Skills for Justice
Skills for Justice Regional Contact:
Angela Sharp, England Deputy Manager - Partnerships
Skills for Justice
Centre Court
Atlas Way
Sheffield
S4 7QQ
Learning and Skills Council Contact: hilary.porter@lsc.gov.uk and christopher.seabourne@lsc.gov.uk
Click here for the Skills for Justice North East Fact Sheet
Overview of the Sector in the North East
The sector covers Custodial Care, Courts Services, Prosecution, Community Justice and Police.
Although not a significant contributor to GDP, the justice sector allows the rest of industry to operate and make their contribution and is a key determinant of the social environment.
It impacts directly on an individual’s quality of life, freedom and sense of well-being.
The sector comprises a large number of organisations spread across a range of employment groups, each of which has its own individual identity. All of these organisations are working towards the same overarching purposes, related to the creation of a safe, just and stable society.
Partnership working is key to the sector and is encouraged by government and increasingly incorporated into legislation as a statutory requirement.
The sector comprises public, private and voluntary organisations.
Men account for 65.1% of the North East justice sector.
Looking at the total population for England and Wales, the percentage from a minority ethnic group is 8.4%, this falls to 2.4% for the North East. For the North East justice sector, 94.7% of the workforce is white, people from minority ethnic backgrounds accounted for 1.2% with 4.1% not stated.
Only a small proportion of the justice workforce falls in the 16-24 years group – mainly due to entry requirements, e.g. custodial care employees must be over 18 years of age.
Key issues facing the sector now and in the future (including both opportunities and challenges.
Legislation is the single biggest driver of change in the sector (LSC 04/05):
- Immigration
- Reform of Police Service in England and Wales
- Criminal Justice Bill
- Sexual Offences Bill
- Police reform in Northern Ireland
- Increasing emphasis on correctional Approach within custodial Services
- Sentencing Act
- National Offender management Service
- Local Partnership working
- The Immigration and Asylum Act
Employment Issues in the North East
Current and forecast recruitment demand (either for growth or replacement).
There are 19,280 justice employees in the North East.
With 57.9%, the police (including Centrex employees) have the largest proportion of employees in the North East justice sector with custodial care the next largest employer for justice at 19.8%
Recruitment difficulties and causes
In policing and prisons, employees work for a set number of years rather than until a set retirement age, so that staff joining at 18 are eligible to retire with full pension in their late 40s. Recruitment drives thus result in retirement bulges 30 years later. This combined with an ageing population and shrinking numbers of potential young recruits puts strain on these services.
Retention issues
In policing and prisons, employees work for a set number of years rather than until a set retirement age, so that staff joining at 18 are eligible to retire with full pension in their late 40s.
Skill requirements of new recruits
In recent years, the qualifying award for probation officers in England and Wales was changed, from the Diploma in Social Work to the Diploma in Probation Studies, a pioneering award, which combines NVQ4 with a degree.
Workforce Development in the North East
Skills shortages/gaps in existing workforce and latent skills issues, to include, where possible, detailed information relating to specific occupations and generic issues (e.g. relating to management and leadership; ICT etc)
Improved public service delivery is a top Government priority across the UK. The expectation of consistent high standards, combined with high levels of accountability, is leading to a stronger focus on skills and development in all areas of public service delivery including the Justice Sector.
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Skills Shortage
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Skills Gap
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Community Justice |
Processing Skills
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Management & Leadership
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Planning and organising skills
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Partnership working
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Interpersonal skills
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Assessment
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Personal skills, stress management
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ICT
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Financial skills
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Custodial Care
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Basic skills particularly amongst recruits
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Police
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ICT skills
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Performance Management
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Management & Leadership
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Customer Care & communications
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Interpersonal Skills
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Technical Skills
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Gaps and shortages exist around a lack of knowledge of cross-sector working, in particular a lack of awareness of the processes and systems within each criminal justice agency. This situation is exacerbated by limited scope for secondments due to resource constraints. (Skills Foresight Regional Factsheet: NE Region 2005)
Skills gaps and shortages were identified in contract management brokering of services and interventions.
Gaps in leadership and management affect all strands of the sector from top to first line management. With so much compulsory training in probation it becomes difficult to find funding and time for CPD. There is also a lack of coaching and mentoring skills and a belief that management do not have an accurate knowledge of the skills, which exist within their own organisations.
All strands of the sector are affected by skills shortages and gaps in good report writing, literacy and grammar.
Future skills demand
The pace of change – much of it directing organisations into closer and closer working relationships – is accelerating which creates a need for better knowledge of cross sector working, in particular knowledge of processes and systems within each agency. There is a lack of joined up training on similar or the same initiatives. (Skills Foresight Regional Factsheet 2005)
Prioritisation of skills issues within the industries
Develop and implement a coherent approach to continuing professional development with focus upon: Management and leadership, development of professional registers, development of Competency Frameworks, IT skills, Commercial skills – to support contestability in public sector, Contract management for working with the private sector.
Engage effectively with education and training policy-makers, Higher Education Institutions, FE Institutions and Independent Learning Providers to reduce the skills gap.
Develop with employers comprehensive career paths across the Sector, using this to:
- Map, analyse and review the recruitment, retention and progression of staff across the Justice sector
- Increase the number of members of under represented groups
- Enable the sharing of best practice across the sector of learning and skills development.
Learning and Skills Infrastructure in the North East
Relevance and quality of existing provision
LSC working with national Probation Directorate to ensure that the Diploma in Probation Studies award keeps pace with changes in infrastructure and practise as a result of the creation of NOMS.
Barriers to employers accessing the skills provision they need
Nationally, the proportion of firms that have provided funding for staff training within the previous 12 months was 91%. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2003)
Although only a small number of cases were included in the sample organisations in the NE were far more likely to state that there were no barriers to prevent them undertaking staff training than nationally (59% compared to only 25% nationally). (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2003)
The main barrier to undertaking training in the sector is lack of funding (Brinton 2005).
Any Other Employment and Skills Issues in the North East
The Employer Network Forum which is specific to the NE, is helping the various silos of the justice sector work more closely together on common issues, and the other is Northumbria University/FE colleges working on foundation degree - this is at a very early stage and there is no information on whether this will be successful or not (Brinton 2005).
National initiatives include NE employers, such as Exploitation of IT and Leadership and Management (Brinton 2005).
References
Brinton 2005 - Helen Brinton
