Call for evidence: Serious Further Offences – promoting a culture of learning for probation
We are researching how probation services can better learn from those cases where ‘Serious Further Offences’ (SFOs) have been committed by people who are under probation supervision or who were very recently under probation supervision at the time of the offence.
SFOs are thankfully rare. In any year, less than 0.5 per cent of individuals under probation supervision are charged with a grave offence. However, the harm done by SFOs is of the highest order – SFOs encompass the most serious violent and sexual offences. Learning from these cases should be a moral and strategic imperative for probation, but we have found that there are significant barriers to organisational and practitioner learning and that there can be deficits in reviewing processes.
As such, we are keen to learn from colleagues in other sectors about their approach to learning from serious incidents.
In particular, we are interested in responses to the following questions:
- How does your sector/organisation identify a serious incident, or a near miss?
- What procedures and processes follow a serious incident, or near miss, in your sector/organisation?
- How does your organisation/sector counter staff fears and concerns such as, blame, shame, stigmatisation, and the risk of sanctions in a serious incident inquiry?
- How does your organisation/sector promote learning from inquiries into serious incidents, or near misses?
- What are the barriers to learning and how can these be overcome?
- Please provide any examples of effective/promising practice in responding to and learning from serious incidents or near misses.
It is not necessary to respond to any or all of these questions. Please feel free to focus upon the issues you think are the most important, or upon which you have the most to say.
As part of your response, please ensure that:
- You state clearly who the submission is from, i.e. whether from yourself in a personal capacity or sent on behalf of an organisation.
- You include a brief description of yourself/your organisation/your sector.
- You state clearly if you wish your submission to be confidential and/or you do not want to be contacted with follow-up enquiries.
Submissions in Word or PDF format are very welcome. Other formats, e.g. emails, videos, blog posts will also be accepted.
Please do circulate this call for evidence to any of your contacts or networks who might be able to help us.
Thank you in advance
Reply by email to: Kevin.Ball@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)
Deadline: Friday 30 May 2025
This research has been approved by the Ministry of Justice (NRC Ref: 2024-1357)
Publication of responses
The information you send HM Inspectorate of Probation may be published in full or in a summary of responses.
All information in responses, including personal information, may be subject to publication or disclosure in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).
If you want your response to remain confidential, you should explain why confidentiality is necessary and your request will be acceded to only if it is appropriate in the circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding.
If you have any queries, please contact:
Kevin Ball, Senior Research Officer
HM Inspectorate of Probation