The Scottish Government

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Section 1
SETTING PRIORITIES

SETTING PRIORITIES

1.1 We want to target efforts and resources for maximum community benefit. We need to ensure that the work of offender managers makes a real and tangible difference to the lives of local communities, victims and offenders. To do so, we need the focus to be on solving problems, rather than administering processes. To make that shift and to deliver services differently, we need to set clear national and local strategic priorities.

1.2 One of the key choices agencies face is who to prioritise. Protecting the public from the most serious harm must be the first priority for all those dealing with offenders. It is therefore critical that agencies prioritise the management of the most serious sexual and violent offenders. The numbers in this category are relatively low, and their reoffending rates below average. But the damage they do to individuals is potentially very great. Agencies therefore must be clear about the cases which require the most highly-skilled professional supervision and target resources accordingly. This means that agencies need to get better at identifying those offenders most at risk of reoffending and also those who are at risk of causing serious harm to other people. Good risk assessment and management are the foundations of effective offender management. To enable this, the criminal justice system as a whole needs to become smarter about how to use the wide range of interventions already available for lower-level offenders and to help agencies release the time of their most highly-skilled staff to concentrate on the most complex cases. Many of the interventions for lower-level offenders can be successfully delivered by a wider range of individuals, within and beyond the criminal justice system: agencies should take advantage of that fact.

National priorities

1.3 The Introduction sets out the shared high-level aim of this strategy - reducing reoffending, and delivering the outcomes which will support that. National priorities give direction to the work of the various agencies working with offenders to achieve this aim.

Context

1.4 The Reducing Reoffending consultation told us that the present system lacks a sense of direction, struggles to cope with high volumes - in prison and community, that service provision is often inconsistent, that there is duplication of effort, that the focus is too often more on the service than the offender, that services do not join up as well as they should, that effectiveness is not proven and that lines of accountability are not clear.

1.5 Over the past few years, progress has been made in reshaping services around the risks and needs of the offender. The system now has a good range of community sentences in place for the courts to use in place of short prison sentences; practice has benefited from recent developments in the use of risk assessment and management tools; accreditation is raising standards in programme design and delivery; information sharing is growing; and the concept of sentence planning in community, prison and across both settings is taking root.

1.6 The Community Justice Authorities ( CJAs) provide an opportunity to reshape the services of the future by adopting a more targeted approach to work with offenders which focusses on the principles of effective practice; enables the best deployment of resources; speeds up the system at the lower end; encourages the appropriate use of diversion; matches highest need/risk to most intensive interventions with most highly skilled staff; make better use of support staff; and builds confidence in communities that the system will do what it says it will do. This is the opportunity to build on the progress made so far and to redesign service delivery around integration and quality.

1.7 Nationally and locally, we wish to involve sentencers in these discussions about the shape of services, to ensure their views, experience and needs are fully understood.

Approach

1.8 The new approach will redesign services around offender groups which are (in no order of priority):

• Less serious/first-time offenders
• Offenders with mental health problems
• Offenders with substance misuse problems
• Persistent offenders, including young offenders coming through from the youth system
• Prisoners needing resettlement and rehabilitation services
• Violent, serious and sex offenders
• Women offenders

1.9 Many offenders will fall into more than one of these categories. This list provides a framework to allow agencies to examine what the provision is for offenders under each heading, where the most obvious gaps are in each case and where there may already be a wide variety of available interventions. For CJAs, it will provide a basis for asking questions about what is available in their own areas, how coherent that provision is and what the priorities should be for development in their own area.

Local priorities

1.10 Different parts of Scotland have different patterns of offending. The CJAs will identify local priorities within its boundaries, based on the level of risk and need across the CJA area, and taking account of priorities already identified in existing planning partnerships, particularly through community planning. CJAs will have the responsibility for allocating resources to local authority criminal justice social work services. In doing so CJAs will be required to match resources against priorities described in the CJA area plan. It is to be expected that this will, in time, lead to a redistribution of activity and funds across local authority areas within a CJA.

1.11 Individual plans may place a different emphasis on different types of reoffending in different areas. But they are still expected to promote greater consistency in delivery of interventions. CJAs have a legal duty to promote the sharing of good practice - within and between CJAs.

In the period to April 2008

The National Advisory Body ( NAB) will

• Scrutinise area plans and advise on how well these match investment to priorities.
• Consider overall trends in offending and offender management in Scotland.
• Consider how services can be reshaped around the seven offender groups.
• Provide advice on the long-term investment strategy in the run-up to the Spending Review 2007.
• Advise on updating this strategy to cover a 3-year period.

The Executive will

• Provide the resources to agencies to support delivery of the area plans.
• Develop supporting papers on reshaping services around the seven offender groups for consideration by the NAB.
• Develop a strategy paper on accommodation for offenders.
• Under the Youth Justice Steering Group, take forward work on improving transitions from the youth to the adult systems.
• Work with CJAs and local authorities to ensure that we are making the most effective use of probation.
• Work with NAB to identify the most cost-effective way to share what has been learned in recent pilots more widely across the system.
• Seek to involve sentencers in these discussions, to ensure their views, experience and needs are fully understood.

CJAs will

• Use available data on offending patterns in their area, to identify local priorities in terms of reducing reoffending and increasing public safety, and reflect these in the area plans.
• Draw up area plans in consultation with the SPS and other partners which clearly match investment to national and local priorities.
• Submit plans for 2007-08 to the Executive by Autumn 2006.
• Identify in area plans what action is being taken in each CJA to address each of the shared high-level outcomes.
• Conduct an audit of the accommodation for offenders within the CJA, as well as practices relating to the provision of accommodation for offenders.
• Promote consistency in delivery of interventions and the use of risk assessment tools.

Local authorities will

• Contribute to the production of the area plan, ensuring all the relevant services they provide are taken into account.
• Agree priorities with the CJA and align services to deliver the area plan.
• Promote the use of a standard approach to risk assessment and management.
• Promote the principles of effective practice in working with offenders.
• Supervise offenders in line with National Standards and Objectives.
• Ensure Best Value.

SPS will

• Provide each CJA with early briefing on SPS activity relevant to the CJA.
• Contribute to the production of each area plan.
• Reconsider its investment in rehabilitative activities in the light of this strategy and CJA area plans.
• Agree priorities and align services to deliver the area plan.

Partner Bodies will

• Provide each CJA with early briefing on the aspects of their activity relevant to the CJA.
• Identify their contribution to reducing reoffending through the more coherent management of offenders.
• Contribute to the production of the area plan.
• Support the delivery of the area plan.

Inspectorates and other independent and advisory bodies will support these changes:

• By providing information and advice to the Executive, SPS, local authorities, CJAs and the NAB in their areas of expertise in order to inform the policy process and assist with setting priorities.

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