CEP General Assembly: an overview

Board
A new Board has been elected. The composition of the present Board is:

The Leaving Board members John Scott, David O’Donovan, Lenka Ourenícková and Jaime Martín Barbaran have been offered an honorary membership.

Business Case for Growth
The General Assembly considered a strategic plan for the future development of the CEP, entitled “A Business Case for Growth”.

The plan was designed and presented by Sjef van Gennip, the Director General of the Dutch probation organization Reclassering Nederland. He urged that as probation in Europe is changing quickly, the CEP should act upon in order to fulfill its role as the European Organisation for Probation. Therefore it needs to speed up its professionalisation and realise a better-developed exchange of information between members.

The importance of informing probation practitioners and communicating best practices to them, as well as the need for the CEP to develop its basic values were again emphasised while discussing this item. The CEP should aim to be the (non-political) probation organisation that spreads the word throughout Europe that probation works.

The large majority of the General Assembly agreed to “A Business Case for Growth” and empowered the incoming Board to implement and report on the means required to achieve this plan.

Budget for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010
A budget proposal and a funding structure for the period 2008-2010, which would make this growth possible, have been adopted. For this new funding structure, the Statute had to be changed, which also has been adopted.

Future activities

• It was considered to be very important that CEP should develop a base of values, a collective vision and a deontology of the probation work. A working group will be installed to work on this.
• The CEP’s collective vision on probation should be used in discussions on the European level. It would avoid the suggestion of a political involvement. It was suggested that CEP give feed back to its members about meetings with European Organisations. The CEP should be a coordinator with the European Union in developing good practice and should disseminate, at all levels, the key message that probation works.
• The CEP should consider approaching the European Social Fund to see whether financial support could be obtained for CEP events related to inclusion, poverty and work with minority groups.
• Universities should be approached to set up knowledge centres. A register of probation experts was also suggested.
• The German-speaking representatives would appreciate an increase of CEP events in the German language.

As the number of activities and important issues were substantial, it was suggested that the action points be scheduled in a three year plan.

Development of the CEP Brand
It was decided that the CEP will present and promote itself with the initials “CEP” and the strap line “The European Organisation for Probation”. The full name Conférence Permanente Européenne de la Probation will be used for formal purposes only. The logo will be redesigned.

Memberships
The following organisations had been provisionally accepted as a full CEP member since the last GA:

• The Crime Prevention Fund- IGA (Bulgaria)
• The Spanish Penitentiary Administration
• Liechtenstein Bewärungshilfe
• Ministry of Justice of Lithuania
• Ministry of Justice of Poland
• The Juveniles and Probation Service of the Dutch Salvation Army
• The Charity Prisoners Abroad (Great Britain)

Four associate memberships had been accepted:

• The Plymouth University, School of Law & Social Science (Great Britain)
• The Rhodes Foundation (Great Britain)
• The Swansea University (Great Britain)
• Mr. Ioan Durnescu (Romania) had been accepted as an individual member.

Affiliation Agreements
An affiliation agreement has been signed with NAPE.

Audit Financial Report on the years 2004-2006
The financial accounts for 2004, 2005 and 2006 were approved unanimously.

10th General Assembly
The Central Administration in Madrid and the autonomous government in Catalonia have offered to be joint hosts for the next General Assembly in 2010. It would be decided at a later date whether the General Assembly would be hosted in Madrid or in Barcelona.