Guide for Writing Inspection Reports Contents Contents
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Guide for writing inspection reports March 2018 Printed and published by: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons Clive House 5th floor 70 Petty France London SW1H 9EX England 2 Guide for writing inspection reports Contents Contents 1. Writing inspection reports 4 2. The editorial process 8 3. The format of inspection reports 11 4. Appendices 17 Appendix I: Flowchart of the report production process (18 weeks) 17 Appendix II: Suggested words and recommendations count 20 Appendix III: Editorial guidelines 21 Guide for writing inspection reports 3 1. Writing inspection reports 1. Writing inspection reports 1.1 It is important that all reports produced by HM Inspectorate of Prisons are consistent in style and format. The following guidelines should ensure that every inspector is working to the same template and that the process of preparing each report for publication is as short as possible. Inspectors should be aware that the publication process is guided by protocols with inspected bodies. Timings must therefore be adhered to as closely as possible. Initial contributions 1.2 Each inspector, including specialist inspectors such as those from Ofsted, has three working days following the completion of the inspection to write up their contributions in full, including any recommendations and good practice.1 There is no need to format your contributions. 1.3 To keep reports clear and concise, we have produced a suggested word count and number of recommendations for each section, with the number of recommendations related to the healthy establishment assessment for each area (see Appendix II). These suggestions are intended as a guide and will be kept under review. 1.4 When writing up contributions, please avoid jargon, cliché and shorthand terms and be as clear as possible, citing evidence sources for your assertions (for example, survey data, observations, feedback from groups). Please remember to read through your contributions before passing them on to correct any errors. (An editorial guidelines document, including house style, a jargon-busting guide and a glossary of Inspectorate-specific terminology, is included at Appendix III). 1.5 Please ensure you use survey data as they are presented, and that you do not invert the statistics, as this could present a misleading view of the prison. For example: If a survey question asks ‘Is your sentence less than 12 months?’, and 18% of prisoners in our survey said yes, you should not write that 82% were serving sentences of longer than 12 months, as some may not yet be sentenced. If the question is ‘Did you feel safe on your first night here?’ and 70% said yes, you should not state that 30% felt unsafe, as some prisoners might reply that they don’t remember. If the question is ‘Is the food in this prison good/very good?’ and 43% said it was, it would be incorrect to state that 57% thought the food was bad. While some prisoners may think the food is bad/very bad, others will have said it was neither good nor bad. By misusing the survey data from this question, you could infer there was a real problem with food at the prison, when in fact more prisoners said the food was good than bad. 1.6 When you have written your contributions, you should then submit them to the coordinating inspector. 1.7 All contributors should be aware that the team leader may ask them to provide evidence for their report conclusions some 10–12 working weeks after the inspection in order to respond to factual inaccuracies highlighted by HM Prison Service, HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS), the Home Office, police forces, etc. 1 At this point it is helpful for the team leader to share the main summary, which they should write, with the inspectors, to ensure there is consistency between the summary and the main body of the report. 4 Guide for writing inspection reports 1. Writing inspection reports The coordinating inspector’s role 1.8 Coordinating inspectors have one working day following the write-up stage to put the first draft of the report together. The coordinating inspector should: ensure that all contributions are combined into one document in the right order, including contributions from specialist inspectors2 check that all sections contain findings, and that any recommendations/good practice points are clearly identified and allocated (to governor, HMPPS, etc) read through the sections to ensure there are no obvious mistakes, inconsistencies, repetition or missing information (including recommendations), and that the main summary does not contradict or omit anything of significance in the sections supply a full list of inspectors, researchers and specialist inspectors; the subject allocations; the completed fact page (including text for the ‘Notable features’ box); population statistics; and the inspection dates supply a list of the previous recommendations and the progress against them (achieved, partially achieved, not achieved or no longer relevant) identify any repeated recommendations in this list and in the main body of the report, with text in the main report that justifies their inclusion. 1.9 The coordinating inspector does not need to edit colleagues’ contributions, but they should check the material before passing it on. Coordinators should not rewrite contributions from specialist colleagues, such as health inspectors, without checking with them first. 1.10 The coordinating inspector should then pass the contributions and additional information to the report editor. For prison an immigration reports they should also include the Research, Development and Thematics team in the email ([email protected]) so that they can compile information for the summary section on the progress of recommendations (paragraphs S1 to S3 in the report). 1.11 It is helpful if the coordinating inspector can supply the feedback note from the formal Friday debrief (or a list of any notable findings from the inspection) to the editor; this can be supplied either before or at the same time as the material for the report. 1.12 Inspectorate reports are edited by four freelance editors managed by an in-house publications manager. Teams A, N, O and Y are currently allocated a dedicated freelance editor who, as far as possible, will be responsible for editing all of that team’s reports. I and P teams will be told which editor is allocated to their individual reports. If coordinating inspectors do not know who the allocated editor is for their inspection report, please contact the publications manager or assistant for direction. 1.13 The publications manager and publications assistant should be copied into all correspondence with editors for tracking purposes. 1.14 The editor has a four-day period to put together a first draft. As part of the editing process they will undertake a thorough search for contradictions and inconsistencies within and between the sections and the main summary. Any queries will be highlighted in light blue in the text and the first draft sent back to the coordinating inspector. 1.15 The coordinating inspector should: 2 Coordinating inspectors can use report templates, available from the publications manager, to help them to organise the text, but they do not need to spend time formatting it; this will be completed by the editor. Guide for writing inspection reports 5 1. Writing inspection reports view queries from the editors constructively and answer them as far as they are able, following liaison with relevant colleagues where necessary indicate any queries that should be directed to the team leader highlight any inclusions/amendments they have made in the report send the amendments back to the editor. 1.16 When amending the report, do NOT use track changes or the comments function. Use red highlights to indicate any deletions (with the word ‘delete’ afterwards) and green highlights to show additions or further amendments. 1.17 The editor will then incorporate the changes and send the second draft to the team leader. The team leader’s role 1.18 The team leader is responsible for agreeing a final draft of the report to be passed to the Chief or Deputy Chief Inspector, which they believe meets the Inspectorate’s required standards of accuracy, clarity and independent judgement. 1.19 The team leader should read through the whole report and check it against the summary (which they should have supplied to the coordinating inspector at the same time as the rest of the team’s contributions), answer any remaining queries not dealt with by the coordinating inspector, and make any final amendments/suggestions for improvement before sending it back to the editor. The team leader should view queries from the editor constructively, and if they are unhappy with any section of the report they should provide clear revisions and amendments to the editor, using the colours specified in paragraph 1.16, so that these can be incorporated into the final draft. They should also advise the publications manager if any concerns about the quality of writing have been flagged up by the editor, so that the publications team can provide inspectors with appropriate support and/or training. 1.20 Once the report is returned, the editor will make the amendments, check the formatting, ensure all the recommendations are listed in the final chapter and cross-referenced to any repeats of previous recommendations, where appropriate, and submit it to the publications manager and assistant. The editor will copy all emails sent and received on the progress of the report to the publications manager and assistant to enable the centralised tracking sheet to be updated. 1.21 The publications manager or assistant will place the final report on the shared drive, together with the allocations list, survey data and any further research evidence, and let the Chief or Deputy Chief Inspector know the report is ready for them to read.