Oral Answers to Questions

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I take greater comfort from the fact that 90% of probation officers chose not to respond to their union’s survey and are getting on with the job, the excellent work they do on a day-by-day basis, and their good work to help the new systems bed in.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I find the Secretary of State’s complacency extremely worrying. Two hundred probation officers turned up last week to lobby their MPs, all of them consistently reporting that the system is not working. The Secretary of State refused to undertake pilot schemes in advance of these reforms, but he did enact what he described as assessments called test gates. There have been three of those. The fourth was meant to start on 1 June but I believe it has not started yet. Will he publish all the information from the test gates, so that we can see what they have reported regarding the implementation of the reforms?

[Chris Grayling]

These reforms are going exactly according to plan and no test gate was due to start in June. We are on time and the teams on the ground are making good progress. I and my colleagues have visited the trust’s successor organisations, and members of my team are going out to hear what is happening on the ground. This is a nine-month process of delivering change in the public sector, before we reach the point of a change of ownership. We are trying to ensure that the new system is bedded in well, and so far I am happy with the progress being made. There is, of course, still work to be done, but good progress is being made.