A damning report into the county's biggest probation service has revealed a catalogue of shocking shortcomings - fuelling fears it is failing to prevent ex-offenders returning to a life of crime.

Among the shortcomings were a slew of safeguarding issues, poor management, over-worked employees and chronic staff shortages.

Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell

It resulted in the West Kent Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) being ranked by inspectors 'inadequate' overall.

The unit, which has offices in Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, Gravesend and Chatham, was described as being in "survival mode" by HM Inspectorate of Probation, the independent body tasked with monitoring probation services across England and Wales.

The probation service is in charge of overseeing offenders released from prison on licence, as well as those on community sentences made by judges and magistrates in the courts.

It is designed to protect the public from high-risk offenders by providing rehabilitation and addressing the initial cause of their crime.

But the inspectorate's report made depressing reading for the West Kent PDU.

It said: "There was insufficient attention paid to reducing reoffending and supporting the person on probation’s desistance; this was only evidenced in just over a third of the cases inspected. The lowest scoring area of work was that focusing on risk of serious harm. This was evidenced as being sufficient in only a quarter of cases."

It added: "While there has been a degree of engagement demonstrated with people on probation, the overall focus on addressing factors linked to reoffending, supporting desistance and managing the risk of serious harm have all fell well short of what is required to support individuals towards change."

It also revealed a lack of child-safeguarding and domestic abuse checks.

In addition, it revealed, as of January this year, hundreds of those ordered to carry out unpaid work as part of their sentence still hadn't completed them after 12 months.

Court work - where the probation service provides pre-sentencing reports, designed to provide an impartial guide to an offenders background to help inform the judge or magistrate when it comes to the punishment handed down - was found only to meet the "standard of being sufficiently analytical and personalised to the individual, to support the court’s decision-making" in 26% of cases.

Worryingly, it paints a picture of a crumbling eco-system where staff are working well in excess of maximum case-load expectations and vacancy levels at 30% - even higher at middle-management level.

The average sick time taken by each member of staff over a year was close to three weeks (14.8 days). The average for workers in the UK in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics, is just 4.6 days.

The report added: "Many practitioners (staff) are trying their best, in exceptionally difficult circumstances. This, however, is not delivering safe and effective management of people on probation.

"Many practitioners acknowledged and understood this, telling us that they knew they were not managing everything that needed to be covered and there was a real fear that gaps in case supervision would mean that risk of harm issues would be missed and this would result in tragic outcomes.

"Worryingly, not all practitioners were able to identify these gaps in their practice."

It added: "Some SPOs (senior probation officers) told us that they were supervising up to 22 members of staff, had an active community caseload of their own, and a lead function on specific pieces of work, including integrated offender management. This situation is unsustainable."

It went on to say: "Staff report being in ‘crisis’ and ‘haemorrhaging staff’ through sickness and people leaving."
Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell, said: “West Kent PDU is currently subject to a perfect storm of issues, including the legacy of Covid-19, which need to be addressed urgently if they are to provide a service which can protect the local community and improve the lives of those wanting to move away from crime.

"Staff at West Kent are committed and keen for change – which is a positive sign – and I hope this, and our recommendations, lead to improvements as soon as possible.”

In the report, he added: "Disappointingly, we found there was a lack of clearly defined vision and strategy at a leadership level in West Kent PDU. Both senior and middle managers stated their work was reactive rather than having the time and space to apply a strategic approach.

"There were also chronic staff shortages, with an effective vacancy rate of 30% of the total workforce across sentence management functions, when long-term sickness, and maternity leave as well as unfilled vacancies are taken into consideration.

"This contributed to a sense of the PDU being in ‘survival mode’. In turn, this negatively impacts on staff and service delivery. Probation practitioners and middle managers are working above agreed workload limits, with no plan for how this will be addressed in the longer term. This is unsustainable, and recruitment and retention of staff must be a priority issue for this PDU to address."

In response, the Kent regional probation director, Mary Pilgrim, blamed staff shortages on the impact still being felt by the pandemic.

And she insisted steps were being taken to improve the situation.

She explained: “Covid has impacted the Probation Service like most other organisations, but it is to their credit that our staff have worked hard to keep the people of west Kent safe despite the challenges posed.

“We are making the required improvements and are recruiting more staff, improving training and providing greater managerial oversight so that we can stop more people re-offending in the region.”

We are making the required improvements and are recruiting more staff

It is understood across the Kent, Sussex and Surrey region, 71 members of staff have been recruited since last October, with ongoing recruitment campaigns to fill remaining vacancies.

A 12-week action plan is also now in place to address immediate issues regarding staffing and prioritisation of work.

The probation service nationally under went a major shake-up in 2014 under former minister Chris Grayling which saw the sector divided with some elements being taken over by private companies.

The National Probation Service (NPS), which managed high-risk criminals remained a public sector organisation, while 21 private companies became responsible for 150,000 medium to low-risk offenders in the controversial overhaul.

However, the move was seen as flawed and the government has had to bail out the private providers, known as community rehabilitation companies (CRCs), by more than £500m.

Last year, all probation services in England and Wales were fully restored to public control - effectively reversing the changes ushered in seven years earlier - with the National Probationary Service and the CRCs becoming centralised, now known simply as the Probation Service.

Then Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland, declared the move as one which would see crime cut and improve the probation service.

He said at the time: "The government is backing the new Probation Service with more money and more staff so that the public is better protected, crime is cut and fewer people become victims."

He said £300m had bee invested in the Probation Service since 2019 in order to boost staff numbers.

The report into the West Kent PDU suggests that mission has, so far at least, failed in its objectives.

Lennox Rodgers is CEO and co-founder of the Dartford-based Refocus Project which aims to redirect troubled youngsters away from a life of crime. He spent 21 years "in and out of jail" and says the probation service needs to work effectively to stop the all too common occurrence of re-offending.

Lennox Rodgers, CEO and co-founder of the Dartford-based Refocus Project

He explained: "Probation, in my opinion, has had a bad reputation for many years. My apologies to the good probation offices, but you can count them on one hand.

"You go to probation when you're released from jail and most of the time no one takes any interest in how you're getting on and what you're going to do to rehabilitate yourself. That happened a lot.

"It's very important for young people especially, when they come out of prison, to have that support.

"But as with the prison service, they can't solve everybody's problems. Probation needs to do a lot of collaborative work. What would work and has, in my experience proven to work, is having someone who has been there and done it - an ex-offender who has turned their life around, who has broken the cycle of offending to work with the person coming out.

"Probation on its own, is not enough and with so much work they are just going to try and get through it, which is what's been happening - ticking boxes.

"In the eyes of many inmates I've been in touch with, they say they're a joke and 'they don't care about us'. "

The West Kent Probation Delivery Unit was rated inadequate across all departments reviewed by HM Probation Inspectorate with the exception of 'information and facilities' in which it was 'requires improvement'.

The report also highlighted the PDU's strengths, which included "evidence of strong and positive relationships with the judiciary"; well established and well regarded women-specific services; a "largely positive" response from those on probation about the service they received; and praise for its 'offender personality disorder pathway' which is co-located within probation services.

This inspection made 12 recommendations, seven of which call upon the national and regional Probation Service to support the PDU to improve.

The PDU had 4,030 cases as at January 2022 - 1,153 people in custody and 2,877 people on probation.