Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent on probation services in (a) Greater Manchester (b) Oldham for each year from 2015 to date.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The data below shows the annual spend for Probation services in the Greater Manchester Probation Region and Oldham since 2021.
| 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
| £m | £m | £m | £m |
Greater Manchester Probation Service | 44.5 | 58.8 | 66.7 | 72.1 |
| 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
| £m | £m | £m | £m |
Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) Oldham | 1.8 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 2.7 |
To note:
Data prior to July 2021 is unable to be reported on, due to the structure of probation regions following Transforming Rehabilitation in 2014 where a National Probation Service (NPS) for high-risk work, and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) for low/medium risk were created.
Under the National Probation Service, Greater Manchester was part of a wider area called North West Division.
The unification of CRCs and the National Probation Service (NPS) in England and Wales took place on 26 June 2021, creating The Probation Service and marked a significant restructuring of the probation system.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent on community payback services in (a) Greater Manchester (b) Oldham for each year from 2015 to date.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The data below shows the annual spend for Community Payback services in the Greater Manchester Probation Region since 2021.
| 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
| £m | £m | £m | £m |
Greater Manchester Unpaid Work | 1.40 | 3.93 | 4.70 | 4.46 |
To note:
Data cannot be broken down below regional level.
Data prior to July 2021 is unable to be reported on, due to probation regions being under the management of Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). The unification of CRCs and the National Probation Service (NPS) in England and Wales took place on 26 June 2021, marking a significant restructuring of the probation system.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the number of community service hours offenders have completed in the West Midlands in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Between July 2021 and December 2024, a total of 1,272,250 hours of unpaid work were worked in the West Midlands.
Year | Unpaid work hours worked |
July to December 2021 | 143,360 |
January to December 2022 | 352,660 |
January to December 2023 | 371,915 |
January to December 2024 | 404,315 |
Data from April 2022 to December 2024 sourced from the latest published statistics on unpaid work. A link can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/biannual-unpaid-work-management-information.
Data from July 2021 to March 2022 sourced from nDelius on 22/07/2025. While these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.
Data from the biannual Unpaid Work publication are rounded to the nearest five hours worked for data suppression purposes. To be consistent with the publication, the hours worked between July 2021 and March 2022 have also been rounded to the nearest five.
The next publication is due in Autumn 2025.
Data prior to July 2021 is unable to be reported on, due to difficulty in aligning regions pre and post-unification. The unification of Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service in England and Wales took place on 26 June 2021, marking a significant restructuring of the probation system.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents of assault on unpaid work staff have been reported in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Community Rehabilitation Companies previously held responsibility for unpaid work, until being unified back into the National Probation Service on 26 June 2021. HM Prisons and Probation Service does not hold incident reporting information prior to this date. The data below is taken from the accident reporting platform for the financial years 2021-2025.
It is important to us that all our staff on the frontline are safe and we will do whatever it takes to protect our hardworking staff. Detailed risk assessments are carried out and probation staff are trained at handling incidents and de-escalation. Anyone who assaults a member of staff could have criminal charges brought against them.
Date Range | Physical Assault | Non-Physical Assault |
1/6/21 – 31/3/22 | 21 | 102 |
1/4/22 – 31/3/23 | 22 | 303 |
1/4/23 – 31/3/24 | 36 | 318 |
1/4/24 – 31/3/25 | 30 | 366 |
1/4/25 – 24/4/25 | 0 | 22 |
Note: Physical Assaults includes any incident where contact is made. Non-Physical Assaults includes verbal or written abuse and intimidating behaviour.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many unpaid work (a) staff and (b) supervisors have been employed in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
The number of unpaid work (a) staff and (b) supervisors that have been employed in each of the last 10 financial years can be seen in the below table:
Table 1 - Number of unpaid work staff in post on 31 March 2022 to 2024 and 31 December 2024 (Full Time Equivalent)
Unpaid Work | 31-Mar-22 | 31-Mar-23 | 31-Mar-24 | 31-Dec-24 |
Unpaid Work: Non-supervisors | 237 | 330 | 365 | 374 |
Unpaid Work: Community Payback Supervisors | 435 | 603 | 623 | 623 |
Unpaid Work: Total staff | 671 | 933 | 989 | 997 |
Information for unpaid work staff is not available prior to June 2021 due to due to the Community Rehabilitation Companies not being part of HMPPS.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Lichfield (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the average caseload of probation officers in England and Wales was in each year of the last decade.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The average caseload of Probation Officers has been presented from the period July 2021 to February 2025. This is because the Probation Service unified in June 2021, with some Probation Officers and caseload held by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) prior to this point. The Probation Service does not have access to data for caseload held by CRCs .
Table One: Probation Officer average annual caseload across England and Wales
Period | Annual average caseload per Probation Officer |
July 21 – June 22 | 36.0 |
July 22 – June 23 | 37.1 |
July 23 – June 24 | 35.2 |
July 24 - Feb 25* | 34.2 |
*Data presented based on an eight-month period rather than a full year.
Notes:
• The data within the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) are manually entered by Senior Probation Officers (SPOs) for the purposes of ensuring that contracted hours and adjustments are accurate. These data are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which data are submitted.
• Annual average caseload per Probation Officer has been calculated by taking the average caseload on the last day of each month in that period.
• Even if staff do not have contracted hours, they can still have cases allocated to them by SPOs.
• There may be cases where staff who have left the Probation Service still appear to hold caseload on the WMT and so the data should be treated with caution. Furthermore, some staff on long-term absences (e.g. career breaks / long-term sickness) may still have a caseload allocated to them.
• Data have not been presented for the period prior to June 2021, the point at which unification of the Probation Service took place. Prior to June 2021, some Probation Officers and caseload were held by CRCs, data for which is not included in the WMT. It would not be consistent to present a time series of caseload per Probation Officer before and after unification.
Asked by: Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat - South Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2024 to Question 3550 on Probation, what access does the unified Probation Service have to information that was previously held by the Community Rehabilitation Companies; and whether current probation officers can access all relevant information about cases that were held by the CRCs.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Probation Service practitioners have a complete record of all cases that were managed by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). National Delius and Offender Assessment System (OASys) records were preserved as the primary case record, as was the position before, during and after the structural changes to probation made by the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms.
In addition to this, the Probation Reform Programme carried out extensive work to ensure that any information from local CRC recording systems was appropriately migrated at the point of reunification.
Asked by: Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat - South Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average caseload of probation officers in England and Wales was in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
The average caseload of Probation Officers has been calculated using data from the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) and has been presented for the period July 2021 to June 2024. Data has been restricted to this period because the Probation Service unified in June 2021, with some Probation Officers and their caseload held by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) prior to this point. The Probation Service does not have access to data for caseload held by CRCs and so it would not be consistent to present a time series prior to June 2021.
Table One: Probation Officer average annual caseload across England and Wales
Period | Annual average caseload per Probation Officer |
July 21 – June 22 | 36.0 |
July 22 – June 23 | 37.1 |
July 23 – June 24 | 35.2 |
Notes
The data within the WMT are manually entered by Senior Probation Officers (SPOs) for those in their line management chain. These data are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which data are entered.
Annual average caseload per Probation Officer has been calculated by taking the average caseload on the last day of each month in that period (an average across the 12 months).
We are aware of data quality concerns regarding some of the data with some instances of cases being allocated to those who are not delivering caseload. There may be cases where staff who have left the Probation Service still appear to hold caseload on the WMT. Some staff on long-term absences (e.g. career breaks / long-term sickness) may still have a caseload allocated to them. There are also instances where those with no contracted hours are allocated cases without having an allocated capacity. Average caseload does not take into account the level of risk or complexity of cases, and this will have a large effect on the workload of Probation Officers.
Data have not been presented for the period prior to June 2021, the point at which unification of the Probation Service took place. Prior to June 2021, some Probation Officers and caseload were held by CRCs, data for which is not included in the WMT. It would not be consistent to present a time series of caseload per Probation Officer before and after unification.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of new probation officers left the service within a year of joining in each year since 2014.
Answered by Edward Argar
A considerable majority of Probation Officers first join the Probation Service as Trainee Probation Officers. During their time as a trainee, they will spend around 15-21 months training before potentially taking up a post as a Band 4 Probation Officer. As a result of this trainee pipeline, there will only be new Probation Officers with less than one year in the Probation Service if they joined the service as a qualified Probation Officer and then left within 12 months.
Retention of Probation staff is a priority for the service. A national standardised approach to exit interviews has been implemented to better understand the key drivers of attrition and feedback from these interviews helps shape and determine retention interventions at a local and national level.
The Probation Service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for each job role, but to provide an example Probation Officers will see their starting salary rise from £30,208 in 2021/22 to £35,130 by 2024/25.
The table below shows only those Probation Officers who joined the service as qualified Probation Officers and so will not include any Probation Officers who joined as trainees (who will all have been in the service for longer than a year by the time they qualify as a Probation Officer). The Probation Service unified in June 2021, bringing together the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies. As a result, figures pre- and post-June 2021 are not comparable because of the change in the workforce makeup.
Table 1 - Number of Band 4 Probation Officer joiners to HMPPS and those who left HMPPS within 1 year: 2022-2023
Year | All joiners | Staff who left within 1 year |
2022 | 42 | 3 |
2023 | 44 | 5 |
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many community payback supervisors were employed in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar
Community Payback allows the public to see justice being done by ensuring offenders are making visible reparations for their crimes. We have invested £93 million in Community Payback over a three-year period to boost the delivery of placements in local communities.
The new unified Probation Service launched in England and Wales in 2021. The Probation Service now has responsibility for unpaid work delivery, which had previously been the responsibility of Community Rehabilitation Companies, as such we do not have staffing data before 2022.
Yearly data since 31 December 2021 has been provided in table 1 below. The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, and the latest publication covers data up to 31 December 2023.
Table 1: Band 3 Community payback supervisors1,2 in post each year, as of 31 December 2021-2023
(full-time-equivalent) | |
Date | Number of Community payback Supervisors in post |
31-Dec-21 | 427 |
31-Dec-22 | 576 |
31-Dec-23 | 635 |
Notes:
1. The community payback supervisor job title was first recorded on the SOP HR reporting system in October 2021, and therefore data before this point is not available.
2. Includes Probation Service pay band 3 staff.