PROBATION SERVICE TO GET TOUGH NEW IMAGE

The probation service is expected to be rebranded as the Public Protection
Service in an attempt to banish its "too tolerant" image as part of the most
radical shake-up in its 90-year history, the Home Office announced yesterday.

Probation officers are to lose their key role of "assisting or befriending"
offenders as first set out in 1907 in a package designed to ensure that
alternatives to prison are seen as rigorous punishments which protect the
public.

Home Office officials have already started to talk of developing a national
"corrections" policy to cover probation and prisons issues but have rejected
this American term for the whole probation service. A plan to merge the
prison and probation services has also been rejected.

The Home Office Minister, Lord Williams of Mostyn, said the new name was
needed to make it clearer what the organisation did and dispel the
impression that people given community sentences were "walking free" from
court. Preferred options are the Public Protection Service or the Community
Justice Enforcement Agency.

The Civil Service review proposing the shake-up is considering even more
cumbersome titles, including the Offender Risk Management Service; the
Justice Enforcement and Public Protection Service and even the
Napoleonic-sounding Public Safety and Offender Management Service.

It is all a far cry from the 19th century origins of probation officers as
"police court missionaries".

The Home Office also intends to rename court orders such as community
service and probation orders.

The consultation document published yesterday acknowledges that probation is
a long established concept, but said the terms used were often mistakenly
associated with tolerance of crime - probation was seen as a conditional
reprieve.

Community service sounded like a voluntary activity while some terms such as
"throughcare" were too esoteric to be understood by the public.

Ministers propose to replace the 54 separate locally run probation services
with a national agency with 42 areas sharing the same geographical
boundaries as the local police and crown prosecution services.

This would end local probation committees and place the service under the
"arms-length" management of the Home Office through a Whitehall agency
similar to the Prison Service Agency.

The Association of Chief Probation Officers supported the modernisation of
the service but warned of the pitfalls of centralisation, and said the name
should not be changed without better evidence of the benefits.

"The advantages of a national service will be in giving community sentences
greater consistency, a national identity and the possibility of more
resources. We would also have a more direct relationship with the Home
Secretary," said Harold Lockwood, association chairman.

"The possible pitfalls are that centralisation is often a prelude to
top-heavy bureaucracy and encroachment on local control." He said a MORI
opinion poll to test the proposed names had shown few of the suggestions
were popular.

"Renaming organisations has an unfortunate history and the public is
currently very attuned to any whiff of 'spin-doctoring'. They would prefer
our reputation to be based on the substance of our work, not a cosmetic
makeover," he said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett