Found: Edward Argar, Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation, dated 17 April 2024 regarding the Future prison

Found: of the homeless assessment PIW0018 requires receipt of the Housing Risk Assessment (HRA) from the Probation

Found: Park, Director of Criminal Justice and Women’s Services, St Giles Trust, Kim Thornden -Edwards, Chief Probation

Found: s ‘Navigator’ Initiative PCC Donna Jones has funded a ‘Navigator’ post to bring together police, probation

Found: Edward Argar MP, Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation, dated 10 April 2024 relating to the Publication

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether offenders under the Ministry of Justice’s community payback project scheme have been used to remove litter from (a) A roads, (b) B roads and (c) motorways.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

National Highways worked with the National Probation Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice, on the Community Payback Project and provided opportunities for litter picking at motorway service areas. Trial sites included Gloucester, Hartshead Moor, Chester and Leicester Forest East.

For health and safety reasons, National Highways is unable to facilitate offenders removing litter from Motorways or All-Purpose Trunk Roads.

B roads are a matter for each individual local authority and so this data is not held by the Department for Transport.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether HM Prison and Probation Service has made an assessment of the safety of (a) prisoners and (b) prison officers in prisons that do not have Tornado trained staff.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Operation Tornado is a national mutual aid plan by which prisons support one another in the event of a serious incident or occurrence requiring a reinforcement of staff. Operation Tornado is employed by HMPPS for three main reasons:

• In response to a serious incident requiring a reinforcement of staff.
• In response to other events or crisis requiring additional staff, who may not necessarily need to be Tornado trained.
• To aid the transfer of prisoners in the event of a serious incident or the threat of one (with the GOLD commander’s agreement).

HMPPS aims to have 2,100 volunteers trained in readiness for Operation Tornado. Since the inception of Operation Tornado in the late 1980s, HMPPS has allocated a commitment to each prison for how many Tornado staff they should aim to have trained. HMPPS monitors the number of staff available for deployment and offer training spaces to ensure resilience to respond to serious incidents.

In the event of a serious incident, all prisons, including those who have a commitment of zero, receive the same level of support from the Operation Response and Resilience Unit and Tornado trained staff from other prisons if required.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people completed unpaid work on the Community Payback Rapid Deployment Project pilot schemes between June and December 2023; how many hours of unpaid work were completed; and how many and what proportion of those hours were attributable to schemes run in the (a) Greater Manchester, (b) East of England, (c) Wales and (d) North East Probation Service regions.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Between 19 June and 31 December 2023, a total of 8,809 community payback hours have been completed as a part of the Community Payback Rapid Deployment Project pilot scheme by 509 different people.

The data source is nDelius, the Case Management System used by the Probation Service. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the information collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. While the figures shown have been checked as far as practicable, they should be regarded as approximate and not necessarily accurate to the last whole number shown in the tables.

To note, the figures are different to those provided in parliamentary question responses in October and December 2023, due to work undertaken to improve the accuracy of the data recorded.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he is taking steps to ensure that young offenders are provided therapeutic support (a) in the community and (b) in secure settings.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) are central to supporting children in the community who are on the cusp of offending, as well as those who have already offended. Working as multi-agency teams, with representatives from police, probation, education, health and social services, and specialist workers, such as accommodation officers and substance misuse workers, they are able to tailor their interventions and referrals based on an assessment of a child's vulnerabilities, risk and needs. YOTs are increasingly moving towards becoming a ‘trauma-informed’ service, and most have access to a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services practitioner who will assess children and provide early intervention to young people coming into contact with the justice system.

In secure settings, in collaboration with Health partners, the Youth Custody Service is committed to the delivery of an individualised, trauma-informed model of care for every child in custody across England and Wales. This approach ensures every child has access to a needs-based programme of therapy, interventions, treatment, and education. Interventions include a range of cognitive behavioural programmes, counselling psychology services and Family Therapy to promote desistance from future offending.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an estimate of the number of probation officers required to support prisoners granted early release.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We have increased funding for the Probation Service by an extra £155 million a year and onboarded over 4,000 trainee probation officers over the last three years.

As announced on 11 March, we will reset probation so that practitioners prioritise early engagement at the point where offenders are most likely to breach their licence conditions, allowing frontline staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the (a) number of housing placements available for prisoners on early release and (b) potential impact of the early release scheme on social housing waiting lists.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is committed to preventing homelessness and works closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Welsh Government to do so. Prisons and probation have a statutory duty to refer someone at risk of homelessness to a local authority for assistance, and we have worked closely with DLUHC on the design and delivery of their Accommodation for Ex-Offenders scheme. We have set up a Cross-Whitehall Accommodation Board, attended by officials from MoJ, HMPPS, Welsh Government and DLUHC, to ensure collaboration across policy and operational areas.

In July 2021, we launched our groundbreaking Community Accommodation Service Tier-3, to guarantee up to 12-weeks temporary accommodation to prison leavers subject to probation supervision who are at risk of homelessness on release, including those released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence measure. From July 2023 the service was expanded across all probation regions in England and Wales and continues to bring new beds online as the service embeds.

In 2022-23, 86% of prison leavers were in accommodation on their first night of release from custody.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on steps to help prisoners on early release find employment.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice works closely with the Department of Work and Pensions to improve employment outcomes for prison leavers.

We know that employment reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. That is why I am pleased to say that the rate of prison leavers in employment six months after release has more than doubled in the two years to March 2023, from 14% to over 30%.

All offenders released on End of Custody Supervised Licence will have a release plan put together by probation that helps support them in their journey into employment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help expand the support offered by Jobcentres in (a) Romford constituency and (b) the London Borough of Havering.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The local Jobcentre team are collaborating with a range of partners to support people into work and help employers fill vacancies. In addition to hosting job fairs and delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs). Romford Jobcentre is working with Havering Council, local colleges, childcare providers and other organisations to provide an employment and skills offer to help meet the recruitment needs of local employers.

This includes outreach support at the Rainham Childrens Centre and Havering Council, working with family practitioners, social workers, and probation to provide a holistic approach to supporting families in the borough, as well as support with CV preparation provided through Havering Library service, a Job Fair delivered in partnership with Havering Works and SWAPs delivered with Havering Adult College.

Disability Employment Advisers offer advice and expertise on how to help disabled people and people with health conditions into work, alongside close working with Change Grow Live, Havering Talking therapies, Havering Mind, the Social Prescribing team, and Richmond Fellowship. Romford Jobcentre colleagues also attend local events to highlight the support available, as well as Access to Work and Disability Confident.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether Highways England has used the community payback scheme in the last three years.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

National Highways has collaborated with the National Probation Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice, to provide opportunities for community service order candidates. In 2021 and 2022, National Highways was invited to make arrangements for litter picking trials and light maintenance at several motorways service areas including trial sites at Gloucester, Hartshead Moor, Chester and Leicester Forest East. In August 2023, National Highways also launched a project where candidates serving community service orders are assisting with graffiti removal and general maintenance in subways.

Found: (2) In section 37(8)(c)(i), for “that area” substitute “that local probation board”.

Found: (2) In section 37(8)(c)(i), for “that area” substitute “that local probation board”.

Found: staff of the following organisations— (a) the police, (b) the Crown Prosecution Service, (c) probation

Found: Teaching and other educational professionals not elsewhere classified • 2442 Social workers • 2443 Probation

Found: • 2329 Other educational professionals not elsewhere classified • 2461 Social workers • 2462 Probation

Found: • 2329 Other educational professionals not elsewhere classified • 2461 Social workers • 2462 Probation

Found: Where a TSFNO (who has already been transferred from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMP

Found: July 2023 and has been successful with thousands of hours of reparative work completed by people on probation

Found: These tags will be a constant and physical reminder to offenders that the Probation Service can find

Found: • 2329 Other educational professionals not elsewhere classified • 2461 Social workers • 2462 Probation

Found: July 2023 and has been successful with thousands of hours of reparative work completed by people on probation

Found: The move from ITE to probation is formally supported through the Teacher Induction Scheme (TIS) with