The WMT points per week have been amended. This minor amendment provides an easier formula to understand the process of changing available hours into ‘points’

Mandatory activities have been taken from policy guidance and/or legislation to define a list of core activities which must be undertaken.

Timings for these activities were developed through engagement with staff to understand variation region to region and officer to officer. The mandatory activities were also drawn up and sense-checked with these groups.

Responsive activity provides an additional weighting of up to 30% for activities which are expected but are either not defined in policy guidance/legislation or are not routine (e.g. monthly). These include crisis management, contact with significant others/family members of People on Probation, completing complex risk management liaison, or creating and delivering bespoke approaches to meet individual diversity needs.

Mandatory Activities now includes ARMS informed OASys. This means that ARMS work is now factored into the points in WMT. This means from 30 May you will no longer need to separately record ARMS completion on nDelius – reducing the time and duplication of activity.

Reductions for SPOC roles is now included within Target Staffing Figure calculations (2% of target).

Staff in sentence management roles (PSO, PO and SPO) can continue to have reductions applied to their WMT profile for SPOC reductions.

SPOC roles offer many benefits including professional development for staff taking a lead role, relationship development with key stakeholders and the wider dissemination of information to colleagues and teams. SPOC roles have never previously received any direct resource within staffing establishment figures.

To support ongoing operational delivery and demand management through visible and transparent sharing of workload, we have made changes to improve the accuracy, reliability and validity of CMS

CMS changes:

• Focussing CMS activity to mandatory activities only
• Reducing time period CMS transfer of points is ‘active’ on system from 30 days to 7 days
• Removing of low, medium and high complexity and adopt new WMT activity timings or component thereof for tasks which contribute to a mandatory activity
• Updating guidance to clarify:

1. Expectations on Probation Practitioner retention of oversight/responsibility
2. Recording expectations for CMS contacts (i.e. no blank entries, no repeated CMS use)
3. Regional audit/dip sampling expectations to assure proper use
4. CMS use linked to Prioritising Probation Framework within the wider Workload Management Strategy

What do I need to do?

Read the revised guidance to understand the changes and know how to apply CMS

• The CMS contact types have been renamed, otherwise the process for recording CMS remains the same
• You need to be aware of the changes in expectations and remit of CMS
• Following the update, all previous CMS entries will be copied across to ensure continuity of workload distribution. The majority of staff should see little or no difference in WMT
• Updated CMS guidance (CMS EQuiP link)
• Updated WMT guidance and FAQ (WMT EQuiP link)

PQiP learners will receive an adjusted WMT reduction which should be applied. This now includes additional recognition of ‘protected learning time’ which encompasses co-working activity.

Full details are available on EQuiP and now includes a new PQiP route for experienced PSOs and also a part-time PQiP learner route.

Reductions will be applied centrally to PQiP 11. Local managers will be provided lists by regional Learning Managers to identify correct reductions for other learners.

This ensures that PQiP learners are supported in their learning journey and receive the appropriate workload weightings to account for the expected activity for their route and phase.

What should I do now?

PQiP learners and managers of PQiP learners should check the reductions applied to their WMT records to ensure the correct reduction is applied and updated accordingly.

PQiP learners should no longer use CMS to record co-working activity when their learner reductions are applied correctly

What is it?

The Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) provides a proxy measure of workload. It helps managers manage resources and demand in your region and ensure you and your team is resourced and supported as best as it can be.

What it isn’t

It offers many benefits, but cannot 100% reflect the reality of workload, nor can it reflect experience/capability differences between staff.

WMT is just one tool which can be utilised to support managing workload. Effective staffing isn’t just a matter of having enough staff, but the right people in the right place at the right time – that staff are suitably knowledgeable, experienced and equipped for the work asked of them. Understanding this is completely dependent on good quality conversations between managers and staff, and leadership at all levels of the organisation to problem solve, work flexibly and responsively and innovate.

It applies proxy points calculations based on caseloads. These points are formed by a list of tasks and timings

WMT calculates workload by assigning points for each service user. These points are dependent on the tier and the type and status of sentence (community, licence or custody). Each practitioner is assigned a total number of weekly points for which they are available for sentence management activity. This is changing.

If any reductions are applied to WMT (for SPOC roles/mentoring etc.) the reductions are also taken from the points available. Certain activity, such as PSRs and PAROMs attract additional workload points which are allocated to the practitioner when the report is completed on nDelius.

Workload is a calculation:

2220 minus 14% NAT minus reductions = time available for Sentence Management

Time available for Sentence Management minus total caseload points = workload %

WMT is a retrospective tool and is always 24 hours out of date, as data is pulled through from nDelius overnight. WMT does also not capture each individual task as it is completed – it is an aggregation of the activity required over a given period.

The data is simply a reflection of your recent workload based on current policies, national standards and what is being asked of you today.

This system has worked reasonably well over the years, with some minor revisions along the way. However, staff have said a key issue in WMT is that the points for each case did not directly relate to a list of core activities and timings.

You have asked us to improve accuracy, transparency, reliability and usefulness of the tool to support operational delivery.

We know this must change to increase your confidence and trust of the relevance of WMT in your work, hence this first tranche of changes.

• Further investigation into the timings for Tier C cases, particularly those at change tier 2 and 3, to ensure timings and points reflect the intensity of work required
• Further investigation to verify assumptions of responsive activity weightings applied
• Joining up with Activity Based Costings work on pre-release cases to identify changes required to timings and points, particularly for short-sentence team caseloads
• Identifying future policy guidance/legislation changes which may impact on requirements of practitioners, and reflect changes to mandatory activities and timings which underpin the WMT points to ensure WMT relevance and accuracy is maintained
• Reviewing the implementation impact of this first post-transition re-launch of WMT and understand further improvements which may offer benefits
• Defining and shaping a future vision of WMT which includes other operational delivery areas (e.g. Programmes, Unpaid Work and areas of specialist delivery such as Victims Liaison Unit and National Security Directorate)
• Hear from you on where things are going well and could be developed