Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the number of probation officers with more than four years service that resigned from the probation service in 2023.

The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including leavers, and the latest publication covers data up to 30 September 2023. Therefore, information after 30 September is unpublished and cannot be released.

In the 12 months to 30 September 2023, there were 135 probation officers (band 4) who resigned from the probation service with more than four years of service. This includes staff who had a length of service of at least 4 years and 1 day.

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. The Probation Service leaving rate decreased in the 12 months to 30 September 2023 compared to the 12 months prior.

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.