West Mercia Probation Trust is one of the three agencies that make up the ‘Responsible Authority for Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements’ in the West Mercia area.  This responsibility is shared with West Mercia Police and the Prison Service.

Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) exist to deal with the risks that are presented by some offenders who are thought likely to cause serious harm.  They are few in number.  The formal arrangements ensure consistency in sharing information

Why have these arrangements?
From enquires about what went wrong following serious and notorious crimes, certain things seem to arise regularly: agencies do not communicate with each other enough, or when they do it is often not consistent or effective.  There is a failure to use expertise and knowledge from other agencies that could be crucial.  At worst this amounts to a collective failure to take an overview and a failure to protect victims.

What sorts of things can be done to safeguard victims?
There are a range of things that can be done to reduce the risks to the public as a whole or to named victims or groups of victims, for example:-

• Arrange licence conditions to meet offender and victim needs
• Extra supervision imposing close monitoring and allowing quick interventions if warning signs noted
• Surveillance to gather more information
• Obtain specialist help
• Enable early breach and recall to prison, where necessary
• Plan applications under the Sex Offenders Act 2003 to prohibit certain activities that some sex offenders use when preparing to offend
• Ensure sharing of information across geographical boundaries

How do MAPPA work?
Violent and sexual offenders are supervised by police, probation, youth offending teams and mental health services.  These organisations can refer offenders for consideration by a multi-agency meeting.  The task of these meetings is to share information, assess the risk(s) the offender represents, and plan safeguards to protect the public.  Every case has built-in timescales for the risk management plan, individual accountability and a mechanism for checking progress.

Three MAPPA levels

Level 1 – agencies assess and manage the risks that people they work with represent to the public.

Level 2 – cases where there is a high risk of reoffending and causing serious harm* that cannot effectively be assessed and/or managed by one agency alone are brought to where all processes and recording follow a formal pattern.  Agencies organise and manage level two meetings when they deem it to be necessary.  The key contact can assist with this.

Level 3 – The Multi Agency Public Protection Panel (MAPPP) use the same formal processes but deals with the most risk cases, and involves regular monthly meetings from all agencies involved. 

(*Serious harm
That which is 'life threatening and/or traumatic and from which recovery, whether physical or psychological, can be expected to be difficult or impossible' - Offender) Assessment System (OASys) definition used by MAPPA Responsible Authorities.

Download MAPPA Report 2006/07 (PDF - 703k)

For more information about Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) please contact Pete Clark, Email:  pete.clark@west-mercia.probation.gsi.gov.uk