Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many offenders have failed to keep appointments with probation officers employed by MTC Novo.

The table below displays the number of offenders managed by an MTC Novo Provider (London Community Rehabilitation Company and Thames Valley Community Rehabilitation Company) with an absence recorded on nDelius (the national case management system for Probation) during the period of 1 April 2017 to 30 June 2017. This data is not limited to contact with Probation Officers and includes all categories of enforceable contacts, including Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and other interventions.

Absences are categorised as Acceptable or Unacceptable. Acceptable absences include contacts that have been cancelled for administrative reasons (for example, 15 days of Unpaid Work, which is typical for a 100 hours order, originally booked to be worked on a Thursday but later changed to a Wednesday to reflect childcare arrangements for an offender would count as 15 Acceptable Absences), as well as circumstances where an offender has provided good reasons for their failure to attend (for example, a letter from a GP to prove ill health).

Our policy is clear that offenders who fail to comply more than once with their order (without an acceptable explanation), should be subject to breach proceedings. We enforce this requirement robustly with all providers of Probation services.