The ‘Listening Service'

You consult extensively with individuals and with wider customer groups. The results of consultation are used to inform service priorities and planning and to achieve improvement.
Award Assessor Nick Page

The Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Trust has been awarded the Government-backed Customer Service Excellence (CSE) standard. The CSE award was developed to offer public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organizations.
The CSE standard, valid for three years, follows on from the original Charter Mark Scheme which was awarded for achieving a top performance in public service. The Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Trust has held Charter Mark since 1998.
Mr Page went on to say: "The Trust has shown the most consistently high performance of the country's probation services over the past years. You learn from and promote best practice, both with your own services and further afield. Response to customers is prompt and the quality of your services leads to timely successful outcomes."

THE LISTENING APPROACH

Local people wanted more input over the reparation work that supervised offenders undertake to benefit local communities. This work is called Community Payback and in 2008 - 2009 a total of 203,439 hours was completed locally in Leicester and surrounding counties.

The Listening Service - Justice Minister David Hanson launched the ‘Citizens' Panels' in Leicester which give local people more say in the type of work offenders carry out in the community.

Citizens' Panels enable members of the public to consult with their local council and Probation Service to identify work that needs to be carried out in their area to improve public safety and the environment. 

Recent figures show that since the scheme was launched 149 projects have been completed involving 676 offenders, which have generated 4,732 hours of unpaid reparation work.

The Listening Service - Leicester communities were invited to vote in June's national Justice Seen, Justice Done campaign. The winning site from the five options was the field area around Scalpay Close and Beaumont Walk in Beaumont Leys.
Overgrown hedges have been cut back, graffiti removed from walls and un-authorized posters have been taken down.

The Listening Service - Offenders on supervision asked if the Probation Service could extend its opening hours and develop services nearer to their home communities.

The Trust now runs evening workshops and programme sessions, and is providing a special programme for men guilty of domestic abuse that is delivered in a one-to-one setting in county Probation offices rather than at the Probation Centre in Leicester.

Probation Director Trevor Worsfold explained: "Our commitment to improving practice is long established. We feel that by consulting we have a better insight on how we can take forward change - and enable more offenders to complete their orders successfully.

"The assessor's report is very comprehensive and we are investigating how we can follow his recommendations to maintain our CSE standard in the future."

The report highlighted for further consideration:

• - More focussed targets on customer satisfaction,
• - Greater clarity in explaining the Trust's full range of partnership working among its different affiliated partners, and
• - Seek ways to demonstrate its quality of customer service and timeliness with that of similar organizations.

The Trust's progress will be reviewed in the spring of 2010.

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