West Kent PDU rated as ‘Requires improvement’

The inspection showed the PDU’s leadership team, managers and staff were committed to providing a responsive service for people on probation. However, significant staff shortages meant the vision and strategy to deliver a high-quality service had not been fully realised and, as a result, the quality of work to keep people safe was insufficient.”

Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “There was a positive culture, and staff were motivated to do their best in difficult circumstances. Staff were well supported and involved in several positive initiatives, including engaging people on probation forums and equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging champions in each probation office. However, there were difficulties managing workloads across all grades of staff, including practitioners, middle managers and administrators.”

The report found that some innovative services were in place, including women’s projects across West Kent, foreign national offender (FNO) leads, and the Creating Future Opportunities (CFO) hub in Medway providing programmes of work with young adult males.

However, services were not used consistently to address offending-related need due to service provider staff shortages and difficult-to-follow referral processes which hindered access.

In addition, while there were some promising signs of improvement in service delivery since the PDU’s last inspection, work to keep other people safe was inadequate across the board.

Mr Jones added: “Much progress has been made since our last inspection of West Kent, and the right foundations of strong leadership and a positive culture are now in place to further drive improvement towards delivering high-quality probation services that continue to change people’s lives for the better.”

ENDS

Notes to editor

1. Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) replaced Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and the National Probation Service (NPS), which merged into a unified Probation Service in June 2021.
2. West Kent is the largest PDU of the five within the Kent, Surrey and Sussex probation region and accounts for 28 per cent of the regional caseload.
3. West Kent incorporates a large geographical area, which covers Medway unitary authority as well as Dartford, Gravesham, Maidstone, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Malling and Tunbridge Wells local authority districts.
4. West Kent PDU received an overall rating of ‘Inadequate’ in our previous inspection in 2022. That inspection made five recommendations to the PDU, and progress made against previous recommendations can be found in this latest report.
5. The report is available at justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation on 21 March 2024.
6. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales.
7. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’. The Inspectorate rates specific aspects of each service and also gives an overall rating.
8. Fieldwork for this inspection took place in January 2024.

For media enquiries, please contact Louise Cordell, Head of Communications 07523 805224 / media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)