Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly statistics, Probation Officer Recruitment Annex, September 2021, published on 18 November 2021, what assessment he has made of the impact on (a) probation officer workloads, (b) public protection and (c) rehabilitation of the probation officer vacancy rates in (i) Kent, Surrey and Sussex, (ii) South West, (iii) London, (iv) East Midlands and (v) other probation service regions.

There is not a process by which formal assessment is made of the published data that is referenced, rather the issues highlighted are monitored on an ongoing basis through operational management and plans around recruitment and retention.

The workload of Probation Officers is monitored through the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) which considers the workloads of case holding Probation Practitioners. This reflects the current levels of staffing on an ongoing basis. The output of this is considered at both the operational and strategic level to support decision making. This tool prioritises public protection in how it operates affording the most time to cases with high levels of risk and need.

In response to known pressures in staffing across the country and in the identified areas, in 2020/21, we recruited a record 1,007 trainee probation officers. We are further increasing our recruitment to unprecedented levels, with a target 1,500 trainee Probation Officers being recruited this financial year (2021/2022).