The development of more structured assessment tools were also contributed to by the identification of a number of significant dynamic factors to be considered which can change throughout an individual’s life. Dynamic factors may include employment status, financial income, emotional wellbeing, substance misuse and attitudes. This began the development of third generation assessment tools which combined both static and dynamic risk factors. Within the UK a variety of tools are used such as the Level of Service Inventory – Revised (LSI-R), Assessment case Management and Evaluation (ACE) and the Offender Assessment System (OASys). The ACE tool is the method of assessment which has been used by PBNI since 2000. ACE was designed by Colin Roberts in a partnership between Warwickshire Probation trust and the Centre for Criminological Research at Oxford University (Best 2007). It features a dual scoring system which identifies and scores across 3 domains, personal, social and offending. The dual scores are allocated for personal problems and offending related issues and range from 0-3. A score of 30 or above indicates a high likelihood of reoffending within two years. This score in combination with professional judgement will contribute to the completion of the Significant Risk of Serious Harm filter (SROSH). The filter determines if a Risk Assessment Inventory (RA1) should be completed. PBNI’s criteria for meeting the threshold to be considered as a Significant Risk of Serious Harm is “There is a high likelihood that the offender will commit a further offence, causing serious harm.”(Significant Risk Of Serious Harm To Others Procedures May 2017:5). Serious Harm is considered to be ‘death or serious personal injury, whether physical or psychological’ within Article 3(1) of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 (ibid:25, Lamont & Glenn 2015:49). The Criminal Justice Act (NI) 1996 (www.legislation.co.uk) represented a shift in the function of PBNI from assisting, advising and befriending to that of Public Protection. This development was consolidated by the Criminal Justice Order 2008 (www.legislation.co.uk). PBNI’s purpose is designated as ‘changing lives for safer communities’ (REF PBNI) which meshes the needs of the offender with public protection. A criticism of this shift to consider risk as a higher priority than before is that it begins to focus on the potential harm the client may pose rather than focusing on the client’s needs and strengths that can be built on. Simplified, the needs of the client can be superseded by the duty to protect the public.>