Probation

Circular

GUIDANCE ON ARRANGEMENTS REFERENCE NO:

TO MONITOR END-TO-END 43/2005

ENFORCEMENT ISSUE DATE:

10 June 2005
PURPOSE
To provide Chief Officers with a Technical Note which defines arrangements IMPLEMENTATION DATE:
for measuring performance against the new end-to-end targets for the
Immediate
enforcement of community penalties.
EXPIRY DATE:
ACTION
May 2010
Chief Officers should continue to work with other members of the LCJB to
improve end-to-end enforcement processes and in particular to ensure that
TO:
arrangements are in place to supply the court with the necessary information
to support performance monitoring. Chief Officers should also note the date Chairs of Probation Boards
of a forthcoming national workshop which will enable good practice ideas in Chief Officers of Probation
enforcement processes to be shared and applied more widely. This will be Secretaries of Probation Boards
held on 29th September 2005 and will be advertised more fully in due course.
CC:
SUMMARY Board Treasurers
New end-to-end targets have been introduced for 2005/06, to improve the Regional Managers
performance of community penalty breach enforcement. These targets are
owned by LCJBs and apply to Magistrate and Crown Court orders, but AUTHORISED BY:
exclude Youths under the age of 18. The new targets are that breaches Roger McGarva, Head of Regions
should take an average of 35 working days from second unacceptable failure
& Performance Management
to comply to resolution of the case; and that 50% of all breach proceedings
are to be resolved within 25 working days of the second failure to comply. In
ATTACHED:
addition, Probation and Courts have retained separate targets for offender
Annex 1 Technical Note
compliance, prompt instigation of breach and the execution of warrants.
Community Penalty Breaches End
to End Enforcement Target
Attached to this circular is the agreed Technical Note that defines the target
components and performance monitoring arrangements in more detail.
Whilst the Courts will be responsible for monitoring performance, their ability
to do this will be dependent on the quality and timeliness of data provided by
the Probation Service and effective local arrangements will be required to
ensure that this information is provided.

RELEVANT PREVIOUS PROBATION CIRCULARS

PC24/2000, PC17/2004, PC43/2004, PC13/2005 and PC38/2005

CONTACT FOR ENQUIRIES

Roger.McGarva2@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, (tel: 020 7217 8244)
Ged.Bates2@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk (tel: 0121 248 6577)

National Probation Directorate

Horseferry House, Dean Ryle Street, London, SW1P 2AW
BACKGROUND

The attached Technical Note provides definitions of key components of the new end-to-end target and also guidance on
monitoring arrangements. In this note, you will see that HMCS Areas are responsible for measuring performance of both
targets on behalf of the LCJBs. To that end software is being developed that will enable Courts to report on performance
as a simple, automated, extension of their day-to-day management of breach cases. The package, COMET - the
COMmunity penalty Enforcement Tracker - will be implemented nationally over the next two months.

KEY ISSUES

The critical action point for local Probation Areas is to continue to develop good working relationships with colleagues in
the Courts and more widely through the LCJB to ensure that the best local arrangements are developed that will improve
enforcement practice. Much guidance has been issued previously and includes:
• Options for expediting breach processes and for probation staff to instruct offenders to attend court
• Fast track processes, to be targeted on high risk offenders, especially for the execution of warrants
• Guidance on the information that courts need from probation to facilitate the warrant execution process.

Although the Technical Note indicates that formal monitoring will not be applied until October it is nonetheless vital that
discussions within LCJBs continue to develop and arrange to implement improved enforcement processes now. It is also
vital that within Probation Areas every effort is made to ensure that breach cases can proceed speedily and efficiently and
that we are not responsible for delays in process.

Many areas have made responses to previous circulars and guidance that have been issued on related topics and it is
clear that many local variations are being developed to achieve the desired objectives. It has been decided therefore to
organise a national workshop – to be held on 29th September 2005 – to provide an opportunity for these good practice
ideas to be shared and to enable us all to further improve performance. Full details of this workshop will be circulated in
due course but areas should note the date and consider which staff might best attend. Although we are aware of a
number of local good practice developments, areas are invited to make these known through their Regional Manager so
that a good selection of arrangements can be presented to colleagues on the day.

PC43/2005 – Guidance on Arrangements to Monitor End-to-End Enforcement 2

PC43/2005 - ANNEX 1: COMMUNITY PENALTY BREACH END-TO-END
ENFORCEMENT TARGETS

This document is the agreed technical note for the measurement of the end-to-end
targets for enforcing breaches of community penalties.

1.1 WHAT ARE THE END-TO-END TARGETS?

New end-to-end targets have been introduced for 2005/06, to improve performance
of community penalty breach enforcement. These targets apply to Magistrate and
Crown Court orders, but exclude Youths under the age of 18.

The new targets are:

• Community Penalty Breach Proceedings should take an average of 35
working days from second unacceptable failure to comply to resolution of the
case; and
• 50% of all breach proceedings to be resolved within 25 working days of the
second failure to comply.

In addition, Courts retain their existing key performance indicator (each Area has
been given a banded target for CPBW execution):
• Execute 75% of Community Penalty Breach Warrants (CPBWs) within 20
working days for adults (10 working days for youths).

Probation are also continuing to monitor their target (in accordance with National
Standards) of:
• Instigating breach proceedings within 10 working days in 90% of cases.

Probation also monitors the level of compliance with community orders. For 2005/06,
the rate of compliance for community penalties is 85%.

1.1.1 Definitions for targets

Resolution/resolved
• A judicial decision is made in court on all outstanding matters (such as
original matters and breach proceedings). An adjournment does not mean
the case is resolved; or
• The case is withdrawn (see following definition).

Withdrawn
• The court approves an application from the Probation Service to withdraw
the case – for example, because the offender has died, has been deported
or has been sent to a mental institution for a period of 12 months or more.

Executed
• For no-bail warrants, the warrant is executed if the offender is arrested and
brought to court or is put in custody as a result of awareness of the warrant.
For bail warrants, the warrant is executed if the warrant has been served on
 the offender and the offender has been notified or informed of the date they
are due to attend court.

Unacceptable failure to comply

• This defines the beginning of breach proceedings, and can consist of
unacceptable absences and/or unacceptable behaviour while on community
penalty. For adults, breach proceedings generally begin after two
unacceptable failures to comply. However, this could occur sooner, e.g. for
violent behaviour while serving a community sentence. It is Probation’s
responsibility to determine the unacceptable failure to comply and instigate
breach proceedings.

Working days
• Monday – Friday inclusive, excluding bank holidays, for all 52 weeks of the
year. For the purposes of measuring the target, the first working day will be
the next working day following the unacceptable failure to comply.

1.2 WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERY OF THE TARGETS?

Responsibility for delivery of the targets at Area level rests with Local Criminal
Justice Boards (LCJBs).

The multi-agency Community Penalty Enforcement Group (CPEG) is responsible for

improving national performance and Roger Hill, Director of Probation, is the Senior
Responsible Officer (SRO) with overall responsibility for the delivery of the national
targets.

CPEG reports to the Enforcement Delivery Board, which has overall responsibility for
delivery of the NCJB’s CJS Enforcement Vision, as set out in the Strategic Plan for
Criminal Justice 2004-8: Cutting Crime, Delivering Justice.

1.3 WHO WILL MEASURE THE TARGETS?

HMCS are responsible for measuring the end-to-end targets. HMCS will do this using
the newly developed COMET (COMmunity penalty Enforcement Tracker). COMET is
an extension of HMCS’s Warrant Tracker v2.

1.4 HOW WILL THE TARGETS BE MEASURED?

The performance in a time period relative to the targets (whether that time period be
month, rolling quarter, or year to date) is measured on the performance of all cases
resolved in that period (excluding those defined as being outside the scope of the
targets in the following section).

1.4.1 What is the scope of the targets?

The targets will include all community penalty breach cases, except:
• Youths (discussions are ongoing with the YJB regarding this); and
• Cases whose second unacceptable failure to comply was prior to 1 April
2005.
This means that all community penalty breach cases are included in the targets,
regardless of the risk status of the case, whether the offender pleads guilty or not-
guilty, whether the case is adjourned and heard later, whether a warrant was issued,
and regardless of who executes any warrant issued.

1.4.2 When will target performance begin to be measured?

Performance will begin to be measured on both targets from 1 October 2005.

1.4.3 How are cases that are transferred between Areas measured in the
targets?

Cases that are transferred between Areas are the responsibility of the Area receiving
the breach case, and the full length of case resolution (from unacceptable failure to
comply) is to be measured in the receiving Area’s performance (even though the
case will not have spent all of this time in this Area’s control).

The Effective Practice Guide for breaches of community penalties discusses in more
detail the processes and controls associated with transferring cases between Areas.

1.5 HOW WILL DATA BE COLLECTED AND PERFORMANCE REPORTED?

Probation are responsible for ensuring HMCS receive all data necessary, most
notably the date of unacceptable failure to comply. Where enforcement is performed
by the Police or Approved Enforcement Agents (AEAs), these organisations are
responsible for informing HMCS of the date of warrant execution. Local
arrangements should be made to ensure the effective transfer of information from the
Probation Service to the HMCS Area.

The following process will occur for collection and reporting purposes:
• HMCS Areas will collect and maintain community penalty breach records on
a day-to-day basis using COMET;
• HMCS Areas will prepare monthly submissions to HMCS on their
performance relative to both end-to-end targets using COMET. Discussions
are in progress with HMCS Areas regarding the date following month-end for
submission to HMCS, but all efforts will be made to ensure timely
management information can be provided;
• HMCS will collate, report, and review official national and Area performance
statistics for the previous month, rolling quarter, and year to date.

1.6 HOW WILL SUCCESS BE MEASURED?

Performance for the 2005/06 year, measured in accordance with this document, will
be based on performance from 1 October 2005 to 31 March 2006. Both targets
should be fully met at a national level over this period.

As this is the first year of these targets, COMET, in addition to its core day to day
case management capability, has been designed to enable further detailed analysis
of performance so that we can understand where improvements can be made.
Where the targets have not been met, the data will be examined at an Area level,
with targeted supported available to improve performance as appropriate.
1.7 WHAT IS OUR BASELINE?

There is no current baseline, and as the relevant information is not currently collected
it is not possible to establish one.

COMET is due to be in widespread use by the Courts by 1 August 2005. As such, the
data from August and September 2005 will be used as a baseline prior to the official
start of the target monitoring from 1 October 2005.

1.8 HOW DO WE CHECK FOR PERVERSE BEHAVIOURS?

Three types of potential perverse behaviour have been identified. These are:
• Lack of effort in resolving cases that have already missed the targets;
• Transferring cases between Areas, and thus transferring responsibility for
the targets; and
• Lack of effort in clearing and resolving backlog cases – those whose
unacceptable failure to comply is prior to 1 April 2005.

COMET will enable HMCS to transparently monitor and assess the first two of these
potential problems. LCJBs should develop a separate strategy to deal with the third
potential problem, and give incentive for clearing the oldest cases.