Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 the Parole Board for England and Wales Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 the Parole Board for England and Wales Presented to Parliament pursuant to paragraphs 10 and 11 of Schedule 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 18 July 2011 HC1363 London: The Stationery Office £20.50 © Parole Board (2011) The text of this document (this excludes, where present, the Royal Arms and all departmental and agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium providing that it is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context The material must be acknowledged as Parole Board copyright and the document title specified. Where third party material has been identified, permission from the respective copyright holder must be sought. Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us at [email protected] This publication is also for download at www.official-documents.gov.uk and from our website at www.justice.gov.uk ISBN: 9780102972672 Printed in the UK by The Stationery Office Limited on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office ID 2441899 07/11 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum The Right Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP Justice Secretary Ministry of Justice 102 Petty France London, SW1H 9AJ 11 July 2011 Dear Justice Secretary I have pleasure in presenting to you the Parole Board’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2010/11. The report records the work carried out by the Board last year to achieve our aim of making risk assessments that are rigorous, fair and timely while protecting the public and contributing to the rehabilitation of prisoners. During the past year we have faced the ongoing challenge of a rise in our oral hearings caseload along a significant backlog of outstanding cases carried over from the previous year. Our response has been to hold a record number of oral hearings this year and reduce the backlog that we started the year with by 40%. The coming year also promises to be a challenging one as we work to reduce still further the backlog of outstanding cases and at the same time manage changes that may result from decisions on the future status of the Parole Board. No matter where our future landing place lies, the Board will continue to focus on maintaining the highest standards of case management and decision making as part of our core mission of working with others to protect the public. I am pleased to say that the Board’s Accounts have once again received an unqualified certification from the Comptroller and Auditor General. Yours sincerely The Rt Hon Sir David Latham Chairman Mission Statement The Parole Board is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide whether they can be safely released into the community Parole Board for England and Wales Grenadier House 99-105 Horseferry Road London, SW1P 2DX Enquiries: 0845 251 2220 Fax: 0845 251 2221 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.justice.gov.uk Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 3 Contents About the Board 4 Key Statistics 6 Chairman’s Foreword 8 Chief Executive’s Review of the Year 10 Public Accounts Committee/NAO 12 Future of the Parole Board 13 Casework 14 Quality and standards 15 Performance and development 16 Legal challenge 18 Public confidence 20 Performance against Business Plan 2010/11 23 Statistics 29 Statement of Accounts 45 Membership of the Parole Board 83 Glossary 107 4 Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 About the Parole Board What is the Parole Board? Indeterminate sentence The Parole Board is an independent body that prisoners works with its criminal justice partners to protect These include life sentence prisoners (mandatory the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide life, discretionary life and automatic life sentence whether they can be safely released into the prisoners and Her Majesty’s Pleasure detainees) community. and prisoners given indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP). The Parole Board What are the aims of the Parole considers whether these prisoners are safe to Board? release into the community once they have The Parole Board aims to: completed their tariff (the minimum time they y Make risk assessments which are rigorous, fair must spend in prison) and also whether they are and timely with the primary aim of protecting safe to re-release following recall for a breach of the public and which contribute to the their licence conditions (the rules which they must rehabilitation of prisoners where appropriate. observe upon release). y Demonstrate effective and accountable corporate governance by maintaining strong Determinate sentence internal control, setting clear objectives and prisoners managing corporate risk and to deliver best These include discretionary conditional release value by optimum use of resources. (DCR) prisoners serving more than 4 years whose y Promote the independence of and confidence offence was committed before 4 April 2005 and in the work of the Board, while effectively prisoners given extended sentences for public managing change. protection (EPP) for offences committed on or after 4 April 2005. The Parole Board considers What are the responsibilities of whether these prisoners are safe to release into the Parole Board? the community once they have completed the The Parole Board for England and Wales was minimum time they must spend in prison. The established in 1968 under the Criminal Justice Board also considers any determinate prisoner Act 1967. It became an independent Executive referred by the Secretary of State following recall Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) on 1 July to prison for a breach of their parole licence 1996 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order conditions (the rules which they must observe Act 1994. The Parole Board’s role is to make risk upon release) as to whether they are safe to assessments about prisoners to decide who may re-release into the community. safely be released into the community. The Parole Board has responsibility for considering the following types of cases: Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 5 What types of hearing does Paper hearings the Parole Board hold? Parole Board members sit in panels of one, two or The Parole Board holds two types of hearing: three to consider cases on the papers and each member contributes to them on an equal footing. Oral hearings Any type of member can sit on these panels. These normally take place in prison. For life The panel takes a considered decision on the basis sentence prisoners they will usually be chaired of a dossier that contains reports from prison by a judge, but some IPP cases will be chaired by staff and offender managers as well as details of an experienced Parole Board member. Where the prisoner’s offending history. The dossier also the circumstances of the case warrant it the contains a variety of formal risk assessments based panel will include a psychologist or psychiatrist. on offending history, behaviour in prison, courses The third person will be an independent or completed and psychological assessments. The probation member. dossier may also contain a victim impact statement or a victim personal statement. In addition to the prisoner and the panel, others who may be present include the legal Paper panels are used to consider the majority representative of the prisoner, together with of cases where a determinate sentence prisoner a public protection advocate representing the is applying for parole and also serve as the initial Secretary of State and the victim, and witnesses hearing for all cases where a determinate prisoner such as the prisoner’s offender manager and has been recalled to prison. prison psychologist. The victim might also be in attendance in order to present their victim personal statement. Oral hearings are used to consider the majority of cases where an indeterminate sentence prisoner is applying for release and also for some cases, involving both determinate and indeterminate sentences, where a prisoner is making representations against a decision to recall them to prison. Oral hearings are also held before a single member in certain recall cases. The member will hold the hearing either at the prison or remotely using video-link. 6 Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 Key Statistics 25,566 18% The number of cases considered during the year. The percentage of DCR cases where parole was This compared with 24,204 in 2009/10, up by 6%. granted. This is the same as the 18% release rate This rise in total cases is due to an increase in in 2009/10. The number of DCR cases considered indeterminate sentence and recall cases being by the Board continues to fall and only the most referred to the Board, partially offset by a fall in serious cases, on longer fixed sentences, remain in DCR cases. The number of resource intensive the system. three member indeterminate sentence oral hearings rose by 27%. 41 The number of determinate sentence prisoners 3,732 recalled from parole during the year following an The number of oral hearings that took place during allegation of a further offence. This figure has fallen the year. This compared with 2,974 in 2009/10, from 50 in 2009/10. Out of an average of 652 such up by 25%. This continues the rising trend in the prisoners on parole during the year this is a recall number of such hearings. Lifer oral hearings rose rate of 6.3%, which is up compared to the recall from 1,170 in 2009/10 to 1,607 this year.