RACE & ETHNIC MONITORING – Probation

ACHIEVING QUALITY DATA AND

EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF Circular
2001 16+1 CENSUS REFERENCE NO:

CATEGORISATION 60/2004

ISSUE DATE:
PURPOSE 30 December 2004
To ensure that all areas have implemented the classification of offenders and
staff in accordance with the ‘16+1’ Census 2001 categories. To seek actions IMPLEMENTATION DATE:
aimed at improving the quality of race ethnicity data.
Immediate

ACTION EXPIRY DATE:

Board chairs and Chief Officers are asked to ensure that they are recording,
December 2009
collating and returning data on ethnicity to RDS and NPD based on the
Census 2001 classification. Boards must examine their data and have an
TO:
action plan in place to improve performance. Specific actions as stated on
Chairs of Probation Boards
page 3 should be taken.
Chief Officers of Probation
SUMMARY Secretaries of Probation Boards
RDS publish information on the number of offenders commencing penalties
by ethnic group. A circular was issued in January 2004 to alert areas that as CC:
a consequence of the correct information not being available to RDS, no data Board Treasurers
on the ethnicity of offenders for the period after September 2001 had been Regional Managers
available for publication. Boards were asked to take immediate actions to
remedy the situation. RDS has again been unable to publish national data AUTHORISED BY:
on the ethnicity of offenders for the period January to March 2004, because Roger McGarva, Head of Regions
the data collected for the relevant period was not sufficiently complete due to & Performance Management
local recording problems in a number of probation areas.
The NPS will have a target on the collection of race and ethnic monitoring ATTACHED:
data in 2005-06 and it will be included in the weighted scorecard.
N/A

RELEVANT PREVIOUS PROBATION CIRCULARS

PC09/2004, PC12/2002, PC55/2002

CONTACT FOR ENQUIRIES

Daniel.Smith44@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or tel: 020 7217 8095

National Probation Directorate

Horseferry House, Dean Ryle Street, London, SW1P 2AW General Enquiries: 020 7217 0659 Fax: 020 7217 0660

Enforcement, rehabilitation and public protection

BACKGROUND

The ‘16+1’ census classification of race and ethnicity became mandatory in April 2003. PC152/2001 asked Chief
Officers/Boards to begin to make arrangements to classify the race and ethnicity of all new staff members as of 2 January
2002 and to reclassify all existing staff members by 31 March 2002 in accordance with the 16+ 1 Census 2001 and to
make similar arrangements for offenders. A timetable was designed to comply with the overall deadline for criminal
justice agencies. The timetable was revised by PC12/2002 to take into account the difficulties some criminal justice
agencies were facing in regard to the time-scale for migrating their IT systems to cope with the new categories.

PC09/2004 asked Board Chairs/Chief Officers to ensure that all commencement data for the period 1 January 2004
onwards sent to RDS on the Quarterly Probation Listings contain current 2001 ethnic classification.

The current situation indicates that the NPS is yet to achieve the required performance on this.

CURRENT DATA PROBLEMS

Poor quality and missing data on ethnicity has been evidenced by a variety of sources:

• In the NPS and NPD Second Year Review of Race Equality Schemes no area provided all the information required
on the monitoring of staff by ethnic background.
• The Human Resource Workforce Profile Report published November 2004 concluded that whilst the overall number
of staff identified as ‘Not Stated’ is reasonably low at 7.5% across the NPS, there are regions with higher figures i.e.
East Midlands (17.15), London (15.6%), South East (9.8%) and Yorkshire & Humberside (7.6%)
• A recent exercise looking at ICCP and diversity identified that the quality of race data collection remains an issue with
over 500 cases where no race data was recorded.
• RDS data for April to June 2004 shows that the overall situation regarding missing data has improved (5.2% missing
for court order commencements and 9% missing for pre/post release commencements in the second quarter of
2004), but in some areas the situation had worsened slightly compared to the previous quarter.
• The table on page 4 identifies those areas demonstrating real achievement (less than one per cent missing) and
those where an urgent improvement action plan is required (more than 7 per cent missing). (published September 04)

SPECIFIC ACTIONS

1. All Board Chairs/Chief Officers are asked to examine their performance and satisfy themselves that they have
implemented effectively the 16+1 census classification of race and ethnic monitoring.
2. Board Chairs/Chief Officers of the areas identified as under-performing i.e. those in table 1 should provide the NPD
with an improvement action plan by 31 March 2005. The Head of Diversity will be writing individually to the
Chairs/Chief Officers of these areas by 31 December 04.
3. Board Chairs/Chief Officers in the categories with missing data over 5% should have improvement action plan within
their 05/06 business plans
4. All Board Chairs/Chief Officers should pay particular attention to those areas that have been identified as delivering
effective outcome on this issue and where applicable areas should include practical steps to learn/share practices
and include evidence of this in improvement plans.
5. ‘Not Stated’ Category/Refusals issues. There are noticeable large numbers of refusals from some areas.
Whilst acknowledging the challenges around the ‘Not Stated’ category, the NPD is increasingly concerned that we do
not know the basis for determining this categorisation. We need some intelligence to determine what lies behind the
‘Not Stated’ identification. Is it a refusal? Is it a lack of opportunity to categorise? Board Chairs/Chief Officers should
ensure that a distinction is made between those who genuinely refuse and those who are not asked at all. This is of
particular relevance in determining potential causes of the problem and devising appropriate solutions.

A National Policy on this issue will be determined shortly.

Should further clarification or discussion regarding any aspect of this circular be necessary, please contact Diane Baderin
on 020 7217 0739.

PC60/2004 – Race & Ethnic Monitoring – Achieving Quality Data and Effective Implementation of 2001 16+1 Census
Categorisation 2
 Persons commencing supervision by the Probation
Service, April 2004 - June 2004

Court orders Licences Over

all
Table 1 Total Ethnic % with Refusa % Total Ethnic % with Refusa % %
commenci code missing commenci code missing
ls refusals ls refusal Missi
missing missing
ng code ng code s ng

Areas with
high missing
rates

Inner London 1,110 325 29.3 7 0.6 586 246 42.0 2 0.3 33.7
Dorset 308 54 17.5 0 0.0 96 33 34.4 3 3.1 21.5
Outer London 2,701 384 14.2 24 0.9 871 217 24.9 10 1.1 16.8
Bedfordshire 421 54 12.8 0 0.0 104 23 22.1 1 1.0 14.7
Essex 885 120 13.6 4 0.5 241 32 13.3 0 0.0 13.5
Hertfordshire 574 44 7.7 3 0.5 119 21 17.6 0 0.0 9.4
Nottinghamsh 873 86 9.9 7 0.8 279 14 5.0 4 1.4 8.7
ire
Merseyside 1,484 122 8.2 4 0.3 458 27 5.9 0 0.0 7.7
Thames 950 73 7.7 4 0.4 208 12 5.8 1 0.5 7.3
Valley

Table 2

Areas with
very low
missing
rates

Durham 463 0 0.0 0 0.0 88 0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0

Kent 674 0 0.0 5 0.7 350 0 0.0 26 7.4 0.0
Dyfed-Powys 298 0 0.0 0 0.0 53 0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0
West 2,345 3 0.1 16 0.7 636 3 0.5 8 1.3 0.2
Yorkshire
Wiltshire 277 1 0.4 2 0.7 51 0 0.0 0 0.0 0.3
North 510 0 0.0 0 0.0 134 2 1.5 0 0.0 0.3
Yorkshire
Cumbria 388 2 0.5 1 0.3 138 0 0.0 1 0.7 0.4
Teesside 684 1 0.1 1 0.1 173 3 1.7 0 0.0 0.5
Gwent 482 2 0.4 0 0.0 118 1 0.8 0 0.0 0.5
Lancashire 1,221 10 0.8 1 0.1 312 1 0.3 2 0.6 0.7

England and 36,150 1,884 5.2 167 0.5 12,240 1,098 9.0 105 0.9 6.2
Wales

(These figures are slightly different to those published in Performance Report 14. This is due to revised, corrected data
received by RDS)

PC60/2004 – Race & Ethnic Monitoring – Achieving Quality Data and Effective Implementation of 2001 16+1 Census
Categorisation 3