Efforts to protect people from a repeat of a case where a convicted paedophile kidnapped a young girl have not made enough progress, a report has said.
The chief inspector of probation said Gwent public protection agencies did not have "robust" procedures to monitor sex offenders and violent criminals.
It follows a 2006 report criticising the way they dealt with Craig Sweeney.
Sweeney abducted and sexually assaulted a three-year-old while on early release after being jailed for another attack.
Sweeney, who was then aged 24 and living in Newport - which is covered by Gwent Probation - kidnapped the girl from the Rumney area of Cardiff just two days after the licence, on which he had been released for assaulting a child in 2003, expired.
He was caught only after police in Wiltshire chased his car.
He was jailed for life in June 2006, but there was an outcry when he was told he could seek parole after five years.
After the trial, the Gwent Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa) found a lack of communication between agencies could have provided police and probation workers with vital information about the risk Sweeney posed.
It also noted that "offenders such as Sweeney are by no means uncommon within the Mappa and criminal justice system" and made 20 recommendations for change.
"The good intentions have not yet led to sufficiently robust practice"
Chief inspector of probation Andrew Bridges said it was right that questions were asked - and answered - after Sweeney's "terrible" offence. He said his report aimed to assess the progress achieved since then, principally by Gwent Probation but also other agencies.
He found that the high standards in dealing with cases that the inspectors were looking for were not being met often enough.
'Positive spirit'
Mr Bridges said: "We found that there has undoubtedly been much well-intentioned activity by probation, police and others to improve those processes which had not previously been working to the best effect.
"There has been a commitment to protect the people of Gwent from those who pose a risk of harm.
"Regrettably, these intentions have not been matched by progress on the ground.
"Leaders and managers have mistakenly believed that improvements initiated at strategic level had been enacted in practice.
"Despite the positive spirit and commitment of the Mappa strategic management board, the good intentions have not yet led to sufficiently robust practice."
He recommended changes to improve communication and planning between probation services and other agencies to ensure effective management of offenders who posed a risk of harm.
'Disappointed'
He added that unless every Mappa case was managed well, the systems could not be considered to be truly effective.
He said an offender management inspection in July would find what progress had been made in improving the quality of risk-of-harm work by Gwent Probation.
The strategic management board that monitors the Mappa arrangements said inspection focussed on the efforts of one partner within Mappa, and did not report the progress being made by Gwent Mappa as a whole.
The board said: "While we are somewhat disappointed at the conclusions arrived at by the inspectors with regard to front line practice within the probation service, we welcome its acknowledgement of our joint commitment to improving public protection arrangements.
"We will carefully consider all of the report's findings and will adopt its recommendations positively in order to ensure continuous service improvement, thereby reducing the risk of those under our supervision causing harm in our communities."
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