Dynamic Inspection of Public Protection in Greater Manchester
Chief Inspector’s judgment (Back to top)
The Greater Manchester Dynamic Inspection of Public Protection found that public protection was a central focus of the region. Senior leaders shared a commitment to take the right approach with staff, partners, and people on probation to keep people safe. This led to a consistent ‘whole system’ approach to public protection, with clear priorities across probation delivery units (PDUs) and functional teams. The region had built strong relationships with key public protection partners. It had invested in internal assurance and auditing mechanisms and continuous professional development activity, which focused on improving the quality of the work to keep people safe. This had started to translate into some promising work to keep people safe, particularly around planning activity. Where we saw effective practice, this was supported by practitioners learning from, and using, subject matter experts, both within the probation service and externally.
However, not enough of the cases we inspected demonstrated sufficient work to keep people safe, especially across assessment and implementation and delivery. The quality of public protection work was impacted by inexperienced staff and capacity challenges. These were worsened by long delays in vetting new recruits and by staff fatigue following the large-scale national changes made in response to the prison capacity crisis. Leaders needed to gain a better understanding of the skills, knowledge and confidence of probation service officers (PSOs), whose practice was the least sufficient in our casework, to support them in managing complex public protection cases. A focus on achieving nationally driven performance metrics also impacted on the quality of public protection work. To improve the quality of work to keep people safe, metrics specific to public protection must be included in dashboards so that leaders can monitor the quality and impact of work effectively.
I am encouraged to see that many of the building blocks for improving the work to keep people safe are in place in Greater Manchester. If they can continue to build on these foundations I have no doubt that the region can continue to make improvements.
Context (Back to top)
We inspected public protection work across 72 cases that started between 21 April 2025 and 02 May 2025. We focused on the quality of assessment, planning, delivery and reviewing in case work, and reviewed how organisational arrangements supported public protection. The majority of the cases we inspected were managed as medium or high risk of serious harm. Most of the individuals in these cases had committed violent offences, drug offences or non-contact sexual offences, and one third were subject to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), managed at Level 1 or 2.
There are eight sentence management PDUs in the Greater Manchester Probation Service (GMPS): Bolton, Bury and Rochdale, Manchester North, Manchester South, Oldham, Salford and Trafford, Stockport and Tameside, and Wigan. These are all covered by Greater Manchester Police. The region had also created a centralised regional Court and Enforcement probation delivery unit. Across Greater Manchester, there are 10 local authorities, five magistrates’ courts and three Crown Courts. At the time of the inspection announcement, the region managed a caseload of approximately 14,221 people on probation and in prison.
The organisational data for GMPS raises some concerns around staffing, as only 86 per cent of staff were in post across all grades. At the time of the inspection announcement, the region had significant gaps in staffing at probation officer (PO) grade, with just 72 per cent in post. In contrast, staffing at PSO grade was above target (108 per cent). At senior probation officer (SPO) grade, it was slightly under target (96 per cent). Only 74 per cent of court staff were in post.
Greater Manchester has a long-standing justice devolution deal with the government, which has led to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) for the co-commissioning of rehabilitative services. GMCA acts on behalf of GMPS and HMPPS as the lead legal entity for commissioning purposes. All Greater Manchester Integrated Rehabilitative Services (GMIRS) and tier 3 community accommodation services (CAS3) are co-commissioned and co-designed by HMPPS and GMCA. The current GMIRS provision includes the following: wellbeing hubs, women’s services, education, training and employment, dependency and recovery, peer support and accommodation.
Inspection commentary (Back to top)
Assessment and implementation and delivery of services met the required standard to keep people safe in less than half of the cases we inspected. Reviewing met the required standard in just over half of cases. We saw insufficient analysis and reviewing of risk; inconsistent or ineffective multi-agency working, including information-sharing; and not enough delivery of meaningful interventions, either by probation practitioners or through other services, to address risks related to public protection. Planning was the strongest area of practice, meeting the required standard to keep people safe in over 63 per cent of cases. This was because practitioners produced clear plans that set out the required interventions to address the person’s risk of harm factors. They considered restrictive and control measures, and how partners would support the delivery of the plan.
Several factors, which often interconnected, contributed to gaps in public protection practice. These included capacity and workload pressures, inexperienced staff, ineffective management oversight, a lack of professional curiosity, inconsistent systems for accessing and exchanging information with children’s social services, and a target-driven culture. Where we saw good practice, the factors that contributed to this were practitioners drawing on the knowledge and expertise of colleagues, learning through mentoring inexperienced staff and/or shadowing experienced staff, effective training, building strong working relationships with partner agencies and the practitioners’ own experience. Additionally, when staff considered why sufficiency in assessment was better than in planning, they said that risk management plan desk aids supported better planning activity. Staff recognised that contingency planning remains an area for improvement, as it is not always individualised or aligned with key risk of harm factors identified in assessment. This was illustrated in our inspection of casework, where contingency arrangements were the least sufficient area of planning.
A ‘whole system’ approach to public protection was embedded across strategic and operational delivery. All regional delivery plans and strategies focused appropriately on public protection, and leaders, managers and practitioners from PDUs and functional teams worked collaboratively and consistently across teams to support the public protection agenda. Staff from the six regional public protection teams, including the multi-agency public protection team (MAPPT) and the victims’ team, regularly attended PDU meetings to provide operational leaders and managers with updates on public protection activity and to discuss any barriers to delivery. This drove a consistent message internally and externally that work to keep people safe and protect victims was a priority. This was reflected in our staff survey, with 82 per cent of respondents indicating that they were clear about what the region and their PDU wanted them to prioritise in relation to public protection practice.
There was a strong regional emphasis on accountability for achieving public protection priorities, with clear governance structures that held leaders to account for progress against their public protection actions and objectives. The region had created a bespoke public protection dashboard to track and improve performance across all regional teams. This covered key public protection priorities, including domestic abuse and safeguarding checks and MAPPA Level 1 reviews. A service delivery review meeting (SDRM), attended by PDU and functional heads, acted as a formal accountability meeting. Public protection delivery was scrutinised using the dashboard information, and actions to overcome barriers to effective service delivery were set. For example, following a SDRM where a decline in compliance with children’s social services enquiries was identified, the relevant PDU head was able to identify the reason, act and resolve the issue.
Senior leaders had decided to make structural changes to the region in response to the volume and pace of national change to support resilience, improve resource management and focus on quality. This included creating the Greater Manchester Courts and Enforcement PDU in April 2025. Through dedicated oversight by senior leaders, and a separate strategy and operational responsibilities, the creation of the Courts and Enforcement PDU had supported the visibility and accountability of court and enforcement practice, which was improving public protection performance and quality. For example, the percentage of child safeguarding enquiries requested for domestic abuse cases before the pre-sentence report had increased from 56 per cent in April 2025 to 95 per cent in September 2025. The percentage of domestic abuse enquiries requested for domestic abuse cases before the pre-sentence report had increased from 89 per cent in April 2025 to 98 per cent in September 2025. A revised enforcement model had been developed, where enforcement officers were working more collaboratively with PDUs and co-locating in offices to offer support, advice and guidance. Our casework illustrated that this approach was having a positive impact on enforcement activity, with enforcement action being taken when required to support public protection in 24 out of 32 relevant cases.
Throughout the 2024/25 performance year, GMPS was ranked as the best performing region against the probation scorecard and has remained one of the top performing probation regions in the first two quarters of the 2025/26 performance year. This was something senior managers were understandably proud of, especially against the backdrop of staffing challenges and continued national changes in response to prison capacity issues. While some staff recognised the link between performance and quality of practice, practitioners felt that performance remained the priority. This organisational focus on targets is driven by HMPPS, who hold regional leaders to account for achieving national performance metrics. To keep people safe, national performance metrics must drive quality public protection practice.
At a strategic and operational level there were established relationships with key partners across Greater Manchester, including the GMCA and Greater Manchester Police. Regional representation on strategic boards and subgroups was strong. These included the Greater Manchester Adult Offender Partnership Board, which was chaired by the regional probation director, the MAPPA Strategic Management Board, which was co-chaired by the probation head of public protection, community safety partnership boards and local criminal justice boards. This representation enabled the probation service to provide meaningful input and influence decisions that impacted on the public protection agenda. For example, the probation service was a key partner in supporting Rochdale children’s social services with its new governance structure and safeguarding plan.
There was strong strategic oversight and operational management of cases managed at MAPPA Levels 2 and 3. This was due to robust governance structures, excellent partnership relationships, and the subject expertise of the POs working in MAPPT. Although small in number, all of the MAPPA Level 2 cases we inspected evidenced strong multi-agency collaboration, a focus on victims, and accountability. In 67 per cent of all MAPPA cases there was evidence of coordinated multi-agency oversight. Of those who responded to the staff survey, a large majority indicated that MAPPA arrangements, processes and procedures (at Levels 1, 2 and 3) were effective in supporting them to manage the risk of harm posed by people on probation. These strengths in practice were supported by a subject matter expert (SME) model, where MAPPT POs provided sentence management practitioners with support and advice, shadowing opportunities, case consultations and training about MAPPA. Similar roles also existed in the Court and Enforcement PDU, where designated practitioners supported inexperienced or less confident staff to improve the quality of their work. Where we saw effective practice in our casework, practitioners described how they had learned from knowledgeable and experienced colleagues, shadowing and mentoring, which had increased their capability and confidence in public protection work. Evaluating how and why this SME model is supporting effective practice may help to improve the quality of public protection practice in other areas.
The region was working to address barriers to accessing information from partners, specifically the police and children’s social services. This work was supported by the domestic abuse and safeguarding information team (DASIT), which oversaw domestic abuse and child safeguarding enquiries. An automated domestic abuse enquiries generator, called the ‘Digi-worker’, was rolled out across the region in May 2025. As a result, the region had improved its performance in gathering and recording information on key risks related to domestic abuse. This was reflected in our case inspection work, where practitioners obtained sufficient information on domestic abuse for assessment purposes in 81 per cent of cases. The region intended to extend the remit of DASIT to general police intelligence enquiries. This would be beneficial, as our casework illustrated that practitioners made fewer enquiries to the police, for example to check addresses or obtain information on police investigations.
However, not all of the 10 local authorities were working with DASIT, which meant that processes for accessing and exchanging information with children’s social services were inconsistent. Some practitioners’ enquiries were not always returned in a timely manner and/or did not contain enough information for the practitioner to understand the risks to children. These challenges were recognised by middle and senior managers, and were reflected in our casework where, at assessment stage, practitioners did not obtain sufficient information about child protection and child safeguarding in nearly half of relevant cases. This impacted on their ability to accurately assess the risk to children. In the cases we inspected, the risk to children was sufficiently assessed and analysed in only 33 out of 60 relevant cases. Positively, senior leaders had been working proactively with local authorities to get an agreement on working with DASIT. This would give practitioners consistent and timely access to information on child safeguarding. At the time of the inspection fieldwork, agreements with three local authorities remained outstanding. DASIT and local authority partners were also working to create an information-sharing agreement that would apply across the whole of Greater Manchester. Senior leaders recognised that establishing a robust process was the first step in setting up effective information-sharing processes, but that this must be followed up with a focus on the quality of the information. High-quality information is key to supporting practitioners to accurately assess risks to all actual and potential victims.
Staff vacancies were made worse by delays in recruitment. Long vetting times of up to five months made it difficult to fill vacancies in a timely manner. This ultimately increased workloads, putting additional pressure on staff in post. Practitioners felt they had less time to reflect, and, combined with a priority on achieving performance targets, were under pressure to complete tasks at pace. However, workload cannot solely be attributed to challenges with public protection practice. The region recognised that the inexperience of its practitioners also had an impact on the quality of public protection practice. At the time of the inspection announcement, nearly half of PSOs had three years or less experience in the service, compared with 15 per cent of POs.The region identified that there needed to be a focus on the learning and development of their PSOs. For example, the regional learning and development business plan stated that action was needed to develop PSOs’ confidence in working with more complex domestic abuse cases. The region had run in-person sessions as part of a PSO development programme on topics such as risk, sentence management, domestic abuse and working with challenging behaviour. However, leaders recognised that at times these sessions had been delivered too early to enable practitioners to translate the learning into practice. The region would benefit from focusing on understanding and addressing the learning and development needs of PSOs.
The region had developed a learning needs analysis, based on results from the Regional Case Assessment Tool (RCAT), findings from performance assurance and risk (PAR) group, and insight from PDU and functional unit senior leaders and middle managers. The analysis had helped regional leaders to understand practice development themes across their staff group. Regional leaders had developed a regional quality improvement plan, which was underpinned by learning from internal and external quality assurance findings, themes from serious further offence (SFO) reviews, and delivery plan priorities. This helped leaders to target continuous professional development activity, including sessions on professional curiosity, situation, background, assessment and recommendation, and risk activity pack (RAP) training, which covered risk assessment and risk management. Practitioners in sentence management and across other functional teams, including the Court and Enforcement PDU, were able to access the sessions. These sessions, alongside DASIT’s focus on improving information-sharing processes with the police and children’s social services, were appropriate given the findings from our casework, which also aligned with our SFO quality assurance.
Staff told us that they felt recent training on risk assessment and planning, through RAP, had improved their understanding of risk practice. Planning was the strongest area of practice in our case inspections, and there was a small increase in sufficiency in reviewing, compared with assessment. Middle managers and senior leaders recognised that more needed to be done to ensure that learning was translated into practice; however, nationally allocated learning and development resources focused on supporting trainee probation officers and new PSOs. The challenge in supporting the learning and development of staff outside of trainee probation officers, due to resourcing, was also picked up in our recent thematic inspection.1 Senior leaders were diverting staff from sentence management and other functional teams to provide additional in-house learning and development activity; however, this was not sustainable.
Leaders were committed to learning from audit and inspection activity. Assurance activity was carried out regularly across the region, using RCAT and the Court Case Assurance Tool. This was supported by the Greater Manchester Audit and Assurance Unit, which oversaw audit and assurance delivery and provided assurance that actions from audit and quality improvement activity had been completed. This included making sure SPOs met the regional commitment to provide RCAT feedback to practitioners within five days of completion. MAPPT completed live auditing of MAPPA meetings and provided feedback to MAPPA chairs, and to all responsible authority and duty to cooperate partners, to support improvement. For example, live auditing led to the identification, discussion and reinforcement that the content of risk management plans (RMP) for people managed at MAPPA Level 2 and 3 is the responsibility of all partners, not just the lead agency. Follow-up activity had shown that agencies had become better at taking responsibility for the RMP and spent more time discussing RMPs in MAPPA meetings, improving multi-agency ownership.
The region had also developed the Prison Case Audit Tool (PCAT), in response to challenges with information-sharing between prison and probation sentence management colleagues before prisoners were released. Alongside completion of PCAT, effective pre-release work was supported by strong strategic and operational relationships between GMPS and prisons. A quarterly senior leadership forum, co-chaired by the regional probation director and prison group director, supported collaboration and improvement of shared key performance and quality measures. The pre-release team was also co-located at the local resettlement prisons, and joint prison and probation training was available. This was translating into the delivery of high-quality resettlement work that supported public protection. In 15 out of 23 of the relevant cases we inspected, the community offender manager identified and addressed key risk of harm issues before release. In 19 out of 22 relevant cases, appropriate licence conditions were put in place to protect victims and the public.
To support management oversight of cases, the region produced case lists for SPOs that identified priority cases, for example child protection cases. It had also introduced ‘commencement audits’, which were completed by SPOs on 25 per cent of newly sentenced or released cases at approximately the six-week stage. This model supported regular oversight of cases where there were public protection concerns and a new order or licence. However, there was a risk that some low and medium risk cases that did not have complex or presenting public protection risks were overlooked. In the cases we inspected, we found that public protection practice was least sufficient for those managed as a medium risk of serious harm. Management oversight was only sufficient in 28 out of 70 of the relevant cases inspected. Research2indicates that effective management oversight improves the quality of supervision delivered by probation practitioners across all areas of practice, and this was illustrated in our casework. The majority of the cases where we saw effective management oversight were managed as high risk of serious harm. Having mechanisms to identify and correct practice deficits at the earliest possible stage is the right approach. The region would benefit from considering how to ensure that medium and low risk of serious harm cases that do not present with public protection risks are not overlooked.
The region had a range of services to manage and reduce the risks of people on probation, through Greater Manchester Integrated Rehabilitative Services (GMIRS). This included peer mentors, provided through Community Led Initiatives, who worked with high risk of serious harm, high complexity or Integrated Offender Management (IOM) cases, and services to support people on probation to address drug and alcohol misuse. IOM in Greater Manchester was strong. There was an established operational partnership between probation and Greater Manchester Police, supported by co-location and regular meetings between senior leaders and managers across both organisations. Bespoke commissioned services for the IOM cohort, including Operation Vigilance, an out-of-hours contact offer for people on probation with the highest risk of harm and highest risk of reoffending, enhanced public protection work. This has been demonstrated by high rates of compliance with vigilance appointments across the region, ranging from 76 per cent to 95 per cent. Since January 2023, the service had tracked a cohort of individuals subject to IOM management, and found evidence that IOM intervention had led to a significant reduction in offending and associated costs of offending behaviour.
Despite access to various services and interventions, there was effective delivery of services to support the safety of other people in less than half of the cases inspected. Practitioners were not consistently completing meaningful work to address risk. This was partly due to staff inexperience. Some staff did not have enough knowledge and/or confidence to have challenging conversations and/or deliver interventions to address risk. The region had commissioned toolkit (one-to-one intervention) training for practitioners, which was delivered in 2025. Despite this, at the time of the inspection fieldwork, some practitioners said that they wanted more training on toolkits to further support delivery of interventions. Practitioners also wanted input around public protection topics, including serious and organised crime, hate crime and discrimination-related offences, managing registered sex offenders, and working with the police sex offender management unit. Positively, regional leaders had identified that practitioners needed better knowledge of serious organised crime. This had led to practice guidance being developed collaboratively between the police and probation, which was due to be launched at the time of the inspection. Service providers described large volumes of referrals into their services. This was also reflected in our casework, where in a large majority of relevant cases referrals were being made into GMIRS. However, these referrals were not consistently translating into consistent delivery of services. Data provided by the region indicated that, between July 2025 and September 2025, 27 per cent of referrals across all GMIRS were cancelled. Reasons for the cancellations included the person on probation not being suitable for the service and the person not being ready to engage.
There were also delays in people on probation beginning accredited programmes. Delivery of structured interventions had been paused since May 2024, because there were not enough staff to deliver the accredited programme requirements. As of 05December 2025, 62 per cent of people on probation who had a requirement had started a programme within nine months of sentence/release; however, some had been waiting up to 25 months. Practitioners were encouraged to complete motivational work and/or relevant toolkits with people on probation while they were waiting to start a programme; however, if practitioners lack the confidence and/or knowledge to complete interventions, then the person on probation will not complete enough activity to address factors linked to risk of harm. The region had taken action to increase the number of interventions completed with people convicted of sexual offences to ensure the risk they posed was managed appropriately. The interventions team tracked completion of appropriate interventions for people on probation convicted of a sexual offence, including programme and one-to-one interventions completed by practitioners through Maps for Change, and liaised with PDUs when activity was required. This had resulted in strong performance against relevant performance metrics. To support victims of domestic abuse, where the perpetrator was subject to a group programme, the region had six domestic abuse support officers (DASOs) working across the region, each linked to a PDU. The introduction of a designated DASO administrator, who oversaw DASO referrals, had supported timely referrals. In December 2024 the region had over 100 outstanding DASO referrals, compared with 10 in December 2025. This ensured that the DASO could offer support and safety planning to victims at the earliest possible stage.
Regional recommendations (Back to top)
- Complete a learning needs analysis with PSOs to understand their skills, confidence and knowledge to adequately assess, work with and review risk of harm to others, and ensure effective training is provided to meet these needs.
- Ensure mechanisms are in place to provide effective oversight of cases managed as a medium or low risk of serious harm.
- Evaluate how the subject matter expert model adopted in the MAPPT and the Court and Enforcement PDU supports effective public protection practice and consider how this can be applied to other areas of case management.
HMPPS recommendations
- Reduce vetting delays and address workforce instability by implementing streamlined and more regionally responsive recruitment processes.
- Embed public protection-specific metrics in dashboards to enable leaders to monitor quality and impact effectively.
- Provide regions with increased dedicated learning and development resource to enable greater delivery of training and continuous professional development activities for all staff.
Scoring (Back to top)
| Key question | Percentage ‘Yes’ |
| Does assessment focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe? | 49% |
| Does planning focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe? | 63% |
| Does the implementation and delivery of services effectively support the safety of other people? | 47% |
| Does reviewing focus sufficiently on keeping other people safe? | 51% |
Follow-up activity (Back to top)
In line with the recommendations identified, a range of follow-up activity will take place. HM Inspectorate of Probation will work with the region to identify what can be done to guide and support their work, increase knowledge and confidence, and provide a solid foundation for further improvement. The Inspectorate will also seek to share what effective practice looks like by drawing on inspection findings, identifying blockers to progress, and highlighting opportunities to improve accountability.
Key contextual facts (Back to top)
| Number of people supervised (on 30 June 2025)3 | 16,013 |
| MAPPA-eligible offenders (on 31 March 2025)4 | 5,872 |
| Victim satisfaction performance SL021 (April 2024 – March 2025)5 | – |
| Staffing level (FTE staff in post)6 | ||
| SPO | PO | PSO (including PQiP) |
| 96% | 72% | 108% |
| Average caseload at the point of inspection (FTE) | ||
| PO | PSO (excluding PQiP) | PQiP |
| 34.72 | 43.05 | 37.21 |
| Recall rates (in the 12 months prior to inspection) | 24.88% |
| Average RAR wait time (in the 12 months prior to inspection) | Not available |
| Percentage of RAR days completed (in the 12 months prior to inspection) | 72.6% |
| Percentage of accredited programme requirements completed for individuals convicted of a sexual offence (in the 12 months prior to inspection) | 35.71%7 |
| Percentage of accredited programme requirements completed for individuals not convicted of a sexual offence (in the 12 months prior to inspection) | 63.62% |
| Risk of serious harm classification of inspected cases | ||
| Low | Medium | High/Very high |
| 10% | 49% | 38% |
Data annexe (Back to top)
Press release (Back to top)
“Gaps in public protection practice” in Greater Manchester region of the Probation Service
Further information (Back to top)
This inspection was led by HM Inspector Hannah Darby, supported by a team of inspectors and colleagues from across the Inspectorate. We would like to thank all those who helped plan and took part in the inspection; without their help and cooperation, the inspection would not have been possible.
Footnotes
- HM Inspectorate of Probation (January 2025). A thematic inspection of the recruitment, training, and retention of frontline probation practitioners. ↩︎
- HM Inspectorate of Probation (2025). Frontline leadership in probation and youth justice. ↩︎
- Ministry of Justice and HMPPS (2026). Offender management statistics quarterly. ↩︎
- Ministry of Justice, HMPPS and HM Prison Service (2025). Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) annual report. ↩︎
- Ministry of Justice (2025). Community Performance Annual, update to March 2025. ↩︎
- Workforce data included in this report come from internal management information and some of these data have been derived from a different data source to the published HMPPS Workforce Statistics bulletin and accompanying Probation Officer Recruitment Annex. The Inspectorate needs access to the latest data available and internal management information is deemed the best source to allow this. As such, there could be discrepancies between the data in this report and the data contained in the publication. ↩︎
- Excluding neutrals. The national report does not pick up Building Choices Programme ↩︎