Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many serious further offences were committed in each year between 2020 and 2023; and how many and what proportion of the perpetrators of those offences were (i) under community supervision, (ii) on a determinate prison sentence, (iii) on a life sentence and (iv) imprisoned for public protection.

The table below sets out the total number of convictions, where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence (SFO), which resulted subsequently in a conviction, for all cases notified to HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 January 2020 and 31 March 2022.

1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.

2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.

3. The Index sentence refers to the first qualifying index sentence, in cases where offenders are supervised on multiple sentences.

4. The data includes cases where the SFO was committed within 28 days of the end of the supervision period.

5. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.

7. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Figures are published based on the date of SFO notification (charge) received by HMPPS. The lag between the date of publication and the conviction figures is to allow time for most cases to complete the criminal justice process. Figures for 2022/23 will be published in October 2024.

Serious further offences are incredibly rare, with fewer than 0.5% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service going on to commit serious further offences, but each one is investigated fully so we can take action where necessary. We have also injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year into the Probation Service to deliver tougher supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer.