National Preventive Mechanism Eleventh Annual Report 2019–20 During the year, HMIPS recruited someone to their team who had lived experience of detention, to help support its inspections. In 2019–20, the Independent Custody Visiting Association (ICVA) prepared Independent Custody Visitors (ICVs) for amendments to the PACE Code of Practice, which made changes to the menstrual care that should be offered to women and girls in custody. In the previous year, ICVA led a successful campaign to change the Code of Practice to ensure women were offered menstrual care products and that their privacy would be respected while in police custody. ICVA also planned to launch its second quality assurance framework for visiting schemes across England and Wales during the year. The new framework includes reference to OPCAT and international human rights standards for monitoring police custody. The launch of the framework has been delayed due to COVID-19. In addition, ICVA piloted a new monitoring methodology. The new methodology aims to reinforce the preventive focus of ICVA's work by setting out an approach for greater scrutiny of detainees’ custody records. An external evaluation of the pilot is scheduled to be published in summer 2020. 68 Independent Custody Visitors Scotland worked with Police Scotland on new training materials on the NPM and OPCAT for staff. ICVS report that there were many changes to the custody estate in Scotland during the reporting year. As a result, ICVS has worked with ICVs on how to monitor the new Criminal Justice Hubs set up by Police Scotland. The ICVS team has developed a new process for monitoring more vulnerable detainees in these hubs. ICVs will also focus more on the general maintenance of the new hubs to identify and report on areas in need of improvement. Throughout 2019–20, the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) for England and Wales developed a new national monitoring framework. This monitoring framework also includes guidance on how Boards can draft their annual reports to enable consistency in reporting on the conditions in places of detention: this will ensure thematic issues can be easily identified. The IMB also delivered training courses for over 300 of their members. This training had a specific focus on monitoring separation within the immigration estate. In addition, the IMB have reviewed their online monitoring guidance for members to improve remote monitoring methods. Significantly, in 2019–20, new Monitoring Boards were set up in Gatwick, Stansted and Luton short-term holding facilities. The IMB also held discussions with the Ministry of Defence regarding the monitoring of military detention facilities in the UK.

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