Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders who went on to commit a serious further offence were classified as (a) high risk, (b) medium risk and (c) low risk in each year since 2010.

The table below sets out the total number of convictions, where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence (SFO), which resulted subsequently in a conviction for an SFO, for all cases notified to what is now HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 January 2010 and 31 March 2022, listed by their highest classification of risk of serious harm during the period of supervision for the index sentence (though not necessarily the classification at the point they were charged with the SFO).

1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.

2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.

3.The risk of serious harm relates to the highest risk of harm assessed during the period of supervision on the index sentence, not at the time of the SFO.

4.The data concerning unknown risk of harm, may relate to cases where a formal risk assessment had not been completed during the index sentence, or was not captured at the point of notification, and has not been updated within the database.

5. The data includes cases where the SFO was committed within 28 days of the end of the supervision period.

6. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.

7. The data has been updated and may differ to any original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping. Data in the annual SFO bulletin is shown in financial years not calendar years as above.

8. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Figures are published based on the date of SFO notification (charge) received by HMPPS. The lag between the date of publication and the conviction figures is to allow time for most cases to complete the criminal justice process. Figures for 2022/23 will be published in October 2024.

Serious further offences are incredibly rare, with fewer than 0.5% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service going on to commit serious further offences but each one is investigated fully so we can take action where necessary. We have also injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year into the Probation Service to deliver tougher supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer.