General Information about Casenotes

Introduction

Casenotes provide a record of the involvement CPPS has with an offender including the management of an offender according to legal requirements.

The reason for casenotes

A casenote:

• provides a detailed account of all involvement with an offender
• details the rationale for decisions
• documents escalation of risk
• documents follow-up action
• provides evidence of manual requirements being met
• provides information for audit and incident management.

Where are casenotes recorded/accessed

Casenotes on the management of all sentences/orders are recorded in IOMS in the ’Notes’ heading.

Casenotes with key alerts or warnings about an offender should be entered under the ‘alerts’ casenote title and accessed through the filter by any staff member working with an offender prior to making contact.

Note: Some screens in IOMS will create a casenote automatically. See the Writing Casenotes topic.

Why a casenote should be created

A casenote should be created to record:

• details around processes and decisions in relation to the offender
• rationale for decisions
•  information about compliance with a sentence/order
• management of needs and responsitivity
• management of reintegration and rehabilitation processes
• provision of information
• the management of risk and safety concerns for the community, offender and CPPS.     

Casenotes should be written as soon as the offender has been seen or an event has occurred. Notes can be handwritten and given to the administration officer to enter.

Note: Casenotes should not be used by staff members to communicate with each other about the management of an offender or for detailing any response to a staff member’s performance.  This type of communication should be done through forums outside of IOMS. 

When a casenote should be created

Some examples of when a casenote should be created are:

• when following contact with an offender (if not auto-populated from another screen)
• where anything of significance happens or is reported.

Timeliness of casenotes

Casenotes must be kept up to date, with information recorded as close to the time of the contact/event as possible.  Timely casenotes enable:

• other staff to effectively manage the sentence/order 
•  effective management of offenders by providing a complete history of the offenders management by CPPS
• appropriate enforcement action by providing timely and sufficient evidence.

Legislative framework

Casenotes document processes and events that are required under legislation for both the offender and CPPS.  These include:

• Corrections Act requirements for the duties of CPPS
• Sentencing Act/Parole Act requirements for sentence compliance
• Privacy Act requirements for the recording and storing of information
• Official Information Act requirements for providing specific information.

Casenotes are not privileged information and are only protected under the Official Information Act and Privacy Act.