11 January 2025
“Operation Reset” was introduced last year with the aim of alleviating the workload demands and to protect probation staff time. It involves suspending contact between probation practitioners and the people they supervise in the final third for all Community Orders and Suspended Sentence Orders with rehabilitation activity requirement, and licences of people released from prison (unless certain exceptions apply). People in this situation remain liable to being breached and recalled. Therefore, the threat of prison remains but the supervision, and any support that might accompany that, falls away.
Colleagues have told me that they feel this has had an impact on the confidence of the Parole Board in releasing people on licence where it applies.
However, there has been very little information available in the public domain about how it works. There is a helpful article by Inside Time and some helpful notes on various local authority websites. I therefore asked for the internal guidance to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The guidance provided was issued in November 2024 and is available here: Management of Cases in PSS and the Final Third FAQs.
It comes with the following caveat in the cover letter:
“The reset guidance is operational guidance, designed for operational staff and managers working in the Probation Service. It is not written for external partners; it is a guide to inform practitioners on what to do when a community or licence case is eligible for reset and what to do when circumstances change that require the practitioner to react to the change in circumstances. Not all cases are eligible for reset, and so it is important and necessary for practitioners to ensure those cases are managed in the usual way. There have been two versions of the guidance and the one shared is the most recent one. Guidance has been issued to all 12 probation regional leaders and their staff, including frequently asked questions and briefings to help implement the changes.”
I wanted to share it for the benefit of everyone with an interest as soon as possible so have not had time to analyse it in detail but stand out points for me are:
- The following categories are EXEMPT from Reset:
- All MAPPA cases across all categories (1-4) and all levels (1-3).
- Case which are directly managed by National Security Division.
- Cases with current and active child protection.
- Cases assessed as posing a very high risk of serious harm.
- Cases subject to the intensive supervision court pilot (until evaluation complete).
- Cases subject to youth sentences.
- People on community orders or licence are still required to fulfil the requirements of their sentence or licence but without supervision.
- If a person’s risk to self is likely to increase following the suspension of contact it may also be necessary to complete a safety plan before suspending contact.
- Where a person does not have a postal address, it is essential that “check in” meetings are arranged throughout the final third of sentence.
- Once the half-way point of a licence has been reached a review of the conditions on licence should be considered before contact is suspended, with a view to considering if they are necessary and proportionate.
- Reset should not directly impact on the victim liaison scheme.
- For those subject to Reset, there are certain one-off mandatory meetings that are “enforceable”.
- There must always be a named practitioner responsible for every suspended case and the case and other stakeholders must always know who that is.
- Supervision can be reinstated in the following circumstances (although it is unclear how this will become apparent if the person is not supervised):
- The case has become MAPPA eligible.
- The case has become National Security Division eligible.
- Case involved in an active child protection plan.
- Significant changes and or notifications from stakeholders indicate the RoSH level has escalated to very high risk of serious harm.