Why are probation officers STILL working from home? Fears of mistakes being missed as staff stay away from the office while 1,700 prisoners are released early by Keir Starmer
Criminal activity and grassroots intelligence are being missed by probation officers in Britain because so many are working from home, an insider claimed today.
Criminal activity and grassroots intelligence are being missed by probation officers in Britain because so many are working from home, an insider claimed today.
Probation officers are allowed to log in from the living room on two days each week under a hybrid model brought in by the Ministry of Justice during the pandemic.
But concerns are mounting over mistakes being missed because of a lack of in-person meetings and discussions between staff in an office environment.
It comes as a watchdog warned it was inevitable some of the 1,700 prisoners being released yesterday from UK jails would reoffend and end up back behind bars.
Groups of inmates have been celebrating as they walked out of prisons across England and Wales, with around 400 prisoners freed from jails in London alone.
The latest releases were in addition to about 1,000 inmates normally freed each week and form part of the Labour governments plan to ease jail overcrowding.
People released from HMP Pentonville in North London yesterday as prisoners are let out early
But there are concerns that the overstretched probation service could be missing problem criminals, especially given many workers are on a hybrid working model.
One probation officer told the Daily Telegraph that working from home can result in staff missing informal leads and grassroots intelligence.
She said criminals grass on each other all the time to different officers, adding: A lot of intelligence is actually gathered not from the offender, but about the offender from other offenders and other probation officers.
The woman cited how she found out that one of her charges, a prisoner out on licence who had raped a nine-year-old boy, had been given a job in a high street chain which sold merchandise for children – but only when she overheard a discussion in the office.
She added: No one would have told me. When you work from home, you dont get all the office gossip… You dont get the minutiae.
But the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) continues to offer working from a home as a perk to recruit new workers – with the probation service currently short of 1,700 staff.
Its website says that new trainees will be working in an environment that supports a range of flexible working options, including the ability to use technology to work remotely, to enhance your work-life balance and support the needs of the business.
This is despite findings blaming hybrid working for mistakes being missed.
Tania Bassett, a former probation officer and official at Napo, the probation officers union, told the Telegraph that working from home can be very useful for people who may have very specific deadlines around parole reports, etc.
But she also claimed that partial privatisation in 2014 under then-justice secretary Chris Grayling means a lot of offices actually arent big enough for everybody to be in the office every single day, so we dont actually have the space for the staff in some areas.
Ms Bassett added: Probation is doing really badly and it isnt just because of remote working, its because its hugely under-resourced and has suffered significant cuts when it needed significant investment.
Martin Jones, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, said probation performance is at its best when, the majority of the time, people are in the office because probation practice is about human relationships and your judgment of how somebodys doing.
Ben Griffin, who was jailed for assault and assault on a police officer, pumps his fists as he celebrates being released early from HMP Nottingham yesterday
He added: Ultimately, the work of probation does require face-to-face contact in a pretty significant number of cases.
But Mr Jones also pointed out that while in-person contact is important for judging risk, the more pressing issue is high vacancy levels and low staff retention rates.
In September last year, then-Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell warned shortly before he stepped down from the role that probation officers are potentially putting the public at risk by continuing to work from home.
He pin-pointed remote working as a key factor in poor performance and warned it had led to face-to-face rushed assessments of criminals.
Mr Russell said the Probation Services policy at the time which required staff to come into work only three days a week was contributing to very disappointing performance.
Newly released convicted thief and shoplifter Connor Charlesworth, 24, from Chesterfield, stole £480 of jewellery from his girlfriends grandparents when he was house-sitting for them
The study found management oversight of probation officers work was insufficient in 72 per cent of cases, meaning mistakes are being missed.
The risk posed to the public by offenders was only assessed accurately in a third of cases, with the service showing consistently poor performance, it said.
And the issue of working from home has been highlighted again this week after hundreds of prisoners were freed early yesterday to cut overcrowding in jails.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the Commons that inmates who are homeless on release could be temporarily placed in taxpayer-funded budget hotels if there is not enough space in bail hostels and other community accommodation typically used for offenders.
Stuart Bennett dances in the street after being released from HMP Leeds yesterday
Ms Mahmood announced plans in July to temporarily cut the proportion of sentences which inmates must serve behind bars from 50 per cent to 40 per cent as the MoJ said overcrowding had pushed jails to the point of collapse.
Downing Street said the policy had to be brought in to avoid unchecked criminality where the police and courts are unable to lock anyone up because there are no free cells.
MoJ figures showed the prison population hit a record high of 88,521 on Friday, having risen by more than 1,000 inmates over the past four weeks.
Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said the Government had no choice but to do something about overcrowding because the bath was in danger of overflowing, and they either had to turn the taps off or they had to let some water out.
But he warned it was inevitable that some of these prisoners will get recalled to custody and that some will be homeless on release - increasing the risk that they could go on to commit more crimes.
Tareen Shakil hugs his mother as he leaves prison in Birmingham yesterday six weeks early after serving half of a four-year sentence for drug related offences
On Monday, it emerged some victims were not prepared in the wake of their perpetrators being freed early, with The Times reporting hundreds had not been informed.
The Victims Commissioner of England and Wales, Baroness Newlove, branded it regrettable that some had still not been told this was happening on the eve of the policy coming into force.
Hundreds more prisoners are due to be freed early next month in the second stage of the scheme.
But the Government is under pressure to find longer-term solutions to the problem, with prison figures warning without further measures the same problem could be faced in about a years time.
MailOnline has asked the MoJ for comment on probation officers working from home.
