Coordination of information flows, within the Probation Service and from outside agencies, is crucial to successful risk management involved in domestic violence perpetrator programmes, the first report of its kind has concluded.

The Ministry of Justice report, The delivery of domestic abuse programmes: An implementation study of the delivery of domestic abuse programmes in probation areas and Her Majesty’s Prison Service, warns that coordinated information sharing is a central issue to effective operation of the Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) or Community Domestic Violence Programme (CDVP), recommending that efforts are made to improve consistency of practice.

The study is one of the first to examine the implementation of domestic violence perpetrator programmes across the statutory sector in England and Wales and found variations between practices at all stages, and deviation from the stated guidelines in some cases.

Greater monitoring of individual offender managers is also recommended, as is a drive to ensure that all those handling IDAP or CDVP cases are trained and fully aware of their pivotal role in the programme structure.

The conclusions are drawn from data collected from ten probation areas and from two prisons. The areas were selected to cover all the probation regions of England and Wales.

“IDAP, CDVP and the Healthy Relationships Programme (HRP) comprise cognitive-behavioural group work for perpetrators of domestic violence, along with packages of inter-agency risk assessment, proactive offender management and structured victim contact. The programmes have been rolled out across probation areas and in certain prisons since 2003. This study has identified uneven practice in respect to the delivery of some of the constituent parts of the programmes. Some aspects of programme delivery appear to reflect the principles set out in the guidelines. In others there is greater deviation. This relates especially to the risk management functions of the offender managers. Individual officer practice appears to be shaped by their level of knowledge of how the programmes should operate and their own views on the utility of the programmes along with a lack of formal structures to ensure that this work is completed,” the report concludes.