Offender management statistics bulletin: accompanying information
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-05-25)

Offender Management Statistics. Key statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service supervision.

It covers flows into these services (receptions into prison or probation starts) and flows out (discharges from prison or probation terminations) as well as the caseload of both services at specific points in time.

Offender Management Statistics 
Quarterly Bulletin, England and 
Wales 
 
July to September 2014 
 
 
 
 
Ministry of Justice 
Accompanying Information
 
 
 
29 January 2015 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 

 
Contents 
 
Introduction 
3 
Appendix A – Data sources and quality 
4 
Appendix B – Users of Offender Management Statistics 
9 
Contact points 
10 
 
 
 
 
2 

Introduction 
 
This document provides data information and discussion of policy impacts on key 
statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service 
supervision in England and Wales. The bulletin covers flows into these services 
(receptions into prison or probation starts) and flows out (releases from prison or 
probation terminations) as well as the caseloads at specific points in time. Latest 
figures for the quarter July to September 2014 are provided in the accompanying 
bulletin and compared to the same period in 2013. This is with the exception of 
the prison population where more recent data are available (31 December 2014). 
 
The bulletin is published alongside two inter-related bulletins:  
 
 
Proven Re-offending Statistics Quarterly: provides proven re-offending 
figures for offenders who were released from custody, received a non-
custodial conviction at court, received a caution, reprimand, warning or 
tested positive for opiates or cocaine in the 12 months ending March 2013.  
www.gov.uk/government/collections/proven-reoffending-statistics 
 
 
Safety in Custody Statistics Quarterly: provides statistics on death, self 
harm and assault incidents whilst in prison custody. 
www.gov.uk/government/collections/safety-in-custody-statistics 
 
 
Taken together, these publications present users with a more coherent overview 
of offender management including re-offending among both adults and young 
people, and the safety of offenders whilst in prison custody. 
 
The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated the statistics in this 
publication as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and 
Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of 
Practice for Official Statistics.  
 
Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics:  
 
•  
meet identified user needs;  
•  
are well explained and readily accessible;  
•  
are produced according to sound methods; and  
•  
are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest.  
 
Once statistics have been designated as National Statistics, it is a statutory 
requirement that the Code of Practice shall continue to be observed.  
3 

  
Appendix A – Data sources and quality 
The data presented in this publication are drawn from administrative IT systems. 
Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail 
collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording 
system. While the figures shown have been checked as far as practicable, they 
should be regarded as approximate and not necessarily accurate to the last 
whole number shown in the tables. Where figures in the tables have been 
rounded to the nearest whole number, the rounded components do not always 
add to the totals, which are calculated and rounded independently. 
 
Impact of data quality issues and revisions 
 
 
Population data 
 
Routine data quality checks identified an issue with how offenders who are held 
post-sentence awaiting deportation are recorded within the population data.  At 
any given time, around 300 offenders who should be recorded as non-criminals, 
wrongly remained recorded as sentenced prisoners.  This issue has been 
resolved with effect from April 2013 and revised figures have been provided in all 
tables reporting the prison population by type of custody and offence. 
 
While it was not possible to also carry out the data quality work on data prior to 
April 2013, it is likely that the impact would have been similar (around 300 non-
criminal prisoners incorrectly recorded as sentenced prisoners at both points in 
time). 
 
 
Receptions data 
 
Following the introduction and phased roll-out of a new case management 
system for prisons (prison-NOMIS) from May 2009, data collection issues 
emerged that affected the supply of data for statistical purposes. The vast 
majority of issues were resolved in March 2010; however, prison receptions data 
for 2010 is unavailable due to problems in the supply of data for statistical 
purposes. 
 
Analysis of the receptions data in early 2010 identified a problem with the way 
reception dates were being handled in the data extract used centrally (operations 
within prisons were unaffected). In terms of producing the statistics, this 
potentially affected the period for which a given reception was counted, for 
example Q3 2010 versus Q4 2010.  Further analysis has shown that the issues 
predominantly affected 2010, with data from 2011 onwards impacted less. 
 
While the data may not be accurate to the last digit, it is considered robust 
enough for analysis of broad trends; both over time, and between different types 
of reception. 
4 

 
 
Probation data 
 
From February 2013, there has been a phased introduction and rollout of a 
national case management information system across all Probation Trusts (n-
Delius).  As of 31 January 2014, all trusts have migrated to the new system. 
 
As a result of that migration, there has been an increase in the number of 
offenders within the migrated trusts with tier of supervision recorded as ‘Tier not 
stated’. Investigations are being undertaken to identify the source of this issue. 
 
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced 
Suspended Sentence Orders (SSOs) without requirements attached.  Offenders 
sentenced to such SSOs are not supervised by the Probation Service as there 
are no requirements for the offender to meet, other than to not commit a further 
offence – they do not therefore appear on a Probation Trust’s caseload.  There 
have been increasing numbers of such orders given since they were introduced 
in December 2012, and their inclusion in the number of overall SSO starts 
resulted in a reversal of the general downward trend – this was seen for the first 
time in the quarter ending June 2013. 
 
As the Probation Service is not required to supervise offenders with stand-alone 
SSOs, we have taken steps to separate these orders out and they are reported 
separately in Table 4.1.  All other tables containing starts of SSOs exclude stand-
alone SSOs (Tables 4.2 to 4.6). 
 
 
Pre-sentence court reports (PSR) data 
 
Evidence provided by Probation Trusts suggested that published statistics on the 
number of PSRs prepared by each trust were lower than those statistics 
produced by their internal case management systems. 
 
The PSR data collection process in place until 31 March 2012 entailed each trust 
providing monthly data on the number of reports prepared that month, with the 
data extracted on or just after the 15th of the following month, e.g. data for July 
collected on 15th August. On investigation it emerged that many trusts, 
particularly those in large metropolitan areas, enter some PSRs onto case 
management systems after this date due to data collection practicalities. To 
address this issue, trusts were asked to submit each monthly return two months 
later than previously to allow time for additional reports to be recorded, and the 
impact on the statistics was assessed. 
 
This new extended data collection process has been introduced for data from 
April 2012, and we estimate that the statistics now capture between 1 and 3 per 
cent more PSRs per quarter as reported within Tables 4.12 and 4.13.  
 
Subsequent data quality work has shown that the introduction of a longer time 
lag between the date a PSR is prepared and when data is extracted from case 
5 

management systems, i.e. more than two months, would capture more court 
report data (over and above the additional 1 to 3 per cent now included in the two 
most recent quarters). However, these further increases were mostly seen in the 
number of court reports prepared for breaches, court reviews and deferred 
sentences (see below). For standard and fast delivery pre-sentence reports, a 
two month time lag captures the vast majority of data and there are diminishing 
returns in extending the data collection period any further. 
 
During the data quality work described above, it emerged that previously 
published data for court reviews, PSR breach reports and deferred sentences 
was incomplete in terms of coverage across all trusts and that there were 
inconsistencies between trusts in the coverage and content of the data extracted 
from their case management systems. This data has therefore been removed 
from Table 4.12 for all quarters – the estimated impact on the total number of 
reports written is a reduction of around 4,500 reports per quarter. 
 
It is hoped that with the introduction and phased rollout of a national 
management information system (nDelius) for all Probation trusts and, since 1 
June 2014, the National Probation Service (NPS), more accurate and complete 
data can be produced on PSR breach reports in future. This will be kept under 
review. 
 
In addition, during routine data quality work carried out as part of production of 
last quarter’s bulletin, it emerged that there were a large number of PSRs without 
completion rates in large metropolitan areas, London in particular.  Migration to 
nDelius has introduced delays to logging of PSRs and their completion rates, the 
impact of which was a substantial fall in the number of PSRs prepared in the 
second half of 2013.  Our assessment at the time was that data were not 
considered suitable for publication. 
 
Significant data cleaning work has since been carried out and the data are now 
considered to be robust and of sufficient quality to resume publication. 
 
Transforming Rehabilitation is a reform programme that is changing the way 
offenders are managed in the community. Key aspects of the reforms include 
creating a new public sector National Probation Service (NPS) to work with the 
most high-risk offenders, and forming 21 new Community Rehabilitation 
Companies (CRCs) to manage medium and low-risk offenders. The new NPS 
and 21 CRCs have been operational since 1 June 2014, and from that point 
Probation Trusts ceased to exist. However since the reporting period for this 
bulletin covers April to June 2014, we have continued to publish statistics at 
Probation Trust level in the accompanying tables. Plans on how to change the 
relevant tables have been set out in the ‘Changes to Offender Management 
Statistics Quarterly’ document, published on 24 July 2014 at the link below: 
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/changes-to-offender-management-statistics-
quarterly-and-annual-editions 
 
 
 
 
6 

HDC eligibility 
 
In order to bring the coverage of HDC eligibility in line with all other prison 
population data, figures from 2011 onwards have been taken from a different 
source resulting in a break in series from 2011. To aid comparison, 2011 figures 
within Table A3.5 have been presented using both data sources.  The impact of 
the change in data source is a 2 per cent increase in the number eligible for HDC 
which results in a slight fall in the release rate (down 1 percentage point). 
 
The increase in the number of offenders identified as being eligible for HDC in 
the new data source is due to improved recording of release dates which enables 
more prisoners to be captured in the ‘eligible’ category. Using the previous data 
source, if the release date for an offender was missing, they would have been 
excluded from the eligible category as it would not have been possible to 
determine at which point they were eligible to be released under HDC.  
 
Indeterminate sentences for public protection  
 
Information relating to tariffs for IPP and DPP prisoners and those serving life 
sentences is held by the Offender Management and Public Protection Group, 
NOMS, in the Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD).  
 
 
Licence recalls and returns to custody 
 
Returned to custody – the figures for those returned to custody include people 
who have died or been deported by the UK Borders Agency as prior to 2007 this 
information was not collected separately. The information held centrally records 
whether or not recalled offenders are still wanted for return to custody but for 
those offenders no longer wanted for return to custody, information is not held on 
whether the recall was completed by actual return to custody or because the 
offender died or was deported.  
 
Not returned to custody – this includes those offenders believed to be dead or 
living outside of the UK but who have not been confirmed as dead or deported. 
 
 
Symbols used  
..  
not available 
0 
Nil or less than half the final digit shown 
- 
not applicable 
* 
One or both of the comparison figures are less than 50 
(p) 
Provisional data 
(r) 
Revised data 
7 

 
Revisions policy 
 
Figures for prison receptions and releases for each of the first three quarters of 
the calendar year are generally revised alongside figures for quarter 4 in the 
October to December publication each year. Prison population, probation and 
licence recall figures are not routinely revised, but are corrected if an error is 
identified.  
 
Any revisions will be accompanied by an explanation for the revision and its 
impact, along with – where appropriate - an assessment of whether the impact is 
in line with previous revisions. 
8 

Appendix B – Users of Offender Management Statistics 
The contents of the report will be of interest to the public, government policy 
makers, the agencies responsible for offender management at both national and 
local levels, and others who want to understand more about the prison 
population, probation caseload, licence recalls and returns to custody. 
 
The statistics included in this publication are used extensively and meet a broad 
spectrum of user needs as shown below. 
User 
Summary of main statistical needs 
MOJ Ministers 
Use the statistics to monitor the prison population and 
capacity of the prison estate; monitor effectiveness of 
probation service and whether resources are deployed 
efficiently; assess policy impacts (e.g. changes to 
sentencing guidance) 
MPs and House of 
Lords 
Statistics are used to answer parliamentary questions – 
approximately 100 are answered each year using prison 
and probation data 
Policy teams 
Statistics are used to inform policy development, to 
monitor impact of changes over time and to model 
future changes and their impact on the system 
Agencies responsible 
for offender 
management 
Current and historical robust administrative data are 
used to support performance management information 
at national and local levels within each agency to 
complement their understanding of the current picture 
and trends over time 
Academia, students 
and businesses 
Used as a source of statistics for research purposes 
and to support lectures, presentations and conferences, 
e.g. data on female foreign national prisoners are 
included in ‘The Criminalisation of Migrant Women’ 
report published by the Institute of Criminology, 
University of Cambridge in July 2012 
Journalists 
Used as a compendium of robust data on offender 
management so that an accurate and coherent story 
can be told on the prison population and probation 
service 
Voluntary sector 
Data are used to inform policy work, responses to 
consultations and briefing papers by analysing trends 
and changes to the prison population, e.g. the Prison 
Reform Trust use published offender management data 
to compile the ‘Bromley Briefing Prison Factfiles’ 
General public 
Data are used to respond to ad-hoc requests and 
requests made under the Freedom of Information (FOI) 
Act: offender management data is used to answer 
around 100 FOIs each year 
 
 
9 

10 
Contact points 
Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office: 
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx 
 
Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to: 
 
 
Jonny Hughes 
Ministry of Justice 
Justice Statistics Analytical Services 
7th Floor 
102 Petty France 
London 
SW1H 9AJ 
 
General enquiries about the statistical work of the Ministry of Justice can be e-
mailed to: xxx@xxx.xx 
 
General information about the official statistics system of the UK is available from  
www.statistics.gov.uk 
 
Ministry of Justice publishes data relating to offender management in England 
and Wales. Equivalent statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland can be found 
at: 
 
www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice 
 
www.dojni.gov.uk/index/statistics-research/stats-research-publications.htm 
 
 
This publication and associated spreadsheet files of the tables contained in this 
document and detailed information of definitions, sources and key legislative 
changes are available for download at  
www.gov.uk/government/publications/offender-management-statistics-quarterly--
2 
 
 
© Crown copyright 
Produced by the Ministry of Justice Alternative formats are available on request 
from xxx@xxx.xx