Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probation officers in the probation delivery units in the areas covering Greater London left the probation service in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.

The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including number of leavers by group by structure/division. The latest publication covers data for up to the period 30 September 2023.

Data for the number of probation officers who left the London Probation Service by probation delivery unit, in the period 1st January 2022 to 31st December 2022 and the period 1st January 2023 to 30th September 2023 is provided in table 1 and table 2 below.

Table 1: Probation officers who left the London Probation Service by probation delivery unit, in the period 1st January 2022 - 31st December 2022

(headcount)

Table 2: Probation officers who left the London Probation Service by probation delivery unit, in the period 1st January 2023 - 30th September 2023 ^(p)

(headcount)

The leaving rate for probation officers in the London Probation Service was 12.4% in the 12 months to 30 September 2023 – a fall from the year prior.

Both recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service. 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. There were 2,185 staff, equivalent to 2,164 FTE, as at 30 September 2023 undertaking the PQiP training, which we anticipate will start to directly impact on the reduction of caseloads as they qualify.

Notes to table 1 and table 2:

1. Movements due to machinery of Government changes or due to staff transferring to or from the private sector as a result of changes in the management of establishments are not included in these tables.
2. Leaver numbers are provisional, pending the end of year re-run of data.
3. As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However, the database itself is dynamic and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate.
4. Leaving includes staff who have left the employment of HMPPS altogether and does not include internal transfers within the department. Reasons for leaving include, resignation, retirement, dismissals, redundancies, transfers to other government departments and even death. Figures for staff leaving by their different reasons for leaving are published as part of the HMPPS workforce bulletin.

(p) Figures relating to current financial year are provisional and may be subject to change in future.