Project will supply frontline workers with information covering areas such as mental health, addiction, housing and education, in order to gain insights and offer improved help to those on probation
HM Prison and Probation Service is shortly to commence a £1m pilot programme to trial whether greater access to public sector data could ensure people on probation receive better support.
On 3 February, the Ministry of Justice – HMPPS’s parent department – is to enter into an initial six-month engagement with supplier Newton Consulting which, according to newly published commercial documents, will support government in delivering a pilot aimed at “identifying unmet need” of probationers.
The exercise, which can be extended by a further three months, is intended to “test the hypothesis that access to local authority data will add capacity into the probation system and enable frontline staff” to access and make use of data. This information could then provide “insights [that] will support risk and needs assessments, sentence planning, and commissioning decisions”, HMPPS hopes.
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The contact award notice adds: “The supplier is required to design and deliver a pilot that enables probation services to access cross-system data – such as mental health, housing, education, and substance misuse indicators – to identify unmet needs among people on probation. The pilot will involve 5-10 local authorities or equivalent data holders and their corresponding probation delivery units.
The agreement with the MoJ will be worth up to £960,000 to the Oxfordshire-based consultancy, inclusive of VAT. If it is extended to its full term, the deal will run until early November.
The procurement notice says: “The secretary of state for justice has a strategic objective to reduce reoffending and improve public protection by enabling more effective, data-informed decision-making within probation services.”
