Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the (a) assessment and (b) management of the risks of serious harm to the public posed by people on probation by HM Prison and Probation Service.

The quality of risk assessment and risk management is centrally assured by HMPPS’s Operational and System Assurance function, in order to provide a robust assessment of the quality of sentence management.

This assurance work covers the quality of risk assessments and the adequacy of the management of Risk of Serious Harm. The annual audit exercise for 2022-23 is in progress.

Each probation region also completes its own assurance of the quality of practice, including on risk assessment and risk of serious harm, using a specialised audit tool. From 2023-24 onwards, the HMPPS assurance team will validate the results of these regional audits, to ensure consistency and continued focus on the quality of practice.

The required learning in relation to risk assessment, planning and management is currently being re-developed to include a greater understanding of actuarial predictor tools as well as building upon prior learning to focus upon application to more complex cases.