• Setting Up a Custody Panel

• Delivering Excellence in Court Services

• Improving Sentencer Communications

• Improving the Quality of PSRs

• Appropriate Use of Remand

• Performance Management

This section provides guidance on performance management to impact on custodial rates and achieve the Performance Measure 4 target

Assessing factors that impact on custody

The first step is to establish what problems exist and assess which changes will have the greatest impact on custodial rates.

• Data analysis
  Obtain data from YOIS or Careworks on all custodial sentencing decisions and custodial remand episodes, for the previous 6–12 months, for offenders resident in the Yot area (as counted in the Board’s target). Analyse the data to find the percentages of custodial remands and sentences each month, and also the total number of episodes each month. Analysis of the data should include the following queries:
  • How serious were the cases remanded/sentenced to custody?
  • What were the characteristics of offenders remanded/sentenced to custody?
  • Was there a significant difference in decisions made by each court and/or magistrate/judge?
• PSR sampling
  Conduct a PSR sampling exercise to analyse all PSRs that resulted in a Detention and Training Order in order to identify any quality and practice issues and to put further meaning to your data analysis.
• Interview practitioners
  Interview a range of interested parties to identify views of the reasons for custodial remands or sentencing in the area. Possible interviewees include YOT practitioners, magistrates’ court clerks, chair of the youth panel, probation service liaison officers, Crown Court clerk and youth liaison judge. Below are examples of questions that can be posed to each party.
  • YOT practitioners
    • How are your PSRs gate-kept?
    • Do you recommend tailored, appropriate sentences rather than a standard Supervision Order?
    • Are you aware of the custody targets, and the custody rates for the area?
  • Bail support
    • Do you prepare bail packages for those likely to receive custody?
    • Are you confident of the eligibility criteria for ISSP?
    • How do you liaise with ISSP?
    • How have the percentages of remands to custody changed over recent months?
  • Magistrates
    
    
    • Are you are aware that the area has high custody rates, and the YOT is currently trying to reduce this?
    • Do you have enough information about YOT services?
    • Why don’t you propose tagging/curfew orders/ISSP?
    • Would you be interested to see your custody rates?
      
      
• Identify key issues impacting on custody
  Use the data analysis to identify key issues which may be impacting on the use of custody. For example, issues regarding:
  • organisation and quality of YOT court services
  • use of bail ISSP and bail support services
  • quality of pre-sentence reports
  • management and enforcement of orders
  • statutory service provision
  • sentencer liaison.

Action planning

Once you have diagnosed the issues, it will be necessary to develop an action plan so that you can clearly plan how you will resolve any problems, and drive forward performance improvement.

• The action plan should be short and tailored to your specific needs, as guided by your data analysis. Once you have completed sufficient research to assess where the performance gaps are, the priority areas to be addressed should be decided. Click to view an example action plan [97Kb Word document, opens in new window].
  
• Use the tools and techniques provided in this area of the Practitioners’ Portal to identify specific actions that will address the issues identified. Priority actions should be agreed against each issue and responsibility for each action clearly assigned. Timescales for the completion of each action should also be agreed.
  
• The plan should be reviewed on a monthly basis and amended when appropriate. The project leader is responsible for assessing whether staff members with delegated actions have made progress.
  
• A traffic light report can be used to show progress against each of the actions. Staff should be regularly informed of progress against the plan. Click to view an example traffic light report [49Kb Word document, opens in new window].
  
• There will inevitably be a time delay between the implementation of the plan and any significant performance improvements. Therefore, for example, a YOT hoping to improve performance in 2005 should start the action planning process as soon as possible with a view to starting implementation in Quarter 1 2005.

Project ownership

To achieve an improvement in performance, there needs to be clear project leadership and ownership of the various actions that are required.

• The YOT manager should assume overall responsibility for progress against the action plan and achievement of the targets. Senior managers should also take ownership of the targets and monitor performance regularly.
  
• To drive progress forward in each area, a lead contact for the project should be nominated from the YOT. This would usually be someone at management level. The project leader should organise custody panel meetings, and be responsible for ensuring that tasks are completed and the action plan is implemented.
  
• The regional manager could also receive monthly progress updates in the form of a monthly report. Click to view a monthly report template [239Kb Word document, opens in new window].
  
• Ownership of the action plan should be shared across the YOT, not just by the court team. YOT staff should be given responsibility for specific actions.
  
• The project leader should organise the collection and monitoring of data required to monitor custody rates and track progress towards achieving the targets. For more information, see the section below on the monthly reporting process, and also Setting Up a Custody Panel.
  
• The project leader should circulate information on progress against the action plan, for example, the traffic light report showing progress against the actions and also monthly reports. For more information, see the section above on action planning.
  
• Within the YOT, specific performance targets could be set for both managers and practitioners around the custody targets. These could be both qualitative and quantitative targets, which relate to the specific responsibilities given to individuals to implement the action plan.

Monthly reporting process

In order to assess what effect your process changes are having on performance and to track progress over time, it is essential that progress is monitored on a regular basis and that performance data is collected and analysed at least monthly.

• Projected performance
  Predict your overall projected performance for the whole year. An example is provided below. This will give you a clearer perspective and focus on how likely it is that you will achieve the target.
  
• Review your projections
  Review the projections you have made on a monthly basis, and revise them if necessary, e.g
  • If you find that you are achieving the targets more quickly than predicted, bring forward the predicted date of achieving the target.
  • Revise your predicted figures according to significant events occurring in your area. For example, if you know that in a particular month there is going to be a high number of custodial sentences due to the sentencing of serious crimes, then adjust your predictions accordingly.
    
• Review your performance
  Review your performance at least monthly.
  
  • Once a month, the lead contact should complete a progress report, and comment on overall progress, progress against the specific actions and also any risks to achieving the targets. These reports should be fed back to YOT managers, regional managers, practitioners and partnering agencies where appropriate.
  • Data should be presented in the ‘traffic light’ format on the monthly reports (i.e. green = on target, amber = close to target, red = over target). See the example below.
  • Obtain performance data from YOIS or Careworks, including both the percentage of episodes that resulted in custody and the number of episodes this relates to. You may also want to see the case details for all custodial episodes for a particular month.
  • If you find that performance is not improving as predicted, investigate the data to discover why. This may require: looking at individual cases, e.g. re-reading PSRs to see why ISSP was not proposed; checking that your processes are working effectively, and that no loopholes have developed, e.g. if a PSR slipped through the gate-keeping process, why did this happen?

Example of quarterly progress monitoring against Performance Measure 4, including projected figures:

Example of monthly progress against Performance Measure 4, included on a YOT monthly report:

Inter-agency ownership of the targets

Since many factors can influence a custodial outcome, it is essential that the effects of the actions of other criminal justice agencies are considered. It will be necessary to gain partner agency support for your action plan in order for your performance improvement to have maximum impact. Three key steps are:

• Evaluate what needs to change
  Your data analysis and practitioner discussions will reveal any practices which should be improved.
• Gain agreement for actions
  Meet with the relevant agency to gain agreement on what both parties will do to solve an issue. Ensure that actions are specific and have a timescale for completion.
• Put protocols in place
  To embed an agreed change in practice, it is good idea to establish written protocols with key agencies or partners such as police, CPS, court, accommodation providers and the local authority. These protocols should then be circulated at the relevant performance management meetings (e.g youth court user group) and relevant practice change information should be disseminated to staff as appropriate.