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Written Question
Probation Service
Tuesday 16th January 2024

Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of enabling the probation service to share caseloads between regions.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Probation Service supervises both offenders serving community sentences and offenders released from custody who are subject to licence conditions or other types of post-release supervision. The legislation underpinning both types of sentence requires a single officer to own and be responsible for the supervision of that case. The cases are allocated to a practitioner in the Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) in the area in which an offender resides, because of the importance of regular and consistent contact between the offender and their supervisor for managing risk and supporting rehabilitation.

However, other staff can support the supervisor in delivering the sentence. Within PDUs, other practitioners and administrative staff may deliver particular tasks such as referrals to other organisations, report writing or letters to the offender. The Probation Service has experience of such support being delivered beyond PDU boundaries when there are acute pressures. However, the ownership of the case remains with the relevant region.


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Families
Thursday 23rd January 2020

Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has a single individual who is responsible for leading on his Department's application of the Family Test.

Answered by Wendy Morton

Each department has a Family Test lead who is part of our Family Test Network. This Network is the central forum through which we have sought input and comments on the support departments need to help with Family Test implementation.

This includes Network members feeding into improvements to the existing guidance for officials in all departments on Family Test implementation.