Improving resettlement support for prison leavers

We are concerned that government is not doing enough to support prisoners with substance misuse needs before they are released. Despite the previous Committee’s recommendations in 2017, HMPPS and NHS England have been slow to improve the collection and sharing of prison leavers’ data, limiting their ability to provide appropriate support and monitor outcomes. This lack of progress puts the successful resettlement of offenders with substance misuse needs at risk. HMPPS is working on ways to improve data sharing around substance misuse through initiatives such as the Probation Notification Actioning Plan, which will enable drug treatment providers in prisons to notify the Probation Service of referrals they have made to providers in the community. However, support in prisons still lacks consistency, with treatment options often dependent on the length of prison stay. We are concerned that HMPPS and the relevant health bodies involved in resettlement do not seem to have a consistent definition of success when measuring outcomes for substance misuse. Substance misuse is also the only area where the Cross-Government Reducing Reoffending Board has not agreed key responsibilities or performance reporting arrangements. Recommendation 2: The Cross-Government Reducing Reoffending Board should agree metrics to measure end-to-end success in treating substance misuse needs in offenders and routinely publish how it is performing against these metrics. 6 Resettlement support for prison leavers

We are concerned that HMPPS is not doing enough to retain the experienced probation workers needed to safely manage its large and increasing caseload. Staff shortages and high caseloads are negatively affecting resettlement support for prison leavers. In 2021–22, 8% of probation officers left the service, the highest level in the last six years. People join the prison and probation services to “make a difference”, but those leaving often cite workload pressures and feeling unable to do a good job, with many probation staff managing more than 70 cases against a suggested case load of 30 to 60. HMPPS says it is seeking to improve staff retention through a new three-year pay deal and increased focus on development and wellbeing. It is also working to rebalance workloads by recruiting “a record number” of probation officers, with an extra 2,000 staff now in post across the service compared to a year earlier. However, recruitment will not provide an immediate solution to HMPPS’ problems. It takes 15 to 21 months to train new recruits and we remain concerned that the workforce no longer has the balance of experience it needs to safely manage the probation caseload. Recommendation 3: In its Treasury Minute response, HMPPS should set out what additional steps it will take to retain and incentivise experienced staff over the next 12 to 18 months and what targets it has for doing so.

HMPPS is still not getting all the basics right when commissioning resettlement services. HMPPS works with Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS) providers from the private and voluntary sectors who provide tailored support to offenders in areas such as accommodation, employment and wellbeing. HMPPS issued 110 contracts to CRS providers ready for ‘day one’ of the new unified probation service but a second wave of contracts for a wider range of services, such as finance, benefits and debt support, is still underway. HMPPS holds CRS providers to account against two administrative measures but does not systematically monitor all providers’ activities or offenders’ outcomes. Some providers have criticised the current CRS contracts for being “highly process driven” and focussing too much on inputs, such as whether a prison leaver has been offered an appointment, instead of good quality outcomes. HMPPS’s baseline audit of 28 highest value contracts identified poor performance by both the Probation Service and CRS providers. In 89% of contracts the Probation Service’s referrals to CRS providers did not meet standards in ‘some regards’ or ‘failed’ to meet standards, and in 68% of contracts providers did not sufficiently meet offenders’ rehabilitative needs. We are pleased that HMPPS tried to remove potential barriers to entry for small and voluntary sector organisations, but a 2021 survey of providers found the commissioning process was still “complex, cumbersome and bureaucratic”, with many small, specialist organisations finding it too hard to engage with HMPPS. Recommendation 4a: In its Treasury Minute response, HMPPS should set out how it will ensure good quality outcomes for prison leavers under its existing Commissioned Rehabilitative Services contracts. b) HMPPS should also set out in the Treasury Minute how it will apply the lessons learned from the procurement of these services to its future commissioning exercises. Resettlement support for prison leavers 7

It is vital that HMPPS understands more about what works best if it is to get the best outcomes from its limited funds for prisoner resettlement work. Although it received £550 million in the 2021 Spending Review to reduce reoffending, MoJ says that “difficult choices” lie ahead as it looks for ways to make savings and become more efficient. It is often easiest for departments to save money through cutting spending in “discretionary” areas, such as reducing reoffending. These funding decisions are made harder given many of HMPPS’s planned evaluations for resettlement programmes are still in their early stages, so it lacks the evidence base it needs to determine the effectiveness of its investments. For accommodation support, outcomes have remained stable with 76% of prison leavers from April 2022 to February 2023 in settled accommodation after three months, compared with 75% in 2021–22. HMI Probation found that HMPPS’s flagship initiative to provide 84 days of housing to prisoners at risk of homelessness was working well but securing longer term accommodation for prison leavers remained difficult. There are some encouraging signs within employment support initiatives, with 25% of prison leavers from April 2022 to February 2023 employed after six months, compared with 17% in 2021–22. But HMPPS’s plans to evaluate its employment initiatives are still in the early stages and as of May 2023 it had no firm plans to carry out essential impact evaluations. Determining whether recent improvements in prison leavers’ outcomes are attributable to its interventions or whether they may have happened anyway will be a key challenge for HMPPS. Recommendation 5: In its Treasury Minute response, HMPPS should set out its plan for evaluating its current resettlement initiatives, including confirming how its evaluations for resettlement programmes will inform its approach in the next spending review.

Unprecedented pressures on the prison estate threaten the quality of resettlement services today and in the future. The prison estate is under “exceptional” pressure to meet current demands on capacity. At the end of March 2023, the prison population was at around 99% (84,400) of safe capacity (85,500). MoJ forecasts that the prison population could reach somewhere in the range of 93,100 to 106,300 by March 2027, an increase of 10% to 26% compared to March 2023. MoJ and HMPPS are adamant there will always be space to accommodate prisoners without compromising safety. However, they accept that the ongoing lack of “headroom” is hampering much needed refurbishment across the prison estate, and emergency solutions will cost the taxpayer more than traditional prison accommodation. MoJ also says that inflation means it will be “very challenging” to build new prison capacity and increase the number of staff in the prison and probation service. As the prison population grows, it will inevitably add pressure to already strained resettlement services within prisons and the community. HMPPS does not currently have a long-term strategy to manage the anticipated increase in demand for resettlement services. Recommendation 6: The Ministry of Justice should write to us within six months with its latest 5 to 10 year projections for: • its prison population and its safe prison capacity; • bringing six new prisons online; and • the level of demand for resettlement services. 8 Resettlement support for prison leavers 1 Performance of resettlement services

On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) about the resettlement support provided for prison leavers.1

HMPPS told us one of its biggest concerns is whether it can consistently deliver its vision for probation services across all corners of England and Wales.13 In 2022–23, an HMPPS review found 14 out of 27 key events in the resettlement process were not routinely happening. For example, essential handover meetings between prison and probation staff did not happen as intended in 50% of cases between April 2022 and January 2023.14 In response to our question about what it was doing to ensure that no-one going through the prison system gets missed, MoJ told us it has a programme of work over the next two years to improve the consistency of resettlement support.15

HMPPS and MoJ monitor how outcomes for prison leavers vary between groups. For example, in 2021–22: 8% of female prison leavers were employed after six months compared with 18% of male prison leavers; 11% of black or black British prison leavers were employed after six months compared with 18% of white prison leavers. HMPPS has not performed analysis to identify the causes of this variation and accepts that it is an area it needs to develop further.16 HMPPS gave us examples of how it is working to tailor services to meet individual needs, such as a specialist project in the north west working with individuals who have autism and Anawim, a women’s centre in Birmingham where probation staff are co-located with other relevant support services.17 8 C&AG’s Report, para 3.2 9 IPL0004 10 C&AG’s Report, para 1.7 11 At the end of March 2023, 119 prisons in England and Wales held around 84,400 prisoners (Ministry of Justice, Population bulletin: monthly March 2023) 12 Qq 29, 40, 117 13 Q5 14 C&AG’s Report, para 2.8 15 Q38 16 Q11; C&AG’s Report, para 1.13 17 Qq 21, 23 10 Resettlement support for prison leavers Support for offenders with substance misuse needs

In 2017 this Committee recommended that HMPPS and NHS England (NHSE) improve information-sharing arrangements between health, prison and probation staff following concerns that healthcare records do not follow patients as they enter or leave prisons.18 The NAO found that HMPPS and NHSE have been slow to improve the collection and sharing of prison leavers’ data, limiting their ability to provide appropriate support and monitor outcomes.19 The NHS’s ‘informed consent’ approach to managing patient data means prison and probation staff have not necessarily known whether someone has been referred for drug treatment on release. HMPPS told us that its Probation Notification and Actioning Project (PNAP), which aims to support effective handover between prisons and probation on treatment requirements, will be “game-changing” in giving probation staff the information they need to support prison leavers with substance misuse needs.20 HMPPS aimed to launch the service across England in April 2022 but was significantly delayed due to lengthy negotiations with health commissioners on the legal basis of sharing prison leavers’ health information without their consent.21 HMPPS now expects to roll PNAP out to all regions of England and Wales by the end of March 2024.22

The continuity of prison leavers’ drug treatment in the community has remained low for many years. In 2021–22, 37% of prison leavers in England with a substance misuse treatment referral were engaged in community-based treatment three weeks after release (38.1% in 2020–21).23 We questioned whether HMPPS was providing enough support to prisoners with substance misuse needs prior to their release. MoJ told us it has 50 incentivised substance-free living units established in prisons, which will increase to 100 units by March 2025. MoJ also secured £120 million over the next three years under the government’s 10-year drug plan, which it told us will be used to improve data and better co-ordinate pre- and post-release support for substance misuse.24 We asked how much of HMPPS’ work is focused on harm reductions, such as drug replacements, as opposed to recovery and abstinence. HMPPS told us that this balance is determined by clinicians from NHSE and the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC). HMPPS told us that the treatment options offered to an individual can depend on the length of their prison sentence.25

Substance misuse is the only area where the Cross-Government Reducing Reoffending Board—made up of senior representatives from 12 central government bodies, and with a remit to identify opportunities to reduce reoffending—has not set out the main departments which have a role. The Board has also not set out a detailed governance structure or performance reporting arrangements across departments’ work – either on substance misuse treatment or on other initiatives aimed at reducing reoffending.26

We asked MoJ and HMPPS about how successful outcomes for prisoners with substance misuse needs are measured. HMPPS told us there is range of things that could 18 Committee of Public Accounts, Mental health in prisons, Eighth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 400, 13 December 2017 19 C&AG’s Report, para 22 20 Q63; C&AG’s Report, para 2.12 21 C&AG’s Report, para 2.12 22 Q63 23 C&AG’s Report, para 1.24 24 Qq 64–67; C&AG’s Report, para 3.7 25 Qq 69–70 26 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13 Resettlement support for prison leavers 11 be measured and that HMPPS and clinicians would “all measure slightly different things”. For example, while MoJ told us that DHSC evaluates different types of intervention and what is successful in helping people to stop substance misuse, HMPPS told us its primary interest is potential harm to the public and whether a prison leaver reoffends.27 Staffing pressures

When speaking about the recent decline in the quality of resettlement services, HMPPS told us that it needs “good staffing levels to deliver the best services”.28 Although the number of probation officers increased following the service’s unification in June 2021, the number of unfilled roles has also increased and pressure on the Service is acute. In December 2022 1,762 out of 6,158 probation officer roles were unfilled, a vacancy rate of 29%. In 2021–22, 8% of probation officers and 15% of prison officers left the service, the highest levels in the last six years. As a result of these staff shortages, HMPPS is not completing all the resettlement work that it recognises is essential.29

MoJ explained that people join the prison and probation services to make a difference but HMPPS told us that staff who are leaving “consistently” blame workload pressures which leave them feeling unable to do a good job.30 HMPPS’s audit of 98 cases and feedback from 15 service managers confirmed many of their probation staff were managing more than 70 prison leaver cases at a time, against a suggested case load of 30 to 60.31 MoJ told us that caseloads are directly related to stress levels and the difficulty of the job, which it says makes recruitment a “really important driver for retention”.32 HMPPS told us it has recruited 4,000 probation officers over the last three years, which it described as “a record number”, and that HMPPS now has an extra 2,000 staff in post across the service compared to the previous year. However, HMPPS explained it takes 15 to 21 months to train new probation recruits and, even after they have completed training, it will take them a little while to get completely up to speed.33 HMPPS told us that working with such a different mix of new and experienced staff is creating some “real challenges” for managing the probation caseload.34

HMPPS told us it is seeking to improve the conditions of service for existing staff to assist with staff retention. It has implemented a new three-year pay deal and increased its focus on staff development and wellbeing. We asked whether pay increases would reduce the amount of resettlement funding available for other activities, HMPPS acknowledged that getting both the right number of staff and rate of pay was a “constant balancing act” but insisted that investing in its staff was a priority. HMPPS told us it has recently seen a slight improvement in the rate of retention for probation officers.35 27 Qq 77–79 28 Q42 29 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.6–2.8 30 Q57 31 C&AG’s Report, para 2.8 32 Q35 33 Qq 32, 43 34 Q58 35 Q57, 115 12 Resettlement support for prison leavers Commissioning resettlement support

Probation staff can draw on specialist support from Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS) providers from the private and voluntary sectors to help support the resettlement of prison leavers. HMPPS issued 110 contracts to CRS providers ready for ‘day one’ of the new unified probation service in June 2021, covering accommodation; employment, training and education; personal wellbeing; and tailored services for women.36 A second wave of contracts for a wider range of services, such as finance, benefits and debt support, is still underway.37 As at July 2022, HMPPS had awarded 131 CRS contracts with a maximum total value of £340 million.38

We asked HMPPS what it had done to remove potential barriers to entry for small and voluntary sector organisations. HMPPS told us it “worked hard” to remove barriers. For example, it reduced the IT standards CRS providers must demonstrate in applying for funding. HMPPS told us its historic requirements had been identified as barrier to entry, particularly by the women’s sector, and lowering the threshold had not exposed it or prison leavers to any additional cyber security risks.39 However in its written evidence submitted to us, Clinks—the national infrastructure organisation supporting voluntary sector organisations working in the criminal justice system—described how its survey of 241 voluntary organisations and interviews with eight organisations between May and July 2021 found that HMPPS’ commissioning process was “complex, cumbersome and bureaucratic”. Clinks told us that many small, specialist organisations were unable to engage with the commissioning process due to the financial thresholds set by HMPPS, the geographical footprint of contracts, and the amount of information HMPPS required.40

HMPPS holds CRS providers to account against two administrative measures (their timeliness in holding appointments and their production of action plans for service users) but does not systematically monitor all providers’ activities or offenders’ outcomes.41 In written evidence to us St Mungo’s—a CRS provider for housing advice and support— criticised the current contracts for being “highly process driven”. It told us HMPPS is too focussed on measuring inputs, such as whether a prison leaver has been offered an appointment, instead of securing positive outcomes to reducing reoffending.42

HMPPS audited 28 of its highest-value CRS contracts between June and September 2022, which identified ineffective early performance against service standards and contractual requirements. HMPPS rated the quality of the Probation Service’s referrals to CRS providers as ‘amber/red’ or ‘red’ in 25 contracts (89%), with problems including a lack of clarity on the reasons for referrals, missing information on individuals’ risks, and gaps in information on individuals’ personal circumstances.43 In its written submission to us, St Mungo’s told us that chasing up poor quality referrals created additional unplanned workloads for providers and left them with “unrealistically short timeframes” to support prison leavers.44 HMPPS also rated the sufficiency of CRS providers’ delivery to address 36 C&AG’s Report, para 1.3 37 Q15 38 C&AG’s Report, para 1.4 39 Qq 49–55 40 IPL0006 41 C&AG’s Report, para 13, 1.27 42 IPL0002 43 C&AG’s Report, para 1.28 44 IPL0002 Resettlement support for prison leavers 13 offenders’ needs as ‘amber/red’ or ‘red’ in 19 contracts (68%) and the quality of CRS providers’ communication with probation staff as ‘amber/red’ or ‘red’ in 13 contracts (46%). However, HMPPS found a more positive picture across the CRS contracts for women’s services, where services took account of women’s specific needs and were supported by clear records of activity and progress.45 45 C&AG’s Report, paras 1.28–1.29 14 Resettlement support for prison leavers 2 A challenging future for resettlement services Getting the best outcomes

In the 2021 Spending Review, MoJ secured £550 million over three years to reduce reoffending. MoJ allocated this funding to HMPPS, with £484 million assigned to support adult offenders. However, this funding is subject to change as MoJ considers the potential impacts of the government’s Efficiency and Savings Review.46 MoJ told us that “difficult choices” lie ahead as it looks for ways to save 7.5% across its budget. We asked MoJ how and where it expected to make the necessary savings. MoJ told us that the easiest place for departments to make cuts is in discretionary programmes, such as reducing reoffending and victim support, but that it has a clear steer from ministers to protect these areas as far as possible. MoJ told us it is “crucial” that it finds more efficient ways to deliver resettlement services while protecting the most effective initiatives from budget cuts.47

Good evaluation practice emphasises the importance of understanding how a new intervention is expected to achieve the intended outcomes and the need to plan evaluation at the design stage before implementing it.48 But the NAO found that HMPPS does not yet have a mature evidence base for the impact of its new areas of investment, and its evaluation plans may not provide the evidence it needs.49 MoJ explained that deciding where and how to curb spending is easier in areas where its resettlement initiatives are more developed.50 HMPPS acknowledged that many of its evaluations are still in the early stages but told us it had hired 40 new analysts to support the work.51

MoJ told us it is working with HMPPS to better understand what works best on accommodation support for prison leavers.52 Outcomes have remained stable in recent years despite HMPPS’ investments, with 76% of prison leavers from April 2022 to February 2023 in settled accommodation after three months, compared with 75% in 2021–22.53 In its March 2023 inspection of post-release support for prison leavers, HMI Probation found that HMPPS’s flagship initiative to provide 84 days of housing to prisoners at risk of homelessness (Community Accommodation Service Tier 3, or CAS3) was working well but securing longer-term accommodation for prison leavers remained difficult.54 HMPPS told us that finding housing in some parts of England and Wales is challenging, and it needs to do more to understand how to improve the long-term outcomes for prison leavers.55 HMPPS plans to compare outcomes for CAS3 against control groups in late 2023 to isolate the effectiveness of the service in improving accommodation outcomes.56 46 C&AG’s Report, para 3.7 47 Qq 86, 94 48 C&AG’s Report, para 3.10 49 Q86; C&AG’s Report, para 3.9 50 Q86 51 Qq 11, 15, 22, 85 52 Q3 53 C&AG’s Report, para 1.15–1.18 54 C&AG’s Report, para 1.20 55 Qq 8–9 56 C&AG’s Report, para 3.9 Resettlement support for prison leavers 15

HMPPS told us it is proud of the progress made on employment support initiatives with 25% of prison leavers from April 2022 to February 2023 employed after six months, compared with 17% in 2021–22.57 But HMPPS’s plans to evaluate its employment initiatives are still in the early stages and as of May 2023 it had no firm plans to carry out essential impact evaluations. Determining whether recent improvements in prison leavers’ outcomes are attributable to its interventions or whether they may have happened anyway will be a key challenge for HMPPS.58 MoJ told us it is “hard to identify exact causality” in complex systems but it is confident that HMPPS’ employment initiatives in prisons are “making a big difference”.59 Managing increased demand

MoJ told us several times that the prison estate is under “exceptional” pressure to meet current demands on capacity.60 At the end of March 2023, the prison population was at around 99% (84,400) of safe capacity (85,500).61 While projections are uncertain, the MoJ expects significant increases in the prison population in the near term, primarily due to the impact of higher demand caused by increases in the number of police officers and increases in the duration of serious offenders’ prison sentences. MoJ forecasts that the prison population could reach somewhere in the range of 93,100 to 106,300 by March 2027, an increase of 10% to 26% compared to March 2023.62

MoJ told us it has multiple options to increase prison capacity, including building new prisons and refurbishing the existing estate. MoJ told us it plans to increase prisoner capacity by 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8 billion, but it will need more funding after 2024–25 to bring its planned six new prisons ‘online’.63 It told us that since September 2022 HMPPS has brought online 2,500 of these new places though refurbishing the existing prison estate. In addition, MoJ told us it will be “very challenging” to build new prison capacity and increase the number of staff in the prison and probation service given current inflation, with less money in real terms.64

We asked MoJ how it would protect against unsafe spaces being reopened to provide increased prison capacity. MoJ told us it has clear safety standards for cells that it would never go below, and HMPPS added that these standards are “absolute” and it would not bend these to improve overall capacity.65 Both MoJ and HMPPS told us there will always be space to accommodate prisoners without compromising safety.66 MoJ conceded that the ongoing lack of “headroom” is making remedial works across the prison estate more difficult as HMPPS is not able to close parts of prisons for refurbishment.67 MoJ told us it has contingencies in place , such as rapid deployment cells, and HMPPS told us about 57 Q11; C&AG’s Report, para 1.12 58 C&AG’s Report, para 3.9–3.10 59 Qq 3, 80 60 Qq 3, 97, 99 61 Ministry of Justice, Population bulletin: monthly March 2023 62 C&AG’s Report, para 3.18 63 Qq 95, 96, 123 64 Qq 96, 113 65 Q99 66 Qq 90, 100, 102, 116 67 Q99 16 Resettlement support for prison leavers Operation Safeguard, where police cells can be used as a short-term contingency to relieve pressure locally. However MoJ explained that these emergency solutions will ultimately cost the taxpayer more per head than traditional prison accommodation.68

As these additional prisoners progress through their sentences, there will be higher demand for resettlement services. MoJ’s central estimate in its recent modelling work on forecast volumes of prison leavers starting their supervision in the community shows that, while projections are uncertain, the Probation Service may need to supervise around 5,900 additional prison leavers by March 2025. This corresponds to an increase of around 10% compared with HMPPS’s existing caseload of around 60,900 in September 2022.69 The NAO recommended that HMPPS develops a long-term strategy to manage the anticipated increase in demand for resettlement services.70 68 Qq 101–102 69 C&AG’s Report, para 3.19 70 C&AG’s Report, para 30f Resettlement support for prison leavers 17