Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what funding is being provided to the probation service to help ensure that those services can be stabilised while the Unified Model is being implemented.

The unification of the Probation Service has been supported by an additional £155m of funding this year (2021-22) and last year (2020-21), which represents a 17% uplift on 2019-20. This additional resource will in itself support the stabilisation and improvement of how probation services are delivered, for example by increasing the number of probation officers and funding the 110 contracts awarded for Commissioned Rehabilitation Services.

In addition, a further £30m in funding has been made available for 2021-22, to assist in meeting transition costs that arise from bringing together previous probation providers into one unified Probation Service.