Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential for a Serious Further Offence as a result of staff shortages and caseloads within the Probation Service.

The Probation Service is committed to increasing recruitment to fill probation officer vacancies to maintain acceptable caseload numbers. The risk of an offender under supervision committing a serious further offence can never be entirely eliminated, but the Probation Service has systems and processes in place to mitigate that risk, including identifying those offenders who are high risk and ensuring that they are allocated to experienced probation officers.