Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the proportion of services commissioned under the dynamic framework of the new planned probation model which will be provided by voluntary sector organisations.

All probation services to be commissioned under the Dynamic Framework will be competed and awarded to the preferred bidder based on their price and quality scores. These will be awarded under fair and open competition and will not be directly awarded to framework members. We have not made any commitments as to what proportion of services will be provided by the voluntary sector. However, we have sought to design the Dynamic Framework in such a way as to reduce barriers to entry for voluntary sector organisations in order to encourage involvement of the sector in future delivery where possible.