children. In some cases, practitioners were not involved in child in need meetings, missing opportunities to share information about the risk posed by people on probation and to contribute towards action to keep children safe from harm.

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P 2.4 Reviewing	Rating
Reviewing of progress is well-informed, analytical and personalised, involving actively the person on probation.	Inadequate

Our rating[5] for reviewing is based on the percentage of cases we inspected being judged satisfactory against three key questions and is driven by the lowest score:

Key question	Percentage ‘Yes’
Does reviewing focus sufficiently on supporting the compliance and engagement of the person on probation?	70%
Does reviewing focus sufficiently on supporting desistance?	51%
Does reviewing focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe?	45%

• Work to review and support engagement was done well and, overall, was consistently the strongest area of practice across assessment, planning, implementation and delivery, and reviewing. Written reviews were completed in the majority of cases where required, and barriers to compliance and engagement were reviewed with necessary adjustments made in 26 of 37 relevant cases.
• Despite the strengths in work to support engagement and compliance, reviewing activity that focused on helping people to stop offending needed improvement. Changes in factors linked to offending behaviour and the necessary adjustments to support ongoing work were done sufficiently in just under half of the relevant cases. Where this was done well, we found liaison with providers to obtain progress updates, three-way meetings to review and amend interventions, and changes to plans to include new referrals to the relevant agencies to support emerging needs.
• The improvements needed in the coordination of service delivery were evidenced within reviewing activity, with limited input from other agencies working with people on probation in reviewing progress and supporting offending behaviour needs.
• Reviewing of risk management plans was also insufficient, which was consistent with our findings on the management of risk during assessment, planning, and the delivery of sentences. Changes in factors related to risk of harm and the necessary adjustments to ongoing work were done sufficiently in 17 out of 39 relevant cases. This meant that indicators of a deterioration in protective factors, such as increased drug or alcohol use and the development of intimate relationships, were not always sufficiently reviewed.
• Input from other agencies involved in managing the risk of harm was sufficient in just over half of the relevant cases. Where information was missing, practitioners were not always being professionally curious, which meant that reviewing activity did not rectify gaps in understanding about risk. Opportunities to follow up and share information with children’s services were also not completed as part of the reviewing activity.

Further information (Back to top)

Full data from this inspection and further information about the methodology used to conduct this inspection is available in the data annexe.

A glossary of terms used in this report is available on our website.

This inspection was led by HM Inspector Lucy Jones, supported by a team of inspectors and colleagues from across the Inspectorate. We would like to thank all those who participated in any way in this inspection. Without their help and cooperation, the inspection would not have been possible.

[1] Probation Reset, a nationally mandated operational policy change, was implemented in July 2024 to alleviate probation workload pressures in response to prison capacity challenges. It mandates that supervision of a person on probation, who is eligible according to certain criteria, will be suspended at the two-thirds point of their sentence. These measures aim to target resources at the start of supervision in the community.

[2] The rating for the standard is driven by the score for the key question, which is placed in a rating band. Full data and further information about inspection methodology is available in the data annexe.

[3] The rating for the standard is driven by the score for the key question, which is placed in a rating band. Full data and further information about inspection methodology is available in the data annexe.

[4] The rating for the standard is driven by the score for the key question, which is placed in a rating band. Full data and further information about inspection methodology is available in the data annexe.

[5] The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score on each of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table.