Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of whether the National Probation Service has adequate resources to undertake work effectively in the London Division.

As I said in my previous response to PQ 257583, the National Probation Service (NPS) is currently recruiting more staff into the organisation. We have seen an increase in both the volume and diversity of probation officer applicants following a change in the recruitment process and eligibility criteria. A national campaign to recruit probation officers took place recently and successful candidates will start in July 2019.

NPS London have prioritised the recruitment of Probation Officers to fill all current and projected vacancies and have had 211 new staff joining over the past year. As of March 2019, approximately 1,325 full time equivalent staff are employed; a net increase of 57 from March 2018. They have also introduced new victim-specific training for staff.

NPS London are closely monitoring the caseload capacity for staff and would take proportionate and appropriate action to manage workloads across the division.