First Approved Premises report published
The launch of our Approved Premises (APs) inspection programme comes at a pivotal point for the Probation Service. The number of places available in APs has been under pressure in recent years, and this is pressure is likely to increase following the introduction of Probation Reset, SDS40 early release scheme and the implementation of the Sentencing Review.
The national network APs is one of the least visible and least well-known corners of the criminal justice system, yet they provide essential support for people leaving prison who are assessed as a risk of serious harm. These individuals require an increased level of monitoring in the community and APs help them to rehabilitate and resettle while ensuring the public are protected during those early months back in the community.
Within our inspections of probation delivery units and regions within the Probation Service, we routinely find public protection to be an area of weakness, with insufficient work being done to keep victims and the public safe from harm. The role APs play in public protection cannot be underestimated and it is crucial that we gain some oversight into this extremely important aspect of probation work. AP staff and managers also deserve to know what they are doing well, and we believe there should be a mechanism for learning from best practice from the AP network.
Currently, APs face no accountability to the public through inspection processes to see how far they are achieving their aims. We believe people deserve to know how well the Probation Service is working to protect communities through the national network of APs.
I am delighted to announce the Southview Approved Premises, the first service inspected in the programme, has been rated ‘Outstanding’. While in our inspections of probation delivery units we routinely find concerning public protection work, at Southview our inspection team found no areas for improvement relating to public protection. Inspectors spoke enthusiastically about the leadership and staff working on the premises and I again want to congratulate them on the invaluable work they do to keep communities safe and reintegrate prison leavers back into the community.