Policy and guidance
Confirmation had been received from the Ministry of Justice that OCPA had agreed to the one year extensions for Heather Morgan and Alan Whiffin. Ministerial approval was now awaited. In relation to Andrew Rutherford, there was a need to confirm his length of appointment on the Audit and Risk Management Committee if he was to remain on the Committee as an external member once he had retired as a Parole Board member.
It was reported that at last there had been some positive action in determining the future of the Parole Board. Ministers had requested the setting up of a multi-agency working group to consider the options. Any change to the Boards constitution would require primary legislation and it was not thought that this could happen before 2010. A workshop held on 10.7.08 with Management Board and Executive Team members had been very useful in identifying which parts of Boards current structure should be preserved and it was recommended that these should be fed into the working group. It was agreed that further workshops for members and staff should not take place until the position was clearer.
The meeting noted the exchange of correspondence between the Board and the Senior Presiding Judge. The e-mails from two judicial members were also noted. These highlighted the different views about the time required to prepare for cases. The Management Board supported the introduction of a reading/writing day as soon as the necessary resources can be provided but the impact of introducing such a policy immediately would mean even more extensive delays and judicial reviews. Introduction of the policy would be kept under review. Chris Glenn said that she had been impressed by the efforts of the sponsor unit in arranging with the circuits extra days from some of our judge members to help with the backlog of oral hearing cases. Other ways of increasing the amount of judge time available were being explored with Peter Handcock. The payment of retired judges was being considered as part of the review of members fees
The first meeting of the Committee had taken place on 4.9.08. Issues such as the attendance of victims at oral hearings and the Parole Board Rules were discussed and it had been a very encouraging start to the Committee. A further report would be submitted to the Management Board in November.
As part of the preparation for the forthcoming PAC hearing, Peter Handcock, Director General of the Access to Justice Group of the MoJ, would be visiting the Board on 14.10.08 to find out more about the work of the Board, observe a panel and meet with staff and members. Work on a generic parole process had commenced and was being led by the MoJ. Discussions had also taken place about forming a group to monitor performance against the whole system target recommendation in the NAO Report. The Board believed an independent external person should chair the group but NOMS did not share this view.
It was confirmed that the revised consultants report on members fees had been sent to the sponsor unit for consideration together with a request to review the grading of the full-time members posts. A response was awaited.
There was a discussion about reducing the number of cases to 12 on single member recall panels as the cases were getting more complex. It was pointed out that the problem cases were the residue of the 2003 Act cases which were subject to further reviews. It had been decided to target these cases by asking members to go to the Public Protection Casework Section in Croydon to deal with them there. In that way any outstanding problems could be resolved face to face with the MoJ staff. It was anticipated that the 2008 cases would not present as many difficulties. A report on the impact of the 2008 cases would be prepared for the November meeting of the Management Board.
The fee for additional DCR cases was queried. After discussion it was agreed that the fee should be 1/18 of the DCR fee.
A draft template had been developed from a number of sources including training sessions, judicial review outcomes and Post-Panel Team feedback. It was a working document and would be subject to refinement as the approval process for the template progressed. It was considered that guidance notes would be useful and it was important to ensure that the template would not result in formulaic reasons. The meeting approved the process for agreeing the template.
Progress had been made in developing the Boards Information Risk Policy. However, it was not thought possible to meet the MoJs target for all business units to reach compliance with the ISO Standard by 31.3.09. Further work was being carried out and the Management Board would continue to be kept informed of progress. The Deputy Senior Information Risk Officer in the MoJ had taken the trouble to visit the Boards offices and appreciated the difficulties that the Board had in handling thousands of dossiers each year. Nevertheless, there was pressure for strong and visible leadership to be introduced in relation to the security of personal information. There was now a need to embed a culture of change within the Board to ensure that members and staff embraced the whole concept of information security. The meeting confirmed its commitment to champion the benefits of Information Assurance.
There had been a recent incident involving a member of staff who had inadvertently taken a mobile phone into a prison. The prison authorities called the police. However, after attending the police decided to take no action. It was considered that the prison had overreacted. There was concern that the member of staff would not be allowed into any prisons and would therefore be unable to work and this had been extremely upsetting.
The meeting agreed with the change of policy proposed that the words exceptional circumstances should not be used when making decisions about whether or not a prisoner should be released from closed conditions.
The proposal to move to an automatic system of allocating ICM cases to members which was aimed at evening out the number of cases dealt with by ICM members was discussed. It was accepted that the current process was unsatisfactory as some members were dealing with a disproportionately high number of cases and there needed to be a much better method of allocating cases. It was agreed to canvass members at the ICM training event on 29.9.08 before a final decision was made.
Most operational and strategic targets were being met. Further improvements in the oral hearings process were anticipated once the new Parole Board Rules were in force. There had been further delays here as MoJ officials and lawyers advised that in order for the amendments to the Rules to be accepted by Ministers a judge should be on any panel that decided on the release of life sentenced prisoners. This was not only due to the undertaking given to Parliament when oral hearings for DLP prisoners began but also to allay any perception that increased powers were being taken from the judiciary and given to the executive. Although the Board was fully consulted about the amendments, it was clear that the Rules would not be able to be laid if such changes were not made. This in turn would mean that it would not be possible to ease the burden on the Board and others with the improvements set out in the amendments. A revised draft of the Rules was being prepared and it was hoped that they would be laid before Parliament in October. The number of deferrals at oral hearing had increased in August but it was noted that a record number of three member oral hearings took place.
It was reported that at the July meeting the Board was under budget. Since then expenditure had increased and there was now a real concern that the Board would end the year over budget. This was due to a number of reasons including the delay in getting the new Parole Board Rules approved, an increasing number of indeterminate cases, tackling the cases in progress now ready for listing following the ICM improvements, additional temporary staff and legal costs. It also had to be remembered that the Board did not get the full amount for which it had originally bid. A budget meeting attended by the Executive Team and the Chair of the Audit and Risk Management Committee had taken place to review expenditure and make proposals. After considering the proposals, the Management Board agreed that the Annual Lecture should be cancelled as this would save £47,950. Savings of £12,000 were also identified in the research budget of the Quality Unit. Further work would be carried by the Executive Team to identify other savings. It was, however, recognised that the savings would be insufficient to enable the Board to meet its casework demands within budget particularly as the backlog of oral hearings was increasing. An assurance had been received from Peter Handcock that money would be found to do the casework but that the Board should seek to make appropriate savings where possible. The meeting agreed that an in-year bid for additional grant-in-aid should be made to the sponsor.
It had been agreed with the sponsor unit to hold a recruitment exercise in 2009 for the main categories of members including independents. It was anticipated that the adverts would be published in early February 2009. It was planned to meet with OCPA through the sponsor unit to agree the principles for re-appointment and extensions. The meeting agreed the need to retain as many experienced members as possible.
There were 17 new members on the course at Ashridge in August and the overall view was that the training had gone well and the reaction of those participating had been very positive. The quality of the new members was high although one judge had decided to drop out before completing the training. A detailed evaluation of the training programme would take place and fed back so that improvements can continue to be made.
The OBV seminar held on 9.7.08 had been very successful with over 100 people attending. Arrangements were in hand for around 25 to observe panels. Further interest had been shown from people unable to attend the seminar and consideration was being given to holding a further event.
The Howard Leagues recommendation that specially trained members should sit on panels considering parole applications by juveniles was discussed. It was pointed out that the Howard League had now moved from that position as the small numbers of cases made it impractical to have panels just for juveniles. However, the Board was working closely with the Howard League and the Youth Justice Board to ensure that juveniles were treated appropriately. There had been a major input at the last Annual Conference in April 2008 and a joint leaflet entitled Parole for Children and Young People had been published in May 2008. Some guidance about oral hearings for children and young persons was already included in the Oral Hearings Guide and further training for members was being considered.
It was reported that Grenadier House had a mouse infestation and this was being tackled.
Good progress had been made in several areas of the action plan to retain IiP accreditation. An Awayday for staff had been organised at Barnett Hill in Guildford on 3.10.08 and Sir Trevor Brooking had agreed to give the opening address. The Equality Action Plan was due to be finalised at a meeting with the consultants on 16.10.08. A staff restructuring exercise was also taking place particularly within the operational teams. Training requirements would be reviewed when the new structure was in place. Reassessment for IiP was due to take place in January 2009.
The average monthly page views on the new website had increased by 101% compared with the old site and was exceeding Business Plan targets for usage and posting new items. The website had also won the Chartered Institute of Public Relations website of the year award for 2008. When e-mails were sent out to members about information on the website the amount of traffic increased which showed that members were using the site. However, there was a lot of work involved in keeping the website up-to-date and plans were in hand to find additional resources for this purpose.
The Parole Boards main computer network was currently POISE which it had been on since sponsorship moved to the Home Office. As a consequence of the change of sponsor to the Ministry of Justice, the Board had been given the option of staying on POISE or moving to ARAMIS, the MoJs network. The advice received from the IT Team and others who had experience of ARAMIS was that the Board stays with POISE. The meeting supported the recommendation.
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