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Appendix 1 Criminal justice follow-up inspection report
Background
Criminal justice social work services were originally inspected as part of a separate national programme of inspections in 2004. The inspection report included 32 recommendations for service improvement. There was little progress in taking forward these recommendations. In December 2005 Glasgow created the new post of head of criminal justice services and the newly appointed head prepared a fresh action plan. In March 2006 SWIA revisited Glasgow to evaluate progress and to assess the services' capacity to implement the action plan. This follow up visit revealed several deficiencies, some more serious than we had found in 2004. One example was the volume of 'stacked' cases (around 300). For probation this meant that the service maintained only a minimum level of contact with some offenders, directing them to report monthly to a duty service. For community service it meant that there could be substantial delays in allocating offenders to placements. Other deficiencies included insufficient attention to the assessment and management of risk of harm and the lack of opportunities for offence-focused work.
The services attributed these deficiencies to a misalignment of resources and to weaknesses in training, management and leadership. Senior mangers told us that, as part of a wider re-organisation, steps were being taken to put things right. As well as strengthening the management and leadership of the service these steps included:
- creating the post of dedicated criminal justice operations manager in each of the five CHCPs;
- examining team workloads and realigning establishment;
- reviewing the allocation of funds to youth justice and addictions services;
- evaluating value for money from commissioned services; and
- decentralising some central services to CHCPs.
Because of the weaknesses we found last March we included a further follow up of criminal justice services within this wider performance inspection of social work services. We intended a progress check rather than a full inspection.
Methodology
The service completed a specific criminal justice self evaluation questionnaire and provided other information in advance. We read a sample of social enquiry reports (49) and files (40) and interviewed members of staff at different levels in the organisation either individually or in focus groups.
File reading
Our samples were relatively small and the findings should be seen as indicative only.
The results showed some limited but not insignificant gains on performance in 2004.
Social enquiry reports
There was a smaller percentage of 'poor' reports in the 2006 sample although the percentage of 'adequate' (minimum standard) reports had increased with a corresponding slight fall in the percentage of 'good' and 'very good' reports. This suggests that improved quality assurance procedures may have helped to weed out the worst but have not yet had much impact on overall quality.
Case files
There were more action plans in the 2006 sample and slight improvements in meeting the national standards of four appointments in the first four weeks and holding reviews at 12 weeks. The figures for the level and content of supervision showed reductions in the percentages of 'poor' and 'adequate' practice and corresponding gains in 'good' and 'very good' practice. This meant that, overall, staff were maintaining better contact with offenders and carrying out more work with them that was tackling their offending and related problems appropriately. File readers' assessments of how compliance was handled overall showed a marked improvement with the percentage of those cases judged to have been handled 'well' or 'very well' going up from 31 to 48. Contact and compliance figures for serious violent offenders were also somewhat better.
Other performance indicators
Since the creation of CHCPs in April 2006 the head of service had sought to improve the amount and flow of information used to inform management practice. Figures were collected and distributed monthly, broken down by CHCP. These covered a number of important indicators relating to overall workloads, social enquiry reports and probation and community service orders.
Figures for unallocated work indicated that as of the 1st December there were 83 unallocated probation cases (71 of which were in one CHCP) and one unallocated community service case. The figures showed a downward trend over the previous three months and were considerably better than when we conducted our last follow up in March 2006. It was nevertheless worrying that this number of probation cases remained unallocated. There were also 561 "unassigned" throughcare cases involving offenders in penal institutions serving sentences of four years or more, though a social worker had attended an integrated case management meeting for the majority of these prisoners. The head of service stated that this was due to long term staff absence through ill health and to insufficient staffing levels to tackle the growth in the throughcare workload. He commented that the authority was addressing this latter issue by reconfiguring budgets and staffing levels.
Other figures pointed up the challenges the services still faced in meeting national standards in respect of scheduling appointments, placements and reviews. The data could be linked to the worker holding the case and was therefore useful for reviewing individual performance. There were continuing problems with data entry which meant that the services did not know whether they had met standards in a significant proportion of cases. Managers were aware of this problem and were taking steps to address it.
Staff interviews
We interviewed staff as a further way of checking progress. Bearing the services' action plan and our March 2006 follow up in mind we asked staff about progress in respect of risk and needs assessment, supervision plans and reviews, offence-focused work, practice with high-risk offenders, operational management, strategic management, recording, service re-organisation, staff supervision and appraisal, communication and quality assurance.
Risk and needs assessment
Although the services had undertaken some quality assurance work to ensure that practitioners completed the LSI-R risk assessment tool properly, we encountered some continuing confusion amongst practitioners and managers about what the wider framework for risk assessment should be. Whilst practitioners were using the LSI-R in almost all cases they reported continuing problems with an electronic version of the RA1-4 risk assessment tool they had developed (generated in part by confusing nomenclature) and there was a general view that training in risk of harm screening and assessment had not been of a sufficiently high standard. Practitioners were still not screening cases routinely for risk of harm and there was some uncertainty about those categories of case to be deemed high risk. We did not think practitioners and first line managers were sufficiently confident in this area of work and practice across the five CHCPs was inconsistent.
Managers had issued guidance but acknowledged that it had not been sufficiently clear and widely enough circulated. It had recently been revised and re-issued via the newly appointed criminal justice operations managers.
Supervision plans and reviews
Whilst there were more action plans, there was still no standard ' SMART' format for plans and practice varied across the CHCPs. Staff did not find the link to plans in Carejust helpful. Similarly there was no standard format for reviews and staff confirmed what the file reading and internal quality assurance data showed, that these were often delayed.
Offence-focused work
The file reading confirmed that by far the most common form of work was still one-to-onenon-programme work. The service had established an effective practice working group to take forward planned developments in delivering the accredited 'Constructs PSSO' general offending programme, the domestic violence 'Change' programme, a women's programme and improvements in programme work with sex offenders. The Constructs training was about to start with the aim of beginning a pilot in the east CHCP by the end of March. The domestic violence programme was being delivered at three sites and there were plans to expand because of the substantial waiting list. There was also a substantial waiting list for the C- SOGP sex offender programme. The services hoped to deliver a six-month women's group in each of the five CHCPs.
These plans (with the exception of programme work with sex offenders) were predicated on the decision to decentralise some previously central resources and allocate them to CHCP teams. The intention was to create small units within area teams that would take lead responsibility for group work with the aim of making group work part of the core service. The head of service was confident that these services would be delivered.
Some cases were still being dealt with by means of probation 'clinics' (essentially a reporting service with a check to see if there were any outstanding problems/issues). Management policy was to confine this to cases assessed as low risk and reaching the later stages of an order. We found however that the practice could also apply to initial contacts.
Practice with high-risk offenders
We have already referred to inconsistent practice in respect of risk of harm screening and assessment. Managers issued guidance on procedures for working with high-risk offenders last September but acknowledged some deficiencies in implementation (see above). The guidance required the completion of risk management plans (for which there is no model or template) within the first six weeks of an order and provided for regular reviews and management checks. It drew the attention of staff to other protocols with the police and housing. On the basis of the file reading and staff interviews we found that these procedures were not yet sufficiently well established. At the CHCP level appropriate structures were in place for working across child protection and other services but the consistent assessment of risk, the development of risk management plans and procedures for the management oversight were not fully achieved.
With regard to structured work with sex offenders, staffing of the specialist team was back to establishment after an extended period of understaffing. The aim was to reduce the backlog of referrals for the C- SOGP, targeting higher-risk offenders and shorter orders.
Under the new arrangements for throughcare the specialist team was to continue to supervise all sex offenders released from prison. CHCP staff who had completed the case manager training were to supervise other sex offenders, with specialist staff providing advice and support.
The authority provided a domestic violence programme for male abusers in conjunction with the pilot domestic abuse court that covers the south of the city. Plans to expand this service depended on decisions about funding currently with the Scottish Executive. This, and other work to address violent behaviour, remained an area where more offence-focused work was required.
Operational management
The services had recently appointed and deployed full time criminal justice operations managers in the five CHCPs. They were responsible for the work of all criminal justice staff, including community service staff, in their CHCP with line management accountability to the head of children and families and criminal justice. They also carried specific city-wide responsibilities for particular aspects of service delivery including management responsibility for those services continuing to be delivered centrally following decentralisation.
We think these appointments strengthen operational management arrangements. How these staff follow through on their responsibilities will be critical to improving overall performance. It will be a particular challenge for them to give sufficient priority to managing a city-wide service whilst being based in a local area team and managing other staff there. These arrangements should be kept under close review.
There are now operational plans for criminal justice services in each CHCP, linked to the wider strategic plan.
Our interviews with operations managers suggested that they were aware of the weaknesses of current services and fully engaged with the improvement agenda. They met the head of service regularly to discuss and review service development and performance issues. The heads of children and families and criminal justice also met the head of criminal justice services regularly. This meeting was used for briefings and discussion about a range of issues affecting criminal justice services.
In our previous follow-up inspection we found uncertainties about the respective roles and responsibilities of PTLs and social care workers. We did not find any significant change since our last visit. PTLs were still unclear about the balance of management and practice in their role. More seriously we found that social care workers were supervising some complex probation cases. Allocating responsibility in this way needs to done within a clear framework and with appropriate support. This was not always the case.
Strategic management
At the point of the inspection the head of service was responsible for the strategic and performance management of criminal justice services and for those centralised services that had not yet been moved to the CHCPs. Our previous reports commented on the poor links between strategic and operational management and we said that the services should 'be clear about the strategic and operational management arrangements for the service and how they work together to deliver effective services'.
The new arrangements were clearer. The head of service was working hard to establish a performance framework and had instituted regular meetings with managers in the CHCPs to discuss and review strategy and performance. He was aware of the need to deliver criminal justice services consistently across the five CHCPs. These processes were still in their early stages but there was evidence that they were beginning to make a difference. The available resources were better quantified. Gaps in services were identified. Operations managers had information about service performance and were being challenged to deliver improvements. These were all positive developments to build on.
Within the communities they serve, CHCPs had strategic responsibilities for services that were relevant to delivering criminal justice social work services for offenders. Examples were addictions, mental health and employability services. The head of service said he was seeking to ensure that the requirements of offenders are included in the development and implementation of these strategies.
We interviewed the chief officer of the new Community Justice Authority ( CJA) for City of Glasgow. She thought that CHCP planning had, as yet, made little reference to criminal justice and that it was therefore difficult to link these locality plans to the CJA plan. She hoped that the newly appointed operations managers would ensure that criminal justice was given a clearer role within the CHCP operational planning frameworks and that the links would improve over time.
Recording
The results of the file reading showed limited improvements in recording practice. However progress in developing guidance and practice was slow and had not met the action plan timetable. Staff said that they did not think that case files necessarily evidenced the quality of work. They were still using a generic case recording framework. A 'core group' on improving Carejust had been established and staff were being helped to make better use of the system (critical to the collection of key performance indicators).
Service re-organisation
The service had re-organised as part of the wider move to deliver more integrated health and social care services from the CHCPs. The re-organisation had created new posts (the head of service, operations managers and posts linked to strategy and performance). Services were being decentralised, the major ones being throughcare and community service. Management responsibilities had changed. Alongside this, work had been undertaken to reconfigure resources and quantify workloads. This had coincided with a council wide pay and benefits review.
This re-organisation had taken place as the services had been seeking to deliver its action plan for criminal justice services. Some of the steps taken form part of the services' strategy to implement the action plan. It was too early at this stage to judge how effective these changes would be. We have commented on progress in linking strategic and operational management but there was no evidence to show to what standard community service and throughcare services would be delivered when they were decentralised. These remain significant management challenges.
Quality assurance
The services were giving greater attention to quality assurance and performance management. They had increased analytic capacity at the centre and routinely circulated and scrutinised information about performance. The criminal justice research officer had an agreed work plan which included report and case sampling and preparation of routine reports back to the head of service and CHCP operations managers. The head of service was a member of the senior management team and was required to report on performance regularly. Reports also had to be provided to the scrutiny committee.
Staff appraisal and development
The performance inspection staff survey revealed concerns about staff supervision and appraisal and access to training and professional development opportunities. Staff voiced similar concerns in our focus groups (some were strongly linked to the outcome of the pay and benefits review). Managers recognised the need to deliver supervision and staff appraisal (linked to continuing professional development) more consistently. They also recognised that the quality of training (particularly in-house training) had to improve substantially. There were plans to appoint two staff training officers. These appointments reflect a substantial investment and managers should be clear that they constitute the best way to access training and development opportunities to the required standards.
Communications
It was apparent from our interviews and focus groups that managers needed to improve the effectiveness of their communications with staff. Information was not always reaching its intended recipients and this was affecting performance. The complexity of the organisation undoubtedly contributed to this problem but it should not be insuperable. The head of service had organised briefings on important aspects of the agenda for change and an operations manager was leading a group to deliver a communications strategy.
Conclusions
Overall the evidence from this follow up inspection suggests that the services were taking positive steps to improve the quality of their criminal justice social work services. This evidence included:
- the file reading results which showed some improvements on previous practice;
- the appointment of staff with clear remits for operational management and performance improvement;
- greater clarity about strategic and operational management arrangements;
- better arrangements for performance management and quality assurance;
- purposeful steps to introduce more offence-focused work; and
- detailed work to re allocate resources to meet identified priorities.
However the continuing existence of unallocated cases, inconsistent risk assessment and risk management practices, waiting lists for structured work on offending behaviour, failures to meet national standards in significant proportions of cases and deficiencies in recording, communications and staff development showed that there was still a considerable way to go to deliver effective services. There was also work to be done to ensure that those services that had been decentralised to CHCPs were delivered to an acceptable standard. We think that the steps taken had placed Glasgow City in a better position to deliver effective criminal justice services. The challenge now is to do this.
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