GovWire

The Annual Report

The Parole Board has laid before Parliament its Annual Report and Accounts for 2023/24.

The Parole Boards overall priority is protecting the public, and it plays a vital role in doing so, by assessing whether prisoners are safe to be released.

During 2023/24, we decided that 11,355 prisoners needed to stay in prison for the protection of the public and 4,370 prisoners were released.

During the reporting year, the Parole Board continued to conduct the majority of its oral hearings remotely, based on an assessment of the case.

Our key statistics for the end of the reporting year:

• In 2023/24 the Parole Board spent 29,483k (24,231k in 2022/23)
• 8,684 oral hearings were conducted (8,085 in 2022/23)
• 6,973 oral hearings were concluded (5,890 in 2022/23)
• 11,355 prisoners were refused release at paper and oral hearing (11,050 in 2022/23)
• 4,370 prisoners were directed for release at paper and oral hearing (3,637 in 2022/23)
• 393 prisoners were recommended for open conditions at paper and oral hearing (416 in 2022/23)

Further details regarding the Parole Boards performance can be found above within the Performance Data document 2023/24.

The Board also carried out a huge amount of other important work:

• Following the success of the series 1, BBC2 documentary, Parole, we have welcomed a series 2 due to be broadcast in Autumn 2024. The series provide unprecedented, uncensored, access to the parole process.

• We issued 1,763 summaries in 2023/24 (1,636 in 2022/23). These have been made available mainly to victims, but also members of the public, researchers and journalists.

• In 2023/24, we held a further two parole board hearings in public. We expect more cases to be opened up to the public, where the legal test for an open hearing is met, in the next financial year.

• A pilot to allow victims to apply to observe oral hearings has been expanded from the South-West region to Greater Manchester and the national rollout is planned for later in 2024. The Parole Board set up a dedicated Victims Team this year to work with HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to arrange those observations.

• We have received 168 applications for victims to observe hearings in the test regions. 57% of these have been granted and 31 victims and survivors have now observed a hearing.

• Our duty members have terminated 205 IPP licences over the year (which is about 25% of the applications that we received).

• 31 SFOs were referred to the Parole Board at the point of charging. Of these referrals, 16 prisoners were ultimately convicted of an SFO. Our convicted SFO rate remains low at under 0.5%.

• We welcomed 56 new members across the course of the year, 25 of whom had a background in law enforcement.

• There was a total of 343 members during 2023/24. As at 31 March 2024, there were 316 current active members and 6 former active members (total members 322). A full list of the Parole Board membership and their biographies can be found attached.

Review Committee

The purpose of the Review Committee is to ensure that the Parole Board has arrangements in place to review and monitor its decisions to release offenders on parole licence in cases where the offender is alleged to have committed a serious further offence. A formal report is submitted to the Management Committee on an annual basis. The Review Committee sits outside the formal management structure, to retain its independent scrutiny role.

A formal report is submitted to the Management Committee on an annual basis. The Parole Board attaches a summary of that formal report for 2023/24, that is suitable for publication.

Register of Management Committee Members interests

The below details any additional interests or personal relationships that Management Committee members may have with outside bodies or individuals which might, to their knowledge, conflict with the work of the Ministry of Justice and its Agency. It also includes details of political activities, shareholdings and sponsorships as well as interests of close family members/people living in the same household.