Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Paragraph: 55
Pre-sentence reports are an essential part of probation delivery and ensure that sentencers have the...
Conclusion
Pre-sentence reports are an essential part of probation delivery and ensure that sentencers have the information necessary to make sentencing decisions that will ensure justice and support rehabilitation. We welcome the MOJ’s commitment to improving pre-sentence reports and increasing their use under the new model and are pleased to hear that NPS capacity to prepare pre-sentence reports will be increased.
Paragraph Reference:
55
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
Agreed Our long-term ambition for probation’s role at court is to increase the proportion of cases sentenced with a pre-sentence report (PSR) to 75 per cent. The emphasis will be on providing more detailed reports targeting increases, in particular for women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and those at risk of a short custodial sentence, to inform safe sentencing and support long-term desistence. To support this, we aim to increase in staff numbers for probation court teams and consequently we have committed to increasing our recruitment of trainee probation officers. Historically we have recruited circa 600 trainees each year, but in 2020/21 we were successful in on-boarding over 1,000 trainees and for this year (2021/22) our target is to recruit 1,500. We will also introduce improved digital systems to support more effective and efficient assessments. In the shorter-term, we are supporting improvements in the quality of PSRs through a range of measures. The Effective Proposal Framework (EPF) digital tool is in