Parole Board Equality Action Plan 2008/10

Contents

Foreword - Christine Glenn, CEO

1. Introduction
2. Leadership and Accountability
3. Considering Prisoners' Cases
4. Members and Staff
5. Engagement and Communication
6. Equality Impact Assessment
7. Publication
8. Review

Appendix A - Brief guide to equality legislation

Appendix B - Timetable

Foreword

I am very pleased to be able to introduce this Equality Action Plan which seeks to meet, on behalf of the Parole Board, both the requirements and the spirit of the current legislation related to equality and diversity.

The Action Plan has been produced following an extensive diversity audit and consultations with members, staff and stakeholders, including a focus group with prisoners from diverse backgrounds who had experience of the parole process.

The Parole Board is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all members and staff regardless of ethnic origin, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other irrelevant factor.

The Board values diversity and seeks to treat everyone as they would wish to be treated, with respect and courtesy. We are committed to conducting equality impact assessments of all our policies and practices to ensure that we are not acting in a discriminatory manner and to monitoring our progress against objectives set out in this Plan.

The Parole Board already has a very diverse workforce and also a very diverse clientele base amongst prisoners. It is important in maintaining public confidence in the work we do that we accurately reflect the community around us. It is also vitally important that we do not allow irrelevant factors to hinder the potential achievements of our members and staff.

As Chief Executive Officer I will seek to ensure that equality is embedded at the heart of all that we do as an organisation and that a strong lead is given from the top in this vital area of our operation.

Christine Glenn - Chief Executive Office - 18 December 2008

1. Introduction

1.1 The Parole Board

The Parole Board for England and Wales was established in 1968 under the Criminal Justice Act 1967. It became an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body on 1 July 1996 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. It is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by making risk assessments about prisoners to decide whether they can be safely released into the community or must remain in custody. We are sponsored by the Ministry of Justice and fall within the remit of its race, gender, disability and equality schemes.

The Parole Boards overarching aim is:

Working with others to protect the public and contributing to the rehabilitation of prisoners.

• To support the overarching aim, the Boards Corporate Plan for 2007-2010 identifies three supporting aims as follows:
• To make risk assessments which are rigorous, fair and timely with the primary aim of protecting the public and which contribute to the rehabilitation of prisoners where appropriate.
• To demonstrate effective and accountable corporate governance by maintaining strong internal control, setting clear objectives and managing corporate risk and to deliver best value by optimum use of resources.
• To promote the independence of and public confidence in the work of the Board, while effectively managing change.

The role of the Parole Board:

For those prisoners sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, the Parole Board (Transfer of Functions) Order 1998 gives the Board delegated authority to decide on applications for parole from prisoners serving from four to less than fifteen years. For those serving fifteen years or more the Board makes a recommendation to the Secretary of State. The Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, and the Criminal Justice Act 2003, also give authority to the Board to decide on the release of life sentence prisoners, those detained at Her Majestys Pleasure and those serving sentences for public protection.  Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, the Board considers the re-release of prisoners recalled to prison by the Secretary of State. In considering these cases the Board is guided by Directions issued by the Secretary of State.

1.2 This Equality Action Plan

This Equality Action Plan seeks to build on and develop our 2002 document, Parole Board Action Against Racial Discrimination by:

• Widening its scope to include all the main diversity areas: that is race, gender, gender identity, disability; age, sexual orientation and religion or belief.
• Linking action on equality to the Corporate Plan 2007-10 and to annual business plans.
• Ensuring the Board is compliant with current and evolving legislation.
• Recognising the developments in wider society since 2002.
• Taking into account the Parole Boards growth and changing role.

The Corporate Plan 2007-10 states our commitment to equality as follows;

"Diversity and Respect

The Board values diversity and seeks to treat everyone as they would wish to be treated, with respect and courtesy. We draw on the full range of experience and skills of our staff and our members in promoting quality decisions, and are open to the views of all those affected by our work in coming to balanced solutions. We work together to put this into practice by:

• Ensuring the effectiveness of our equal opportunity policies.
• Articulating our values and making sure they are reflected in the way we do things.
• Listening to and learning from others as well as explaining our own mission and purpose.
• Updating and strengthening our Race Action Plan.
• Conducting a diversity audit."

Our Business Plan 2008-9 states:

"The Parole Board is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all members and staff regardless of ethnic origin, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other irrelevant factor."

This is a two-year Equality Action Plan to coincide with the remainder of the Corporate Plan 2007-10. It has been produced following a diversity audit which involved discussions with members, staff and key partners; a questionnaire to stakeholders; review of documentation; observation of paper and oral hearings; and a focus group with prisoners from diverse backgrounds who had experience of the parole process. It also takes into account the framework of commitments set out in Promoting Equality, Valuing Diversity A Strategy for the Civil Service launched in July 2008.

1.3 The Legislative Framework

This Equality Action Plan seeks to meet both the requirements and the spirit of the legislation related to equality and diversity (see Appendix A for a brief guide to the relevant legislation).

Specific duties under the legislation require public authorities to publish equality schemes and to conduct equality impact assessments of policies and practices. The Parole Board, as a Non-Departmental Public Body, is covered by the equality schemes published by the Ministry of Justice.

This Equality Action Plan falls within this framework and seeks to set out in more detail specific equality objectives for the work of the Parole Board in relation to its members, staff and stakeholders.

1.4 Context

When the 2002 Parole Board Action Plan Against Racial Discrimination was produced, public authorities were beginning to work on compliance with the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and to gain an understanding of the implications of the concept of institutional racism, put forward in the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report 1999. Since then, not only has legislation been strengthened across all diversity strands, but also public authorities have moved forward in developing equality schemes and conducting equality impact assessments of their work. The former equality commissions (now incorporated into the Equality and Human Rights Commission) produced detailed guidance to assist public authorities to develop good practice and ensure compliance with the new legislation.  The new Equality Action Plan takes account of these developments.

At the same time, the nature of the Board has changed from being an executive body making administrative decisions on the papers to being a court, making decisions at oral hearings in the cases of the most dangerous offenders. The volume of work handled by the Board has also dramatically increased, particularly the number of oral hearings. In all these cases whether considering prisoners cases on paper or at oral hearing, the Board aims to implement processes that are fair, non-discriminatory, open and accountable. The following sections outline what we will do to achieve this. Appendix B provides a timetable for achieving our aims and sets out who is responsible.

2. Leadership and Accountability

This section relates to Aim 2 in our Corporate Plan 2007-10, effective and accountable corporate governance.

We will seek to ensure that equality is embedded at the heart of all that we do and that a strong lead is given from the top.  We will undertake the following activities to achieve this:

• Appoint a Diversity Champion drawn from the Management Board.
• Ensure that equality and diversity is on the agendas of Management Board and team meetings.
• Our Executive Team will take the lead responsibility for reviewing performance and progress against this Equality Action Plan.
• We will publish this Equality Action Plan and annual progress reports.
• A Diversity Steering Group will be established with a cross-section of staff, members and external representation with the responsibility for raising awareness of diversity issues, identifying how they impact on the Boards work and co-ordinating projects to develop policy and practice.
• We will review all existing diversity and equal opportunity policies, including our grievance, disciplinary and anti-harassment procedures, updating and producing new policies as needed. This will cover members, staff and stakeholders.
• We will ensure our commitment to equality and that our updated policies are communicated to members, staff and stakeholders.

3. Considering Prisoners' Cases

This section relates to Aim 1 in our Corporate Plan, operations and core business. It covers oral and paper hearings for both determinate and indeterminate sentenced prisoners. It also takes account of the Boards overriding responsibility to protect the public.

The Parole Board has always gone to great lengths to ensure fairness, openness and non-discrimination in how we conduct our core business. We will continue to do this.

The 2002 Action Plan Against Racial Discrimination described the results of two pieces of research conducted in 2000-2001 on the fairness of Parole Board decisions in relation to ethnicity.

"These studies have confirmed that the Board is achieving its aim of reaching decisions fairly, regardless of a prisoners ethnic origin.  However, the Parole Boards decision comes at the end of a long process.  The Board considers that there is a need for further work by the Prison Service to identify whether there are issues of fairness at earlier stages which may affect the factors taken into account by the Board and which need to be addressed - for example, why there are different numbers of adjudications as between ethnic groups, or whether all ethnic groups have equal access to offending behaviour programmes." (Action Against Racial Discrimination 2002)

This statement remains equally relevant today and extends across all diversity strands.  We will therefore explore what we can do ourselves, and where we need to work with partner agencies to ensure Parole Board decisions are fair, and seen to be fair.

3.1 Perceptions and openness

The Board strives to be as open as possible within the requirements of the law, while respecting legal constraints on confidentiality. Some of the more recent initiatives have included the involvement of external fully independent people in reviewing cases considered by the Board. We are undertaking a project with Operation Black Vote to increase the understanding of the work of the Board within Black and minority ethnic communities with the aim of increasing recruitment of members from these communities.

We will seek to provide clearer information to victims and prisoners as well as their representatives in accessible formats to explain the parole process and promote transparency. The Board is working with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to increase the number of victim personal statements submitted to panels.  Victims may now appear at Parole Board oral hearings to make a victim personal statement in person. We will seek to extend external advice and involvement where it will help to ensure any potential issues of diversity are raised and dealt with.

3.2 Case management and decision-making

It is essential to ensure that the human rights of victims, prisoners and the public are respected in terms of fair hearings and that there is no potential for discrimination.

• We will work with colleagues at the Ministry of Justice to review equality of decision making and case management to ensure there is no improper discriminatory impact on any group of prisoners.
• We will liaise with NOMS to ensure that prisoners are identified prior to review so that translations, materials in accessible formats or other support as appropriate are available to ensure that no prisoner has a less than fair hearing.
• We will seek to ensure that the views of victims and their families are heard.

3.3 Monitoring and research

At present the Parole Board publishes annually data on the number of discretionary conditional release prisoners considered and released by ethnic group. This information is received from Analytical Services in the Ministry of Justice. Similar information on indeterminate sentence prisoners is not available. It is our aim to continue to publish the information we receive and where possible to improve the way in which data is monitored.

• We will continue to work with NOMS to ensure that statistics on parole decisions by ethnic group continue to be published in the Boards Annual Report.
• We will work with NOMS to find a system for monitoring the outcome of cases across all diversity strands.
• We will monitor complaints about discrimination.
• We will also consider commissioning research on equality and the parole process if this appears to be needed.

3.4 Working with partner agencies

We are heavily reliant on our partner agencies for the successful and fair completion of our work.

In order to make timely decisions, we will work with partner agencies to try to ensure:

• Minimal delays in getting reports from partner agencies.
• Full information such as OASys reports, psychologists reports and home probation officer reports with no missing documents.
• Consistency and quality of reports which do not contain any bias.
• Appropriate offending behaviour programmes or other interventions to reduce risk are accessible and available.
• Interpreters are available as appropriate.
• Information and support is provided for prisoners with disabilities including learning disabilities.

To try to tackle these areas we will develop a more proactive role in our work with partners and establish channels to raise issues of potential unfairness in the parole process.  We will:

• Produce information on the potential equality impact on our decisions of the failure to address the factors above to circulate to all probation areas, regional offender managers, prison governors and parole clerks and other relevant partners.
• Raise these concerns with NOMS, which is responsible for the prison and probation services.
• Consider commissioning research to provide up to date information on the equality impact of the factors above.

4. Members and staff

Our members and staff are at the heart of our work. Both are equally vital. However because they are appointed in different ways and fulfil different duties, this section is divided into two parts, even though many of the points apply to both. This section is relevant to all the aims in our Corporate Plan.

4.1 Members

It is the Boards aim to have as diverse a membership as possible so that it reflects the society it represents. We have a good gender balance but have not been as successful in attracting a sufficient number of members from Black and minority ethnic communities. It is essential that we do increase diversity of members by ethnicity, age and disability to ensure we reflect the communities we serve.  We will:

• Continue to provide a "mentor" scheme for new members.
• Review with the MOJ the recruitment processes and procedures, including the recruitment criteria, assessment centres and tests to ensure there is no adverse impact on any group.
• Continue to work with the MOJ to make direct contacts with relevant organisations representing diverse groups and ask them to circulate our recruitment material.
• Continue to review with the MOJ the members fee structure to ensure this is not a deterrent to more diverse applications.

In relation to current members, we will:

• Set up and use our own monitoring system covering ethnicity, gender and disability.
• Update the members handbook to include more information about equality and diversity and the new legislation.
• Encourage the development and progression of members from all backgrounds to undertake all types of casework for which they are eligible through positive action such as training, mentoring and personal development.
• Add a section on equality on the members and staff extranet, and update them regularly with any new developments or issues which could affect their work.
• Review and update if necessary the equal treatment competencies which are used to assess members' work.
• Provide training on equality and diversity and legal requirements for all existing and new members.
• Make information available to members about Ministry of Justice equality and diversity support groups and forums.
• Monitor members' views on equality, diversity and discrimination at the Board through our annual members' and staff engagement survey.

4.2 Staff

At present we have a good diversity of staff. We need to ensure all our staff are encouraged to develop and that all our staff are aware of their obligations under the equality legislation. We also need to ensure that all our human resources policies are of good quality, up to date and circulated to all staff.  We will:

• Update the staff handbook.
• Encourage the development and progression of the most talented people from all different backgrounds through positive action measures such as management training, mentoring and work shadowing.
• Monitor recruitment, retention and progression processes across diversity strands.
• Monitor across all diversity strands the use of our grievance, disciplinary and appraisal processes.
• Add a section on equality on the members and staff extranet, and update them regularly with any new developments or issues which could affect their work.
• Ensure all staff are aware of and have access to our policies.
• Provide training for all staff in equality and diversity and the requirements of the legislation.
• Make information available to staff about Ministry of Justice equality and diversity support groups and forums.
• Monitor staff views on equality, diversity and discrimination at the Board through our annual members and staff engagement survey.

5. Engagement and Communication

This is relevant for Aim 3 in our Corporate Plan independence, strategy, communication and change.

We have a large stakeholder list drawn from statutory and voluntary agencies including representatives of victims and prisoners. We conduct surveys of staff and members and regularly provide information in The Board Sheet a newsletter for staff and members as well as GEM our regular staff communication.  We now need to build on these to strengthen our engagement and communication more proactively.  We will:

• Make better use of The Board Sheet and GEM to communicate on diversity issues with staff and members.
• Research with our partner agencies the level of demand for the translation of basic information about parole.
• Make better use of our web site to convey our work on equality and diversity.
• Make use of our annual members' and staff engagement survey to assess progress on equality and diversity.
• Make use of our annual stakeholder engagement survey to obtain stakeholders' views on equality and diversity.

6. Equality Impact Assessment

To develop good practice in all communications which promote positive, inclusive messages and images and avoid negative stereotypes and assumptions. Working toward establishing a two-way dialogue.

This relates to Aim 2 in our Corporate Plan, effective and accountable governance, and to Aim 1, our operations and core business.

We will seek to implement the spirit of the specific duties on public authorities by conducting equality impact assessments of our main policies and procedures. We will:

• List our policies and procedures and assess their relevance for equality.
• Ensure all policies are clearly written and accessible.
• Draw up a two-year programme to impact assess existing policies in order of priority.
• Conduct equality impact assessment of all new policies and procedures.
• Conduct an equality impact assessment of the Members Handbook and the present human rights and equality training provided for members.

In order to achieve this we will identify a core group of staff to take forward the work and provide equality impact assessment training for them. Our Executive Team will provide a standard format or template for impact assessments and will carry out quality checks on each assessment that is done.

7. Publication

To assist our second aim on accountability and our third aim on communication and change, we will:

• Publish this action plan on our web site.
• Produce a short and accessible leaflet on the equality action plan for wider distribution to prison and probation services and to other stakeholders.
• Publish annual progress reports on our web site.
• Publish major equality impact assessments on our web site and list others which can be available on request.

8. Review

We will keep this action plan under regular review, to ensure we make progress, and update it as required.

• Our Executive Team will review progress at every meeting.
• The Management Board will review progress every six months.
• The Diversity Champion will report to the Management Board and others as needed on successes and obstacles.
• The Equality Action Plan will be reviewed and updated in 2010.

The Parole Board for England and Wales

Grenadier House, 99-105 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2DX

Telephone 0845 251 2220