People using services

The vast majority of organisations reported that the level, complexity, and urgency of their service users’ need had all increased. Four-in-five (80%) said their level of need had increased (39% said significantly), four-in-five (80%) that the complexity of need had increased (46% said significantly), and 71% said the urgency of need had increased (including 34% who said significantly). No organisations said the level, complexity or urgency of need had decreased in 2022/23, emphasising the increasing demand on voluntary organisations in the criminal justice sector.

Continuing the trend seen for the previous six surveys, respondents reported an increase in complexity and urgency of need. Moreover, since its introduction in 2021, respondents have continued to report an increase in the level of service user need. However, this year, no organisations reported a decrease in need across any of these three domains.

In the focus groups, organisations said these survey findings about service user need reflected their own experiences, with all the participants saying they had seen need increase across these domains over the last year.

‘It is going through the roof for complexities, going through the roof.’
- Small organisation

‘Where we would have supported somebody three or four years ago with mental health issues that could be dealt with from our point of view, they can’t now, they need support from the NHS. It’s above what we can offer.’
- Large organisation

The primary factors behind this increase in service user need were the cost-of-living crisis, the impact of the pandemic, and the longer-term trend towards reductions in public services. Participants felt these had resulted in more acute issues, with fewer ways for people to access support, resulting in a greater clustering of problems.

'Everything that’s going on around people, cost of living, the ramifications of Covid isolation, potentially poor health because of the fact that they are not eating properly because they haven’t got enough money to pay for the heating or for the food.’
- Large organisation

‘The other thing we’re finding is that prison regimes are so limited at the moment and support from officers and education staff is so limited because of smaller numbers that we are seeing an increase in interest in our services.’
- Large organisation

While focus group participants felt there was specialist support for specific cohorts, it was not available at the necessary scale. An example given was of inconsistent geographic availability of women’s centres, creating a ‘postcode lottery’ of provision. Participants also felt some organisations did not have capacity to deliver on a larger scale.

‘We know that there’s good services out there that have bespoke programmes for racially minoritised people, we also know that they need delivering. The work that they are delivering is fantastic, but to quite a small number of people because they just can’t compete for some of those bigger contracts.’
- Large organisation

To meet changing need, organisations reported working more flexibly with clients (60%), increasing partnership working with other voluntary organisations (58%), sourcing more funding (53%), and improving staff skills through training (52%).

Most respondents this year reporting continuing to invest in their workforce through training. Only small proportions of respondents indicated they would be narrowing client criteria (6%), closing services (5%), or reducing service levels (3%). More about organisation’s responses regarding funding can be found the Funding and financial Sustainability’ section.

However, most organisations also said their staff were taking on larger caseloads to respond to the increase in service user need, continuing another trend seen over several years. In our 2021 State of the Sector survey, 34% of respondents said staff were taking on larger caseloads, and this was broadly in line with the figure seen pre-pandemic. In 2022, 46% of organisations said staff were taking on larger caseloads, and this has reached 53% in our most recent survey.

The combination of increased service user need, and a sustained reporting of rising staff caseloads raises serious concerns for the quality of services organisations can deliver, the sustainability of maintaining those caseloads for both staff and service users, and staff welfare and retention. As the survey tends towards larger organisations, who are likely to be better placed to absorb some increases in staff caseloads, it also raises concerns about potential impacts on the smaller, often more specialist, organisations in the sector.