The Parole Board. Working with others to protect the public.
About the Parole Board
The Parole Board drove forward major developments to improve the quality and standards of its decisions during the year. Central to this work was the inception of the Quality Unit, bringing together in a single place the expertise and resources to support the work of members. The start up of this work was delayed by the tragic death of the newly appointed Director of Quality and Standards before he could take up his post.
The Quality Unit has contributed to a wide range of important initiatives including the development of the ICM process, the appraisal of members, research on release and recall of life sentence prisoners and the work of the Review Committee. The Board is committed to improving standards and quality of its decisions and to greater openness and transparency. The Boards work in this area has demonstrated a strong commitment to reflecting on its practice.
Set up in 2003 to review decisions to release where the offender had gone on to commit an alleged violent or sexual offence, the Committee has been running for over four years and has grown in stature during that time. It has sharpened both its focus and its procedures and is widely regarded by the Board and other interested agencies as a model of good practice.
Not only has the Committee been successful in feeding back learning points to individual members, but wider issues have formed the basis for training and development for the Board as a whole. In addition, trends are beginning to emerge in respect of decisions to release life sentence prisoners and have assisted the Board in its ongoing work on the lifer database.
In its infancy, assessments of individual decisions by the Committee were chiefly in a narrative form only, with no formal structure. Informal phrases evolved to describe how decisions were viewed but it became apparent that any proper learning process would benefit fromamore rigid and consistent systemof recording. The Committee therefore approved a 'scoring system' of five categories of decision.
Entirely reasonable
This refers to a decision that, on the facts known at the time, was sound and properly reasoned. There were no issues left unaddressed and no indication that further information should have been sought.
Reasonable
This refers to a decision that was arguably a good one. It acknowledges that another panel on another day may have decided differently, but that the decision was perfectly reasonable.
Reasonable with concerns
This is a decision that could be criticised in some respects but would not be regarded as flawed overall. For example, the decision may be reasonable but there are gaps in the reasons; or where a panel may have called for a piece of evidence that was not there but the decision overall was reasonable.
Questionable
This is a decision about which the Committee expressed real concern. In other words the decision itself, while not unreasonable in the Wednesbury sense is regarded as one that a properly informed Parole Board panel should not have made. Under this heading it is expected that the panel will receive formal feedback.
Completely unreasonable
A decision that no reasonable or rational panel should have made. Under this heading it is also expected that the panel will receive formal feedback. During the year covered by this Report, the 'scores' were as follows:
Entirely reasonable 8
Reasonable 16
Reasonable with concerns 15
Questionable 12
Entirely unreasonable 0
The first thing to note is that numbers are low, particularly when considered in the context of the number of decisions taken by the Board each year. The trends or learning points should accordingly be noted in that context.
One of the issues attracting criticism has been the body of the decision letter (the 'reasons') in cases where concern has been expressed. The Committee has seen cases where decisions have been too short, not covering all the risk issues or paying insufficient
attention to the evidence heard orally before the panel. In addition, there were a number of cases where the Committee felt that further information should have been sought and wasnt, or that a certain witness should have been called and wasnt. Most commonly
associated with the 'questionable' decisions were issues surrounding the panels assessment of risk.
In April 2008 Stephen Shaw, Prison and Probation Ombudsman, attended his last Committee meeting. He was one of two external people invited to be a member of what had previously been a purely internal Committee. The second, Peter Neyroud, Chief Constable and Chief Executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency will continue as a member for a further period.
It has been important for the Committee to include two such eminent professionals in its ranks. On a simple presentational level, the perception of objectivity is enhanced by having members on it who are fully independent of the Parole Board and who have no
vested interest in justifying its decisions. However, their true worth has been in the perceptive and informative contributions to the Committees discussion.
The Board will shortly welcome Anne Owers, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, who has agreed to take up a place on the Committee and will attend her first meeting in October 2008. It is a testament to the importance with which the Review Committee is now viewed that it
can attract such renowned names to join it.
Almost as many learning points arise out of the Review Committee for outside agencies as they do for the Board itself. It became apparent that no forumexisted for even discussing and addressing such issues. The Board therefore established the JRP in 2007 and invited senior representatives from police, probation and prisons to find ways of improving crossagency issues that have arisen from the Review Committee, its 'parent'body. The membership will increase in 2008 as a representative from the Prison Service Directorate of Health joins its ranks.
Compared to the Review Committee, the JRP is still evolving and, despite having done some very useful work, has yet to reach the standards set by the Committee itself. A number of high profile cases have been examined but because of the sheer size of the agencies
involved, conveying learning points to those at the coal face is not the simple matter that itmight be for the Board itself, a comparatively small and self-contained body. Nevertheless, formal strategies for communicating learning points are being considered and amore structured approach should accordingly emerge over the next year.
The major issue for the JRP is its very existence as a Parole Board run 'offshoot' of the Review Committee. As yet still low in profile, the JRP is beginning to attract interest from Ministers and other outside bodies because of its unique position as a multi-agency review body. In its present form it is quite restrictive in its terms of reference (cases are referred to it by the Committee only) and in its governance (the Board has no official influence over the police, prisons or probation).
If it is to become truly the sum of its parts, it will need to look at the potential for examining cases from a wider range of sources, not just the Parole Board, and perhaps become a statutory review body. The future is as yet unknown.
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