Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the number of probation officers per grade that left the probation service in (a) 2023 and (b) 2022.

The number of leavers from HMPPS by grade is published every quarter in Table 8c of the “HM Prison and Probation Service workforce statistics” publication. The main publication can be accessed via this link: www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics.

The latest accompanying tables are here: (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6554ab3750475b000dc5b614/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-sep-2023.ods).

Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service. We have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year to deliver more robust supervision, recruit thousands more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.

We have accelerated recruitment of trainee Probation Officers (PQiPs) to increase staffing levels, particularly in Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, over 4,000 PQiPs joined the service between 2020/21 and 2022/23 which will increase Probation Officer staffing numbers.  We continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions alongside regional recruitment to help bolster the number of applications and improve time to hire for key operational roles.

The Probation Service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve a challenging recruitment and retention position.