Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much of the funding allocated by his Department for enhanced redundancy schemes following the privatisation of probation services was allocated to each company receiving such funding.

As part of the arrangements for the transfer of services from probation trusts to Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC’s), an enhanced Voluntary Redundancy Scheme was put in place, in line with the terms of the National Agreement on Staff Transfer and Protections agreed with the probation Trade Unions, and funded by monies from the Modernisation Fund to support a sustainable reduction in resource requirements. An initial wave of redundancies was made in advance of the letting of the contracts for the CRCs, and the remaining monies were transferred to the CRCs on a pro rata basis to be used for the same purpose. While we have no plans to reclaim any monies allocated to CRCs from the Modernisation Fund, we have robust contract management arrangements in place to ensure that they are used for the purposes for which they were provided. Contract management teams are in place in each Contract Package Area to oversee each CRC operation.