Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to encourage people to enter careers in the probation services.

The Probation Service has accelerated the recruitment of trainee Probation Officers over the last two years, recruiting 1007 trainees in 2020/21 and 1518 trainees in 2021/22. We have committed to recruiting a further 1500 trainee probation officers in the 2022/23 financial year.

To increase engagement, and reduce attrition, we are launching an engagement tool to target candidates at key stages of the Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP) recruitment process.

We have increased local outreach to improve awareness of Probation and the roles available, as well as refreshing our marketing and website to ensure we are attracting sufficient applications. We are committed to widening our routes to achieve probation qualifications by developing pathways for existing staff, as well as creating routes for those without a graduate degree.

We have centralised recruitment in six priority regions to streamline and improve the process and speed up the time it takes to hire new staff.

We anticipate the recently agreed three-year pay deal for the Probation Service will improve retention prospects of experienced staff, and provide – particularly those at the top of their pay bands and therefore less likely to have seen increases to pay over the past years – a guaranteed increase to their salaries each year of the pay deal. We also anticipate that increases to the starting salary for all roles will have a positive impact on the attractiveness of the service to potential and new staff.

The Ministry of Justice is committed to offering apprenticeship programmes to new and existing staff at all grades. The apprenticeships are currently offered in a broad range of areas including Operational Delivery and Business Administration. The apprenticeships are also available to probation staff.