Parole board holding up under pressure

The Parole Board's annual report shines a light on how it has coped during a difficult year

Yesterday the Parole Board published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2021/22. This is, of course, something which, like many public bodies, it is required by law to do and, most years, the report would be a pretty dull year. However, this has not been a normal year for the Parole Board. Like the rest of the criminal justice system, the Board is continuing to struggle with the consequences of the COVID pandemic. On top of that, the Board is facing what many commentators would describe as a hostile “root and branch” review by the government.

That review has already resulted in the Justice Secretary taking new (heavily criticised) decision-making powers in high publicity serious cases and in probation officers being banned from making a recommendation for or against release in their reports to the Parole Board. The government has also changed the rules around eligibility for parole with many people committing more serious offences unable to apply for parole until later in their sentence. So, the annual report is, perhaps, a good indication of how the Board is holding up under such unaccustomed pressure.

The report

The Parole Board’s total budget for last year was £22.2 million, up by £312k (1.4%) from the year before. So, what did the Board do for that money? Given that there are currently 80,819 (data correct last Friday 15 July) people in prison and most are serving short sentences and don’t come anywhere near the parole system, I was surprised at the scale of the Board’s work. Last year, they made parole decisions on 15,546 individuals. The report provides a brief overview of MCAs (the acronym MCA stands for Member Case Assessment and essentially means that a parole decision is made on the basis of the official records and reports without a hearing) –  known to one and all as a parole decision made “on the papers”.

By the end of the reporting year:

• 8,834 oral hearings were conducted
• 6,336 oral hearings were concluded
• 2,353 prisoners were refused release at oral hearing
• 3,434 prisoners were directed for release at oral hearing
• 556 prisoners were recommended for open prison at oral hearing
• 9,054 prisoners were refused release at the MCA review
• 705 prisoners were released at the MCA review
• 12 prisoners were recommended for open prison at the MCA stage

In total, 11,407 prisoners were refused release and 4,139 prisoners were released. The Board is proud of the fact that less than 0.5% of all people released on parole go on to commit a serious further offence, although it acknowledges that each SFO is “one tragedy too many”.

The Board has been able to overcome many of the challenges of COVID (when prisons were essentially closed to all visitors, including Parole Board members who conduct hearings) by holding most of its hearings via video-link and some by telephone. In the last year, the Board conducted 75% of all oral hearings via video-link, 22% were telephone hearings, 2% hybrid hearings and just 1% face-to-face hearings.

The report also helpfully includes the unit costs for both paper (MCA) hearings – £320 – and oral hearings – £1,550.