Guide to ICM

The learning from the development and introduction of the ICM process has now been captured and reproduced in a professionally produced guidance booklet. This is being distributed to panel members, Parole Board, Prisons and Probation staff, and solicitors.

Quick Guide to ICM

An alternative quick guide to the key points of ICM is reproduced below.

Indeterminate sentence prisoner initial notifications
(ALP, DLP, HMP, MLP, IPP)

Initial notifications are sent by the Board 26 weeks in advance of the proposed target month of hearing for Lifer review cases (including IPPs).  Any case which had an initial notification issued prior to 7 January 2008 will require a dossier to be prepared according to the original mandatory document lists issued in 2007.  The Board will have sent you a document request list with the initial notification.

All cases referred after 7 January 2008 will need to have a dossier prepared in line with the new OMIII requirements.  A revised list has been prepared and will be issued with any new notifications.

We appreciate that during this transitional period some dossiers will be a hybrid of the two systems and as long as they key information is included, they will be accepted.

As we are still implementing OMIII requirements into our own documentation, please do let us know if there are any errors or changes required.

Reminder letters

The dossier for Lifer review cases should be disclosed to the prisoner at least 18 weeks before the target month of hearing and a copy sent to the Board.  We will wait a further week but if it appears that the dossier has not been disclosed by the end of the 17 week stage we will issue a reminder letter (effectively in week 16) pointing out that the case is now behind schedule.

Once the dossier has been disclosed to the prisoner, the prisoner is given 28 days to submit his/her representations, which should be added to the main dossier, which must then be paginated and submitted to the Board. 

If no dossier has been received at the Board by 13 weeks before the hearing, or mandatory reports are missing, the Board will issue a set of standard Directions to the prison requesting that the complete dossier be sent without further delay. 

At the same time as issuing standard Directions the Parole Board Chief Executive will also issue a letter to the prison Governor or Director listing those cases at the establishment which are now overdue, and run the very likely risk of not being ready for the target month of hearing, resulting in a deferral.  This letter is intended to identify any problems prisons may be having with preparing dossiers and to subsequently see if the Board can assist in any way to resolve the situation.

We hope that these initiatives will prompt the submission of dossiers so that we can progress the case to hearing.

The Boards Directions

When the dossier has been received by the Board, the case will be considered by a single ICM accredited Member.  The Member will do one of the following:

1. Decide that the case is ready for hearing and, once any witness availability has been ascertained, ask that a date be secured for the hearing.
2. Decide the case is not quite ready and issue Directions for additional or missing information, as well as contacting potential witnesses warning that they may be required.  Once the Directions have been complied with a date can then be secured for the hearing.
3. Advise that the case is not ready and Directions will be issued, however in view of the amount of work still required it is unlikely that the original target date will be met.  In these instances the ICM member will defer the case for a set period of time.
4. Make a decision based on the papers.  The negative decision is issued to the prisoner and other parties.  The prisoner has 28 days to appeal against the decision if they do not agree with it.
5. Consider that the dossier is not in a presentable state and return it without assessment with a request that the prison prepare the dossier in accordance with the instructions set out in the PSO.

The case will remain pending until the Directions are complied with.  The Directions form will have the target month of hearing identified at the top and this is the date at which all other dates in the ICM cycle are calculated.

Below this there will be a deadline date set.  This is the latest date at which information can be supplied in order for the case to stand a chance of being scheduled for the target month of hearing.  Where the time interval is too short for the Directions to be met, the ICM member may indicate that the target month of the hearing should be deferred.

Information and reports required will be set out on the Directions form and it will be clear whether they are needed BEFORE a case can be given a hearing date or can be supplied AFTER the date is set BUT in advance of the hearing.  In some instances a separate deadline may be set, as some information may be required before other documentation can be prepared.

Any witnesses identified on the Directions form will need to advise one of the parties of their non-availability for the target month of hearing, which should be communicated to the Board as soon as possible. This will then be taken into consideration when setting a date for the hearing.  If witnesses are subsequently not required to attend the hearing they will be informed as early as possible in advance of the hearing date.

If you believe it will not be possible to meet any of the deadlines please contact the Board urgently to discuss options.

Deferrals

The Board tries to avoid issuing deferrals but this may be necessary if:

• The dossier is not received
• The dossier is received but is incomplete
• It has not been possible to assess the dossier
• There are outstanding Directions
• The Board cannot set up additional panels

In some cases, when assessing the case it will be clear to the ICM member that the case will not be ready in time for the target month of hearing.  In these circumstances, a deferral will be issued on the Directions form and a new target month for the hearing recommended.  This will be on Section C of the ICM Directions form.  Either party can challenge the deferral in writing within 7 days.

If a prisoner or representative requests a deferral it will be considered by an ICM member who will agree or refuse the request based on the reasons given.

A deferral request for anything longer than six months will only be agreed in extenuating circumstances.  Where a long deferral (e.g. 18 months) is requested, the Board will normally reject the request and recommend that the case either continues as planned or be heard on papers.

If a prisoner has indicated that he does not want an oral hearing the Board will decide the case on papers and issue a decision. 

If a prisoner does not want an oral hearing and has indicated he does not want a review to take place at all then the Board will refer it back to the Ministry of Justice for a decision on whether to withdraw/cancel the referral.  Please note the MoJ is currently reviewing its procedures on dealing with withdrawal requests.

Paper decisions

The ICM member, upon considering the papers of a case, may decide to issue a paper negative decision (to neither direct release nor in Lifer/IPP cases recommend open conditions).  If this is the case, a letter will be issued to the prisoner and all other parties advising of this and giving reasons.

The prisoner then has 28 days to either accept or challenge the decision.  If the prisoner accepts the decision then this will be final and no oral hearing will take place.  The Ministry of Justice will set a further review based on the date of the decision.

If the prisoner challenges the decision, then a statement to explain the issues will be required, which the Board will consider.  Under the current Rules, the Board is accepting challenges and cases are being progressed to oral hearing, which may necessitate the issue of Directions.

In either case, a further letter will be issued to all parties advising of the prisoners decision.

Scheduling the hearing

Please note that the hearing will not be scheduled until:

• A fully complete dossier has been received by the Board
• The fully complete dossier has been assessed by an ICM member
• Any Directions issued have been complied with and all information requested has been supplied (NB: some information can be supplied after scheduling but is required before the hearing this will be clearly set out on the Directions form)
• All witnesses have been consulted on availability during the target month.

The Board aims to allocate a hearing date 10 weeks in advance of the provisional month of hearing and so if the case does not adhere to the official timetable then it will most likely miss this opportunity to be listed.  A follow up meeting is held 2 weeks later in order to try and schedule late cases, including recalls but the spaces available are limited as most panels have already been finalised.

Once the 8 week meeting has taken place, the Board will issue exact notifications for all cases scheduled.

Recall cases (ALP, DLP, HMP, MLP, IPP)

These cases, as you all know, have an extremely tight deadline and the Board must hear the case as soon as possible.  Under such circumstances the turnaround on delivery of the dossier and ICM assessment needs to be very quick. This means that any Directions issued will need to be complied with as a priority in order that the case can be heard swiftly.

In view of the limited time involved the Board will not issue an initial notification and only an exact notification will be sent, once a date for the hearing has been established.

ESP recall and annual review cases

These cases will, in the first instance, be heard on the papers and it is only if the prisoner challenges any paper decision that an ESP case may be progressed to an oral hearing.  A letter will be sent to the prisoner advising that the case will be heard on the papers first.

This is a change to the existing process whereby ESP annual reviews went directly to an oral hearing.  In order to speed up the process and ensure that the prisoner receives a decision as early as possible, the policy has been changed and ESP annual reviews will be dealt with in the same way as ESP recall cases.

Determinate sentence juvenile cases

The Board has made the decision that all Determinate Sentence Juvenile cases will be considered at oral hearing.  There will no longer be a paper hearing for these cases.  Under ICM, the Board will hear these cases as a matter of urgency.

Parole Board staff

Case Workers are currently responsible for issuing initial notifications and all matters up to and including the dossier being assessed by an ICM member

Case Managers are currently responsible for issuing the Directions and all matters related to the exact hearing.

In order to improve communication between the Board and prisons, Case Workers and Case Managers are allocated to specific prisons.  Your contacts can be found on the Parole Board website.

However, a major restructuring programme is underway with the oral hearings team and so this is likely to change in the autumn.

The Parole Board for England and Wales

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

Telephone 0845 251 2220