CHAPTER TWO – PAROLE BOARD RULES AND PUBLISHED GUIDANCE
There are now a total of 31 rules the Parole Board are governed by. The Board publishes guidance to members as to how it interprets these rules. Its guidance is wide ranging. Reference will be made to the most relevant guidance within this book.
We do not intend to take you through each and every Parole Board Rule because that would be incredibly dull, particularly given that they are readily accessible online. However, we will touch upon the most important Parole Board Rules throughout the course of the book.
Summary of the Parole Board rules
- Rules 1-4 cover application, interpretation and appointments.
- Rule 5 covers the appointment of panels. In every case that is referred to the Board the Chair of the Parole Board must appoint one or more members of the Board to comprise a panel to consider the release of a prisoner on the papers, this is know as the Member Case Assessment (MCA) stage.
- Rule 6 deals with case management and covers the powers that members have to make, vary and revoke directions to them to manage cases.
- Rule 7 of the Parole Board rules covers case conferences and directions hearings.
- Rule 9 is particularly crucial to practitioners because it provides the mechanism for duty members or panel chairs to alter time limits within the rules. This is obviously useful for issues such as observer requests, witness requests etc.
- Rule 10 focuses on legal representation and allows prisoners to appoint someone to act on their behalf. It also gives the Panel Chair and Duty Members the power to appoint a representative for the prisoner with their agreement or, where the prisoner does not have capacity, allows for a representative to be appointed if it is in the prisoner’s best interests to be represented.
- Rules 11 and 12 relate to method of service and date of service. The most utilised method of service is to provide material/documents to an email address within the Parole Board. Most commonly this is to the case manager dealing with the case. Rule 12 makes it clear that unless a duty member or panel chair states otherwise, any document served under Rule 11 is deemed served the next working day after the documents were sent. The rules provide clear guidance on date of service for postal documents, but we have not set them out here as the bulk of the Parole Board’s work is now dealt with electronically.
- Rules 13 and 14 covers Witnesses and Observers. Rule 13 makes clear that a request to call a witness at an oral hearing must be made within a written application no later than 12 weeks before the date of the oral hearing. The time limit is the same for observers under rule 14.
- Rule 16 deals with the referral and provides that the case is deemed to have been referred to the Board at the point that the referral and all necessary information is received from the Secretary of State.
- Rule 17 covers non-disclosure and sets out the procedures for withholding information from the prisoner and/or their legal representative.
- Rule 18 covers the procedures for the parties making representations to the Board and for serving any additional evidence.
- Rule 19 gives panels the power to make a decision on the papers or to direct an oral hearing.
- Rule 20 covers the procedure for prisoners who have been found unsuitable for release on the papers to then apply for an oral hearing.
- Rule 21 provides that, if a direction has been made for a case to be considered at an oral hearing, a panel chair or duty member can conclude that review on the papers if further information is provided that would make an oral hearing unnecessary.
- Rules 22 to 24 set out the procedures for cases that are to be considered at an oral hearing.
- Rule 25–27 covers release decisions following an oral hearing, this being a decision of the majority of the panel. Rule 27 covers decision summaries.
- Rules 28–30 covers the reconsideration mechanism, setting aside and the slip rule.
- Rule 31 covers applications to terminate IPP licences.
Parole Board decision making framework
The Parole Board has published a decision-making guide to ensure consistency amongst members but, in doing so, makes it clear that it insists on individual professional judgement in reaching decisions.
The guidance makes clear that the Board is not concerned with involving itself in the punitive element of a sentence. The Board only concerns itself with the risk of serious harm, risk of reoffending and any other relevant factors to allow it to make an informed assessment of risk. As such it considers risk factors applicable to the individual prisoner along with any protective factors.
A risk factor is described as “aspects of the prisoner’s life that have inclined them towards harmful behaviour”.
A protective factor is described as “an aspect of the prisoner’s life that have inclined them away from harmful behaviour”.
The guidance does not attempt to set out an exhaustive list of issues/matters that a Parole Board panel will consider, but does pose the following questions that panels are encouraged to consider:
- What further offence(s) might the prisoner commit?
- Will they cause serious harm?
- Who might the victim(s) be?
- What features might contribute to serious harm (the risk factors)?
- What might protect against serious harm (the protective factors)?
- How and when could the above factors combine, either to increase or decrease risk (scenario planning)?
- How probable is a high-risk scenario (likelihood)?
- How soon could a further serious offence take place (imminence)?
- What measures can be put in place to reduce the likelihood and/or degree of harm occurring (risk management plan)?
It is important to acknowledge that the Board cannot consider cases of its own back. In order to consider a case, the Secretary of State must refer the matter to the Parole Board. The SSJ only refers certain types of cases to the Parole Board.
The Parole Board is empowered to make decisions about the following:
- Deciding whether to release indeterminate sentence prisoners on or after the end of their tariff;
- Deciding whether to release some categories of determinate-sentence prisoners;
- Deciding whether some recalled prisoners should be re-released;
- Advising the Secretary of State as to whether an indeterminate-sentence prisoner should progress to an open prison; and
- Advising on any other matter relating to release or recall that the Secretary of State refers to the Board.
This means that the Parole Board’s work includes prisoners who have not been released and are seeking parole and people who have been released, but have been recalled to custody for breaching the licence conditions imposed upon them at the point of release.