Jacqui Durkin

Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJI) made five strategic and six operational recommendations in 2020 to deliver improvement in the PBNI’s staff morale and organisational culture and how it managed the risk of harm presented by men and women under probation supervision to others in the community.

A follow-up review published by the watchdog today has found significant progress, with one strategic and two operational recommendations fully achieved and the remaining four strategic and four operational recommendations partially achieved.

Jacqui Durkin, chief inspector of criminal justice in Northern Ireland, said: “We welcome the commitment shown by the PBNI towards implementing the recommendations.

“The PBNI had experienced significant changes since the full inspection with a reconstituted Board, a new chief executive and a restructured senior leadership team. The benefits of these were evident to inspectors in this follow-up review with improvements to organisational culture and trusted relationships.

“There is no doubt that staff feel the PBNI is a better place to work than when inspectors undertook their inspection fieldwork in 2019.”

Probation Board chair Max Murray said: “The findings in this review are very welcome and demonstrate the substantial efforts made over the last few years to make improvements to organisational culture and probation practice.

“Significantly staff feel that PBNI is a better place to work than when inspectors undertook their fieldwork in 2019. That is very heartening.

“The chief inspector commended PBNI’s approach as ‘refreshing’ and reflective of a learning organisation willing to develop its professional practice.

“I want to commend chief executive Amanda Stewart for driving forward a programme of organisational and cultural change, and bringing staff alongside her on this journey, which has yielded such clear results. We have more to do but this review is a resounding endorsement of the work that has taken place to date.”

Chief executive Amanda Stewart added: “Within Probation we have worked hard to develop our practice and ensure we have a clear focus and operational grip on reducing and managing the risks of serious harm and keeping our communities safer.

“Every day, Probation staff are working to tackle the causes of offending and protect the public. That includes tackling and preventing domestic abuse, sexual offending and providing support to victims of crime.

“We have a lot more to do but today’s report underlines that the approach we have adopted including having a much sharper focus on professional curiosity and introducing a trauma-informed model of practice is making a difference.”