Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probation staff vacancies there are in each Probation Delivery Unit in Wales.

Staff vacancies as of May 2023 can be found on the attached table, broken down by grade and PDU.

Nationally, we are now investing an extra £155 million a year into the Probation Service compared to 2019 and recruiting record numbers of staff to deliver tougher supervision and keep the public safe. This includes the recruitment of an extra 4,039 trainee probation officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23.

When comparing staff in post to Target Staffing across all grades there are currently no vacancies in Wales. However, this is because the region currently has a large number of Trainee Probation Officers (199.5 FTE) who only spend part of their time carrying out casework at a Band 3 Probation Services Officer level. As a result, there are vacancies when looking at an individual grade level. These trainees have been recruited to fill Probation Officer vacancies but do not contribute towards Probation Officer casework until the point at which they qualify and carry out work at a Band 3 Probation Services Officer level.

The table presented only shows grades which currently have vacancies and does not take into account Trainee Probation Officer contribution towards ‘Band 3 - Probation Services Officer’ targets.