Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect on performance of the probation reforms introduced in 2013.

Since the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) have been monitored against performance frameworks to make sure their services are protecting the public, reducing reoffending and delivering the orders of the court.

We closely monitor and robustly manage CRCs to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments. Data on both NPS and CRC performance against service levels is published quarterly, with the latest data published in July: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/community-performance-quarterly-and-annual-2016-to-2017.

We acknowledge there have been issues with how probation services are performing and we have taken action, as I set out in my statement in July. We will continue to work with both CRCs and NPS to improve delivery and ensure we provide a service that protects the public and helps rehabilitate offenders.