Below is a brief description in the day of the life of a Case Administrator:
The day usually starts 8.30 a.m. unless you’re on evening reception then you start at approximately 11.00 a.m. The first job on arriving at the office is to make coffee to help kick start the day. Then you sort through the day’s mail for the cluster and this can take some time depending on the volume of mail. All information is entered onto CRAMS (this is the client database which NWPA use) and then distributes it to the relevant Offender Manager. This probably is the only job that is performed on a daily basis as each day is different which makes the job so interesting. The usual cluster consists of a CA and four Offender Managers and one Probation Service Officer.
Normal duties carried out over the week vary. When Offender Managers are allocated a Standard Delivery Report you carry all the information across from CRAMS to OASYS (OASYS is a risk assessment database). OASYS aids the Offender Manager to prepare the necessary report for the Court hearing. When the defendant has been to Court, if found guilty and placed on a Community Order, you then arrange the appointments for the next sixteen weeks and put these into the Offender Managers electronic diary. These appointments are then passed on to the staff carrying out Induction (Induction is the first appointment which informs the client of what is expected whilst on a Community Order).
Carrying on from this you then make up a case file, commence the Community Order on CRAMS and give the case file to the Offender Manager. You can also put reminders into the electronic dairy for when supervision plans are due. If the defendant gets a prison sentence then you have to check which prison they have gone to, obtain the prisoner number, release date and make the file up for the Offender Manager. You would then also have to make sure that the Prison has authority to take ownership of the OASYS assessments. Also when a Community Order or Licence has expired you then close down the file and enter details onto CRAMS. We also have a points system which calculates each Offender Managers caseload. This is made up of four different sheets in excel and relates to a different stage in a Community Order or Licence. You have to ensure that this is kept up to date and passed to the Senior Practitioner on a monthly basis. Also on a monthly basis a file inspection takes place to ensure National Standards are being met. The CA part fills in the National Standards form, print out the client contact log and OASYS assessments and then pass on to the Business Administrator.
We also run programmes in the evening on three nights a week and there is a rota basis for this shared between all the Cluster Administrators. When you are on evening reception you arrive in work at approximately 11.00 a.m. and until 5 p.m. carry out normal duties. At 5.00 p.m. you then cover reception and check in the clients who are attending the group, give out correct fares and answer the switchboard. You also have to take messages from the clients who cannot attend and pass on the information to the relevant course tutors. If there is time you also carry out some of your normal duties as outlined above. You make sure parts of the building are secure as you are not the last to leave. You normally finish evening reception at approximately 8.15 pm.
