PROBATION officers in Lancashire have been told to improve their work with sex offenders, drug abusers and ethnic minority women.

The recommendations have been made in a report on the Probation Service in the county by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation.

The report concluded that the service, covering one of the largest counties in the country, had among the lowest costs and was generally doing a good job.

However, it made recommendations for improvement in a number of areas, including:

Establishing programmes for sex offenders.

Training staff in the management of offenders abusing drugs.

Improving work with women offenders, particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Improving performance against national standards.

According to the report, judges and magistrates expressed "considerable satisfaction" with the work done by probation officers in the courts. Pre-sentence reports used in helping to determine sentences for offenders, were generally seen as being very useful.

The inspectors also praised the professionalism of the probation staff they observed first hand.

They added that judges and magistrates were confident that probation orders were well supervised and most were dealt with on a one-to-one basis.

Lancashire's Chief Probation Officer John Crawforth said: "The Inspectorate has confirmed the high levels of satisfaction expressed by judges and magistrates with the reports probation officers prepare for the courts.

"The report also illustrates that the service has a vital role to play in prisons, working alongside prison officer colleagues to tackle the causes of offending and to prepare prisoners for responsible, law-abiding lives on release"

He added: "The report inevitably, contains some constructive criticism".

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