Recommendation 163

The Probation Service is aware of these challenges. Chris Jennings told us that “there are still definitely areas where sharing information across the system is complicated”. For instance, he told us that “getting information on child safeguarding is not straightforward” because “each local authority does it differently and has its own system”, such that “there is no one place you can go to draw off a system a nice piece of data that will enable us to move forward”. The exception is in Wales, where the Probation Service can now get better information: “if there is what we call a reportable incident and the police attend an incident, we get notified about that in the Probation Service.” 301 Damian Hinds MP also pointed in the direction of “criminal justice boards”, which he described as “ways of making sure that people locally, Police and Crime Commissioners, Probation, Police and the courts are able to communicate”. 302