Links & Partnerships

Lancashire Probation Trust delivers services alongside, and jointly, with partners in the criminal justice system and also with agencies and organisations in the statutory and voluntary sectors. We plan how we can work most effectively together to reduce crime and disorder.

We are involved in the development of strategic community safety initiatives in Lancashire and in campaigns at local level. Our five local delivery units work with many organisations and agencies that provide opportunities for offenders under our supervision to make changes in their lives away from crime and towards their rehabilitation within society

This co-working approach is planned and achieved through a range of statutory partnerships and formal contracts with other services and agencies in the statutory and voluntary sectors. For example, we share statutory work with the police in leading multi-agency public protection panels (MAPPA) for the management of dangerous offenders within the community.

We have contractual partnerships with the six prisons in Lancashire. Probation staff are based in the prisons where they contribute to the planning of how offenders will serve their time in prison and in planning for their release and supervision under licence in the community after release.

Lancashire Probation Trust is active in a wide range of inter-agency work for public protection and safe communities. For example, our shared local schemes with the police in Burnley and Pendle areas have targeted persistent offenders and produced clear results in reducing burglary. Police officers and probation officers work together, combining police intelligence and surveillance of known offenders with intensive probation supervision, to tackle an offender's behaviour

We work in partnerships that support our probation practice by providing specialist work in the following areas:

assessment and treatment for offenders whose offending is linked to their use of alcohol and drugs
employment, education and training assessment and advice to increase offenders' employability
placement of offenders serving Community Punishment Orders
accreditation of skills by offenders on Community Service
Risk assessment and work with sex offenders.

Community Safety Partnerships

Lancashire Probation Trust actively contributes through representation on all 14 Community Safety Partnerships, which cover Lancashire's local districts and the boroughs of Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool. Our Service contributes local knowledge of crime patterns and offending to inform local discussion and local decision-making about how best to tackle and prevent crime.

Achieve North West NOMS ESF Project

A consortium of the 5 North West Probation Trusts, headed by Merseyside Probation Trust, successfully bid to deliver Round 2 of the NOMS ESF Project "Services to improve the employment prospects of offenders". The project, called Achieve North West, runs in all 5 Probation Trusts and in 15 prisons across the region. A total of £10.3m in funding is available with the project running until 31 December 2014. More than 8,300 offenders will become participants during a 3 year period. Achieve North West is also running a programme called Belief in Change, which is a faith informed accredited programme, in HMP Risley.

The delivery model focuses upon a case management approach to the offender journey towards employment, and is designed to bridge the gaps between offenders and existing mainstream education, skills and employment services. The project complements, rather than duplicates, existing provision.

For more information, click Updated Achieve Jan 2013.doc