Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kate Hollern and Sam Gyimah

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

8. What recent assessment she has made of the effect of the volume of probation officer caseloads on the effectiveness of the probation service.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We are currently conducting a comprehensive review of the probation system so that it reduces reoffending, cuts crime and prevents future victims. A wide range of factors impacts on the effectiveness of probation services, including not only caseloads but the nature of supervision and rehabilitative support.

[Kate Hollern]

In October, a joint report by the prisons and probations inspectorates found that

“high workloads meant that there was no time to think about cases in prison”

and that

“workload for resettlement workers meant that they spent very little time working with individual prisoners”.

Is not that evidence that the Government’s mistaken privatisation of the probation service is failing prisoners, failing to prevent reoffending and therefore failing to protect the wider community?

[Mr Gyimah]

Our ambition for the probation system review, due out at the beginning of April, is clear. We want a simple probation system with clear outcome measures, such as getting offenders into employment and housing. Outcomes, rather than inputs, are the best way to judge our probation service across the board.