In the past premium services have been developed for the Persistent Offender Scheme (which was the precursor of the Prolific and Priority Offender (PPO) initiative) and the Street Crime Initiative. This approach has been built on the learning from these initiatives.
Ultimately, the expectation of the National Criminal Justice Board (NCJB) is that there should be a National Criminal Justice System premium service that can readily be deployed for any group identified as a priority for the Criminal Justice System.
Premium could take a number of forms:
Faster processing - dealing with offenders quickly in order to accelerate the application of control or the provision of positive rehabilitative interventions.
Prioritisation of resources - although there are no resources tied to the PPO strategy from the centre, there is scope for re-prioritising resources locally to provide preferential access to programme or deploy more experienced, specialised staff to increase the prospects of securing the desired outcomes.
Enhanced quality standards - for example covering more frequent supervisory contacts with offenders or enhanced assurance/decision making processes.
Increased multi-agency collaboration - effective delivery of the PPO programme requires the engagement and active participation of the:
- Police
- Crown Prosecution Service
- Her Majesty's Court Service
- National Offender Management Service
- Youth Offending Teams
- and other partners outside the Criminal Justice System, as appropriate
All these aspects are reflected in the Premium Service specification. In some cases there may be tensions between speed and quality of processing, in which case operational staff will need to apply their judgement about the prioritisation in the individual case.
