Farmer Review (Women)

Local Criminal Justice Boards (or equivalent strategic local groups) to take responsibility for building links and encouraging all services to take a joined-up approach to addressing the needs of female offenders (and women at risk of offending). Police and Crime Commissioners should take a leadership role in facilitating this collaboration between system partners, in pursuit of an effective, efficient response to local need. i. Domestic abuse services, to be integrated, co-located where possible, and working in partnership with other help women are willing to access, including women's centres, and sustainable local funding, as part of the whole system approach, for a range of proven programmes to meet diverse needs.

Given the particular spending implications across government for women's offending, such as those relating to the greater likelihood that their children will end up in local authority care, the Reducing Reoffending Board (which takes a cross-Government approach to reducing reoffending) to have a ministerial lead for and pay regular attention to the specific needs of female offenders.

Funding for women's centres to be made sustainable, with core services paid for by those agencies which refer women (including Police and Crime Commissioners and Probation providers) and those which save through the interventions they provide, such as health and local authorities.

Residential women's centres to have places for women to bring their children, if they would not otherwise have sufficiently stable accommodation in which to complete community orders.

Models of custodial centres in the community to be considered as part of the Ministry of Justice's longer-term strategy for women whose crime is serious enough to merit a custodial sentence, but who are at low enough risk to retain care of their children.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation to assess the impact of recommendations from the 2014 joint thematic review on Resettlement provision for female offenders, in light of the MoJ's female offender strategy.

HMPPS currently developing the new model for Probation to: i. Ensure that services are available to support family and other relational ties under this new model. ii. Address the problems of recall which can arise from the offender's relational background, such as their primary – and often sole – carer status: penalties other than recall to be used which reflect the rehabilitative intent of the 12-month supervision period with rehabilitation and relationships at the forefront of probation practice and recall a measure only taken proportionately and in light of these overarching considerations. iii. Clarify who is locally responsible for securing post-release housing. iv. Ensure all offenders receive appropriate resettlement support through the gate including by connecting them with outside services whilst they are still in custody. v. Ensure there is sufficient flexibility in any new resettlement model to enable planning for accommodation post-release to start early enough to secure the best outcome. This will require acting on information contained in the Personal Circumstances File from the point of induction.

Allocation of accommodation guidance for local housing authorities in England to recognise the prospective housing needs of women leaving prison who are otherwise able to be reunited with their children, so local authorities can make these needs the basis for assessment.

HMPPS to make significant improvements to the Assisted Prison Visits scheme for (male and female) primary carers in prison including: • more generous rules • better advertising of how these operate, including advance payments • greater flexibility in who can claim expenses • piloting changes to ensure they result in the desired outcome of enabling more children to visit their mothers (or primary carers)

A separate standardised visitor's survey to be developed for women's prisons. i. Each prison to survey regularly the women in their care, and families/significant others who visit to find out: • how many were able to attend family days and other forms of extended visits compared with how many wanted to attend • if certain groups (such as foreign national women and care leavers) are excluded from extended visits because they have no family members able to attend but do have friends/significant others who would come if eligible • how many days would their families and significant others be able to attend each year • what times would be most suitable for children and young people ii. Prisons to provide evidence that survey results have been discussed and any issues flagged by the survey to be addressed by an action plan for improvement drawn up with the residents' council and families forum.

Each prison to provide a physical space where women can spend private time with family members and significant others with appropriate risk assessment and safeguarding procedures in place (with the understanding that governors might need to prioritise this space for sensitive visits, including pre-adoption and those which are family court-related.)

Liaison and diversion services, and police (whether upon arrest or when an out of court disposal is being considered) to take opportunities to collect information on women's key relationships to ensure better outcomes for them and their families. With her consent this will be held in a personal electronic file (Personal Circumstances File) which will be carried with her and added to until she is no longer involved with the criminal justice system.

The Gateway Communication System to be two-way so that women inside prison who have ongoing caring responsibilities can express concerns, thereby alleviating their own anxiety and making it clear to those on the outside that they have not been abandoned.

The recommendations from this Review to be added to the implementation plan for the original Farmer Review, with progress monitored and reported on in the same way. This recommendation has already been accepted by the MoJ.

Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons to ensure the importance of family ties features prominently throughout the Expectations for women's prisons when they are reviewed, so governors know this has to be a cross-cutting priority in the running of their prison.

A family-related prison performance measure to be defined which is designed to: • compare similar prisons and therefore used in a relative rather than absolute way • stimulate ongoing improvement in all prisons • be responsive to the distinct needs and issues in women's prisons

Ministry of Justice policy to allow governors in women's prisons to use ROTL more creatively and ambitiously to enable women to resume contact with family and undertake caring responsibilities, and HMPPS to look at the scope for using monitoring technology where necessary.

Eligibility for Child Resettlement Leave to not rest narrowly on sole carer status but be widened to include other family circumstances, so women in prison can continue in their caring responsibilities to the benefit of children, other carers and offender rehabilitation.

A Case Review of children removed from primary carers when they entered prison to be carried out by the Chief Social Worker for England (Children and Families), to ensure that decisions taken are always in the best interests of children. The review should examine social work practice, including the role of support services in keeping families together.

Funding to be allocated so that additional family engagement workers, working according to the evaluated model developed by the Family Support Alliance, are available in all women's prisons.

The Ministry of Justice to fund an on-site social worker as part of the multi-disciplinary team within each prison.

To ensure consistency in the operation of prisoner email schemes, all female establishments (which have not done so already) to develop an email reply system.

Family and relationship work to be routinely included in diversion/out of court disposal pathway programmes for women.

The Women's estate in its entirety to be prioritised for roll-out of virtual visits with all women routinely able to use facilities, where there are no security concerns, because of the disproportionately positive impact on children. There must be secure video conference facilities available in location managed by other government departments.

In-cell telephony (ICT) to be rolled out in all women's prisons as part of the next wave of installation given that so many women are primary carers.

Consideration to be given to piloting the use of simple, non-internet enabled mobile phones as a less costly solution.

Call providers to treat prisoners in the same way as other customers and provide 'frequent caller' and other packages which enable them to speak more with those who are most important to them.

The Ministry of Justice's evidence landing page and the National Concordat to include the learning from successful pilots, so future commissioners know what is proven good practice.

Manual Guidance (MG) forms to be amended by the Government to capture information about the dependants of offenders.

The impact of remand on dependants, information about whom will be available in a woman's Personal Circumstances File, to be considered in any bail decision. i. If the decision is made to remand in custody a defendant who is a primary carer the opportunity to be given to make telephone contact before leaving court with family or other alternative carers to make arrangements for her dependants. ii. Women sentenced to custody to be asked if they need to make telephone contact with dependants or organise childcare and allowed to do so before being put onto transport.

The Government to review regulations preventing children from living in Approved Premises. i. Women in Approved Premises or housed by Bail Accommodation Support Services with children who are struggling with parenting or other family and relationship issues to be encouraged to engage (voluntarily) with Early Help or Family Hubs, either through self-referral or through referral from women's centres, social workers or other professionals.

Given the complexity of many female offenders' lives, and the greater likelihood that they are primary carers, obtaining a written Pre-Sentence Report to be made mandatory for all women (and male primary carers) before a custodial sentence is passed (if a recent report is not available). i. Accurate information on relationships and the impact of custody on family ties systematically obtained through the PSR process to be made available to sentence planners to inform custody and other disposal decisions. ii. Courts to indicate clearly when requesting Pre-Sentence Reports if the initial assessment is that the custodial threshold has been passed, and convicted women made aware of this by the person conducting the PSR Interview. iii. As part of the whole systems approach, a lead professional to ensure support (typically from women's organisations) is available at the pre-sentence stage, to help women prepare their children, family members and friends who might be able to support them throughout a custodial period, for the possibility of imprisonment.

The National Concordat for Female Offenders to highlight the role women's centres can play in delivering whole systems approaches and examine opportunities to bring together cross-government funding for the services they deliver, given the potential savings to the Ministry of Justice and other government departments.