Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

8. What support his Department is providing to probation service workers at risk of redundancy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

Community rehabilitation companies are responsible for supporting any of their staff at risk of redundancy, in line with employment law. We encourage them to follow good industry practice and the ACAS guidelines. We are working closely with community rehabilitation companies to make sure that they fulfil their contractual commitments to maintain service delivery, reduce reoffending, protect the public, and deliver value for money to the taxpayer.

[Ian Lavery]

There is the potential for 900 probation officers to be made compulsorily redundant within just three CRCs in the very near future. These are the people who stood by the Government at the time of the transitional period into privatisation. They should not be penalised; they should be praised. Will the Minister guarantee that these professionals receive full voluntary redundancy terms and will not be booted out? They provide a very valuable service in the role provided by these private companies on the cheap.

[Andrew Selous]

I repeat what I said just now—we will make sure that the community rehabilitation companies comply with employment law as they are supposed to do. We closely monitor their performance in line with the contracts that they have signed. Last year, 195 extra probation officers became qualified, and we had 750 new probation officers in training. That is the largest intake of newly qualified probation officers for some considerable period.