Blog: NPM Conference 2025 highlights value of collective work and launches new business plan

Each year, the 21 organisations of the UK NPM meet to review progress towards our goal of preventing torture and ill treatment in places where people are deprived of their liberty, to share best practices, and to discuss how to address systemic human rights concerns collectively.

This year’s conference was held in Edinburgh, where attendees gathered under some unseasonal Scottish sunshine for two days of thoughtful discussion.

Business plan

Head of the UK NPM Sam Gluckstein opened the conference by presenting and concluding the impactful 2023-2025 Business Plan, and launching the new 2025-2026 Business Plan, which was agreed to be adopted by all NPM organisations.

Sam Gluckstein said “I’m delighted and proud that the UK NPM has achieved so much over the last two years. The conference presented an opportunity to reflect on this accomplishment – and launch an ambitious and bold series of projects for the next year ahead to continue to prevent torture and ill treatment in places of deprivation of liberty.”

Collaborative work

UK NPM Chair Sherry Ralph emphasised that “together we become a stronger voice”. This message of collaboration, whether across jurisdictions or NPM bodies, was a defining theme of the conference, echoed by the “Past, present and future of scrutiny” panel which included Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland Jacqui Durkin, Shaun Common HMI and Scottish Human Rights Commission Executive Director Jan Savage.

From the success of the Task and Finish Groups to the work of the Scotland and Northern Ireland Subgroups, the audience heard how shared effort is producing tangible outcomes. UK NPM Secretariat Officer for Scotland, Chelsea Keenan, spoke about the value of working across teams with diverse perspectives and how this can help identify system-wide issues and shine a light on the unintended consequences of certain policies. The conference was a valuable reminder of what can be achieved when we connect across bodies and borders.

Joined up, system-wide approach

The need to view detention in context and as part of a wider, often complex story was another key theme repeated throughout the conference. The Ministerial Panel, kindly attended by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs in Scotland, Angela Constance, and the Justice Minister for Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, offered a welcome opportunity to hear how the two governments are incorporating this holistic approach into their work. This was further developed in the Scotland Subgroup panel, where Chief Inspector for Prisons in Scotland Sarah Snell reflected on recent deaths in custody. This intervention served as a reminder that such deaths are not inevitable, and a call for a deeper inquiry into the structural and systemic factors that may be contributing to them.

The “Audience of Scrutiny Reports” panel echoed this sentiment, calling for more proactive and preventive measures, and emphasising the importance of amplifying the voices of those deprived of their liberty. Our keynote speaker, Dr Lucy Wilmott, also spoke to the conditions of detention facilities and urged “bravery” in politics when it comes to considering rehabilitative over custodial options.

Impactful recommendations

One of the more practically focussed discussions centred on recommendations: how we write them and how we monitor their implementation. First explored in the “Past, present and future of scrutiny” panel, this was a recurring theme throughout the two days, coming up in the “Audience of Scrutiny Reports” panel, as well as the closing session, and even in informal conversations. There was a strong shared interest in the new Recommendations Database, and how this could help track progress of recommendations, identify recurring issues across settings, and support organisations in crafting clearer, more actionable recommendations.

Thanks for your participation!

We hope all attendees have been inspired by one another. For our part, the NPM Central Team is working hard to follow through on key issues raised at the conference, and making plans for the next annual conference to continue building on what was created this year.

We would like to thank everyone who attended the conference for their contributions and feedback. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Here are a few photos of the event…